More and more, my conversations with friends and colleagues are transitioning to “What do you think the world will be like when we get to the other side of this?” There are so many unknowns– it’s hard to say, but fun to wonder. I personally believe one sustainable outcome of the COVID-19 crisis will be a shift to more employees working from home some or all the time.  Most of the companies that still had excuses as to why remote work couldn’t be done have just proven themselves wrong. I don’t believe their employees will go back to 100% face time without a fight.

I can’t help but wonder though, why did it take a global pandemic for many companies to be open to something that can be so good for their employees, their business, and the planet? Yes, I know not all jobs at all times can be done remotely. But many can. Heck, if doctors can see patients over an app, surely there are ways to handle more business meetings in Corporate America remotely.

Now that I’ve started my own marketing consultancy, Bamboo Branding, a great deal of my work is remote. In fact, I am the fractional CMO at a fabulous learning and development company where all employees are 100% remote. I was officially indoctrinated onto the team in October 2019 and simply BLOWN AWAY by the strength of their culture. These are people who only see each other in person a couple times a year. The vast majority of their interactions are on Zoom. What I’ve learned is it is not where you meet or how you meet, but what you do when you’re meeting that makes all the difference to culture and the relationships that are created.

So if you, like me, see the benefits of remote work, let me help you make the case to keep this going long after COVID-19 is in our rearview mirror:

HEALTHIER EMPLOYEES (and LOWER COSTS)

This one is obvious now in the face of COVID-19. Beyond the need for facetime, limited PTO policies and the always-on culture of many companies actually encourage employees to come to work sick. Call me a germaphobe, but my former colleagues can attest that I’ve ended up calling into meetings from my office when I’ve showed up to a conference room and someone is sitting there sick.

A recent survey of 642 white-collar workers conducted by Office Pulse showed that 70 percent of respondents said they come into work even when they feel sick. The most common reason employees show up while ill is to avoid falling behind (38 percent). But 30 percent of workers said they don’t want to sacrifice their paid time off to illness, and 10 percent said their bosses expect them to work through a sickness.

This problem has been coined “presenteeism” — employees working while sick thereby infecting colleagues and lowering their own productivity as well as that of their coworkers. Harvard Business Review published a study all the way back in 2004 that clearly shows presenteeism is far more costly than illness-related absenteeism. According to this article, studies show that presenteeism costs employers two to three times more than direct medical care, which is paid for by companies in the form of insurance premiums or employee claims. So for companies focused on the bottom line, a more flexible work from home policy could dramatically reduce costs.

MORE PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEES

I used to work at a company that was very traditional and heavy on office face time. I spent roughly 1.25 hours a day in my car driving to and from that office. Imagine if I had all that time back where I could be productive?  Yes, when I work from home, I may take the time to toss in a load of laundry here or there, but even still there is significantly more productive time in my day. Beyond saving time not commuting, I also don’t have ongoing distractions from colleagues, nor do I need time to go get lunch—my kitchen is only a few steps away. In 2019, Airtasker proved this point when their study of 1,000 white-collar workers half of whom are telecommuters revealed that remote workers actually “worked 1.4 more days every month, or 16.8 more days every year” than people who worked in an office.

I recently connected with a fellow entrepreneur with her own coaching business. She told me she converted from in-person sessions to 100% video conference sessions and her business flourished. Not only did she have more time to meet with clients instead of wasting time driving all over town, but she also immediately expanded her client base nationally. She was no longer restricted to clients she could meet with in her local area. She now had access to potential clients all over the country.

How much more work could you be getting done if you weren’t wasting time commuting or traveling? How many more customers could you meet with if you never had to leave your desk? Now multiply that by the number of employees in your company. The impact to your business could be dramatic.

HAPPIER EMPLOYEES

I’ll let you in on a secret: employees are people. People who wear many different hats in their lives. I myself am a business owner and fractional CMO, yes. But I am also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend, and oh yeah, I can’t forget to take care of myself either. We can’t compartmentalize the roles we play. We are all these things all at once. It’s not about work/life balance, but work/life flow. When one area of my life is flourishing, that energy extends to the other areas of my life and vice versa. Have you ever been frustrated about something at work and then snapped at your spouse or child undeservedly? That’s what I mean….

A frequent conversation I’ve had with my peer group is our desire to own our own time. Owning our own time is the key to managing the flow of all the different roles we play. We’ve been in the game a couple decades now and are at fairly senior levels in our careers, yet we also have more and more responsibilities taking care of our children AND our aging parents. We WANT to work. We LOVE what we do. But that work doesn’t always fit nicely into an 8a-5p timeframe. Sometimes I need to have a parent teacher conference or meet with my mother’s doctor in the middle of the day. Working from home adds flexibility to our days that we wouldn’t have otherwise. And in the end, this makes us much happier people.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Will face time requirements become a thing of the past? Will our 45-minute commutes be a story we tell our grandchildren similar to the 2 miles uphill in the snow our grandparents had to walk? Or is this just wishful thinking?