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[Luffytubby]

We have a situation in the western world where people are flocking to the biggest cities. People are flocking to these cities because that is where the "good" jobs are. This never ending influx of people creates a unsustainable environment where cities are beyond capacity and real estate prices and rents costs a fortune. Peoples quality of life is worsened and as the rich buy up real estate driving up prices further and further, there is no end to the uphike.

50 years ago, a normal blue collar worker was much more able to buy his or her own house and even take care of their families. That sort of self sovereignty is more and more unlikely for lots of people today in the big cities.
People go to the big cities in pursuit of jobs and their careers.
Meanwhile, the rural parts of western Europe and the united states (as well as many places in Asia) are being neglected by both business and government. The lack of investment creates a loophole where people don't want to live there.

It seems to me that if we had the technology to allow businesses to be as effective when employees are working remotely as in a local office, workers wouldn't have to embrace the higher living costs of the big cities. You could work for a company in New York and live in Alaska with a much higher quality of life than you could in the city. Businesses could save money and capital on not having to run offices and take care of employee on-site related activities and needs.

In my mind, if we can solve this- If there was a killer piece of technology that could make it as productive from having workers work from home (at a local home office) I believe that it could take off a lot of the increased stress and inequality in being slaves to outrages rent rates in big metropolitan areas.
It would help vigorate rural areas, and would spread out the populous more. With more people spread out, it also creates more healthy competition and distribution of productivity. It creates more job, and spending in those areas, and can reduce prices in the big cities. Its a win-win for everyone.

I don't see any other alternative. You can not build enough new affordable housing, subways or roads to reduce congestion, price hikes and desperation. Poorer people are being pushed out everywhere. More people are moving to the cities than they can build infrastructure, and combined with our populations being doubled by 2050, we also live longer as well as tend to live by ourselves. For these reasons and numerous others, there is just a massive shortage of affordable housing in areas close to the job markets that people want to have a better shot at a good life.


The big question is; How could remote working be something that a lot of companies would embrace? What sort of software or hardware would allow workers to have the same communication and productivity as like being on the job physically? I've been involved in some startups that used apps like Slack, and I was frustrated by the remote experience. Despite Slack being a cool little team-app it just doesn't have what it takes to be as good as sitting next to coworkers. Whoever can develop the solution that will make remote working the default method of working in the 21th century, will probably change the world.

 

[Gander]

I think it will be like that for a couple reasons. People are not needed in stores and the fear of mass shootings.

 

[King of Foxes]

As someone who can work from home and with a pregnant wife with a kid at home, i do at least once a week, i think no its not the future.

In terms of being able to get up and go physically visit another team/department you need answers for?...Nah, i have so many skype business chats that end with "can i come see you"

You just get so much more done in the office than at home, i really think your mindset changes at work, i honestly feel more "sharp witted" at work than home when trying to solve issues, never mind im a manager and need to have one on ones once a month

 

[MilkyJoe]

I'd say 50% of my company could work from the home. If all the companies in my city at least did that, the trains would be bearable, you'd need to run fewer, buses, cars, taxis too. The air would be cleaner, productivity would increase, people would have more money, it'd be great.

But most bosses would never allow it because they are arseholes. Fella I work with does shift, when he's on early shift he works from home. That's in his contract. He worked from home on a non shift day because of some family problem and the boss hit the roof. Defies logic.

 

[Artemis_Entreri]

It depends on the field , but your promise is very interesting and must say that this is a consequence of automatization.

 

[Gander]

The bottom line will be the determining factor if there is significant revenue growth it's going to happen. Companies that use trucks are already chomping at the bit to have driverless trucks, like in Logan.

 

[Luffytubby]

As someone who can work from home and with a pregnant wife with a kid at home, i do at least once a week, i think no its not the future.

In terms of being able to get up and go physically visit another team/department you need answers for?...Nah, i have so many skype business chats that end with "can i come see you"

You just get so much more done in the office than at home, i really think your mindset changes at work, i honestly feel more "sharp witted" at work than home when trying to solve issues, never mind im a manager and need to have one on ones once a month

I worked in a startup where we used Slack, and I had a similar experience to you. What if we just had much better tools, couldn't we then just basically break down those barriers? To me it seems that the tools we have are inadequate, but they are not impossible. Even though it currently is a pipe dream!

Nobody would have believed in a business like AirBnB or Uber before they came around. Someone has to find a solution. At least I hope so! Because so much is at stake.

 

[shira]

It's pretty scary, but something like getting the best teachers to remote teach instead of hiring millions of teachers might be the best way to do things.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Many workers in IT are chronically underpaid considering what they do and their companies aren't usually well-managed, either.

So, as a compromise, I see a lot of IT companies offering work-from-home, remote days, etc instead of paying these employees more.

It also gets the workforce accustomed to working with overseas employees. The "local" workers hardly notice as the company outsources more and more positions.

