COVID-19 has changed the way we work – for some maybe even for good. Facebook was among the first big tech companies that canceled all physical meetings, not only for this year, but until 2021. Now, Mark Zuckerberg is contemplating that Facebook might become a largely remote working company within a decade or so.
Their plans involve ideas like salary by location, where employees get different salaries for the same jobs according the place they live (because different cost of living). Also, they will start remote hiring processes to find talent not only in the Bay area, but also in talent hubs in Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver.
It’s certainly an interesting perspective and there are many challenges that needs to be addressed. In the 1990s and early 2000s remote work didn’t take off. Even when technology became available that made it much easier to work remotely and companies began experimenting with it. All in all it didn’t work for businesses and in the 2010s people moved back to the offices.
What has changed since then is that we’ve got many people working remotely as gig workes. Young adults that enter the workforce grew up with and on social media platforms. This can be the catalyst for making remote work more wide spread than in the past.
Finally, offices are a also cost factor in the equation. Why build all those fancy expensive offices when people can feel just like at home when they can actually work at home? Of course, there is the issue of creating a sense of being a part of a company: a physical location when you can go to. Maybe the future office will be something that is like going to church: you don’t to have to go to church every day, to be a believer. After all, companies like Apple have their believers and these people do not go the Apple campus every day, some even never.
Read more: Mark Zuckerberg on taking his massive workforce remote – The Verge