 

[Pagusas]

Ive been slowly migrating to remote work more and more in my job. Its allowed my wife and I to move way away from the city and enjoy the outskirts away from all the things we dont like. its peaceful out here.

 

[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

It's pretty scary, but something like getting the best teachers to remote teach instead of hiring millions of teachers might be the best way to do things.

My biggest (and pretty much sole) qualm with this proposal is the potential slackers digging into revenue from doing the bare minimum, or not putting in as much effort as they would in-office. I can envision certain work sectors suffering terribly from low productivity and lack of motivators from, say, having your boss a few offices away.

 

[thief183]

I'm not sure I'd like to work from home, sure there are a lot of good points about it, but you never leave you "workplace" and in long terms this might become devastating.

On the other hand, if we setup small offices to work for other companies all around the world it might be different.. at the moment I love my job cause every day I meet a lot of different ppl (trust me if you work on the outskirts you met a lot of strange ppl, nazies, communist, SJW, antiSJW) and it is awesome )

 

[Papa]

Our Lord and Saviour Elon Musk will save us with his hyperloop.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Unless the job is something that doesn't require face to face chat, people will always come to the office.

There's a huge difference between quality of discussion between people on conference call speakers vs. everyone getting into a room.

My job also requires talking to people all over the office, including my peers near me who bounce ideas off each other all the time. Trying to effectively do this hoping every person you need to talk to is online on Skype would be painful and impossible.

Another issue with remote is the more people who are remote, the higher chance of someone getting fucked up connections, or that person who can never figure out how to log into an online meeting.

 

[EverydayBeast]

America was designed and engineered with elbow room involved, not having elbow room isn’t a good thing.

 

[DiscoJer]

The cost of housing is really only a problem in a few places (San Francisco, NYC, Seattle) . In most areas, people just move slightly further away (ie, the suburbs, pushing them farther and farther).

The problem is that most people (at least blue collar workers) aren't getting richer, their wages are stagnant, essentially, and have been since the 1970s. Those that are getting richer are getting much richer.

 

[betrayal]

I can work wherever i want and every now and then i work at home, but i do not like it. First of all i like talking and interacting with people and secondly there a many jobs that require direct social interaction and i'm not talking about contact to customers or stuff like that. I'm the head of a team and talking to each other just by VoIP or whatever would not be an effective communication style. In my opinion direct social interaction, at least a few days per month or even per week, is a must, whenever people work together.

In my company (IT tech, lots of subsidiary companies, thousands of employees) i guess about 90% would not work in a full-time home office. We even had employees who had a pretty long way to work (up to 2 hour drive to work, 2 hour back home) and after some time they resigned because of that, even if they were offered to fully work at home and some other benefits.

I think for many jobs some kind of hybrid-solution would be the best. That means some days you work at the office and some days at home. This gives people a lot of flexibility, cuts travel time in about an half and it also gives people some sense of self-determination regarding their now so-called "work-life-balance" (i hate that term).

 

[The Elite]

I have been having a hard enough time trying to get a day here and there to work from home. A lot of stubborn older people in the workforce still need to get on board with it but I think it's something that needs to happen.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

I’ve been working remotely for my recent job and I love it. 100% of my work is digital, or involves attending meetings, or writing documents. All of that can be done remotely, there is no reason to physically sit in an office. In fact sometimes I will go to the office and end up sitting at a desk attending a meeting through my computer anyways.

Remote work is the future

 

[One Eyed Willy]

Most jobs aren't fit for remote work, and most people are not fit for remote work. I say this as someone who has worked remote for almost 10 years. My current job, I have no office and I work out of my home office when I"m not on the road meeting with customers. Over the past 10 years I've seen people absolutely fail at remote work, for various reasons. Least of which is goofing off, its typically that people just get disconnected from humans despite great technology to keep connected. What you'll see is people saying how much they LOVE it, ... time is the test. It takes a certain type of person to wake and be motivated to work hard from home and stay consistent. Additionally, lots of people do in fact screw around and don't do their job, which ruins it for everyone. That leads to my final point in that, honestly only certain types of roles make sense to be remote. Also, I've seen it successfully only on a professional level, meaning people who are vested in their careers and value hard work and their reputation. In short, people who have something genuine to lose by failing at home. Trying to allow regular office worker-types to work from home would be a mess en-large. While it would work for many, it simply would not pan out over time and cause more headache for management.

The #1 reason you'll ever see remote work more widely adopted will be money. If a company can save $$$ on office space and allow workers to be remote, they'll at least try it. Also its worth pointing out that in my industry (IT) and in my location (southern California) I have see a complete regression on remote work trends. My old company just recently pulled the entire program and where 5 years ago remote work was a perk that was dangled during interviews, I can't name a single person who has told me its even mentioned heading into 2019. I know its still a thing, because.. well I do it. But contrary to popular belief, I think that companies who were going to dabble in remote work already did in the last 10 years and the trend is stagnant for the time being.