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December 15, 2024
Key Takeaways
Remote and hybrid work are now expected norms. Employers who embrace remote-first practices, balance flexibility with trust, and adapt their hiring to be location-agnostic will gain advantage in 2025 and beyond.
More and more jobs can be done from anywhere. We learned this during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many workers were forced to stay at home. Not only were workers much more productive during this time, they were also much happier.
Remote working gives workers the opportunity to skip the commute, often saving hours every day. It also enables them to be more present in their home life. They don’t have to request time off to receive important deliveries, and they aren’t late to work due to issues with the school drop off.
The end of the pandemic and the return to work divided workers and employers. Some employers loved the cost-saving opportunities that come from not operating a full office full of workers. These employers love when their employees are at home, drinking their own tea and coffee and paying their own electricity bills. Others dislike the lack of control and oversight that comes with letting workers do their job remotely.
Staff were equally divided. While some love the freedom and flexibility that comes with working from home, others like the separation of work and life. It’s also common for some people to enjoy the social and collaborative side of working in an office.
There are clearly arguments for and against working remotely for both employers and employees, but what does the future hold?
A recent Forbes survey of 1000 workers found that 63% work remotely or in some kind of hybrid arrangement. Hybrid working offers a compromise that seems to satisfy both employers and employees. It offers some in-office time to coordinate important meetings and face-to-face collaboration, but the bulk of work can be completed from home, or wherever workers feel the most productive.
Hybrid working also saves employers from the difficult conversations that arise when workers ask if they can complete their job from another country or another time zone. Employers are often wary of their employees taking working holidays as they are concerned about the impact on productivity.
Employers are often finding that offering remote working is no longer optional. Workers are often happy to look for opportunities elsewhere if they are not offered the working arrangement that works best for them. With so many remote opportunities available, it’s an employer’s market.
Looking into 2025 and beyond, we can see that remote work is very much here to stay. Employers have an opportunity to capitalise on this trend and transform their hiring by approaching this with a remote-first mentality.
Going remote-first means that you are no longer geographically restricted in your hiring efforts. You can expand your search nationally and even internationally. This gives you a much larger candidate pool to choose from and could help to close skills gaps within your company.
| Trend | Implication for Employers |
|---|---|
| Remote-first mindset | Expands hiring reach and allows recruiting beyond local markets. |
| Hybrid work expectation | Offers balance, but requires clarity on when office presence is needed. |
| Team cohesion & innovation | Must invest in communication and environments that build trust and collaboration remotely. |
| Role suitability | Some roles aren’t remote-friendly; those will need compensating perks or hybrid models. |
| Negotiation & flexibility | Candidates are more likely to decline roles without remote or hybrid flexibility or associated benefits. |
Remote hiring is not without its difficulties. Obviously, there are some roles that cannot be done remotely. However, candidates will often know if this is the case, so they are less likely to be looking for a remote role.
Another challenge facing employers is the lack of cohesion in teams when hiring is done remotely. Without ever getting to meet and work together in the same location, it can be difficult for teams to develop trust and reliance on one another. This can cause friction between workers that slows down progress.
There is also a lot to be said for the collaborative nature of working together in an office. This is often where innovation happens and new ideas come about. Without simple everyday interactions, new ideas might never come to life.
Productivity is also a fear for employers. When working from home, their employees are surrounded by distractions. There is often the fear that employees might be catching up on housework, exercising, preparing dinner or just relaxing in front of the TV. However, this fear can often be overcome if employers simply trust their workers.
If you don’t trust your workers to get their job done in the time allocated, then there might be bigger issues at play. Provided workers have clear guidelines and expectations, there is no reason to believe they will not do their work in the allocated time. And if they happen to finish early and throw a load of washing into the machine, this shouldn’t be cause for concern as long as their job is done.
Remote-First Hiring Expands Talent Pool
By recruiting without geographic limits, employers can access wider and more diverse candidate bases, helping close skills gaps.
Flexibility Becomes Non-Negotiate
Flexibility in work location, hours, and benefits are no longer perks—they are essentials candidates expect.
Trends in how people work best come and go. Every year, a new generation of workers enters the workforce and they bring their own demands and expectations. We could see a shift back towards in-office work when children who were homeschooled during the pandemic enter the workforce. These may crave connection and collaboration more than those who have been in a traditional workforce for longer.
Automation and AI could also transform the workforce, with workers keen to prove their worth and value. This could mean an increase in desire to work from the office to highlight their role in the company and be more visible.
While AI might be able to speed up some processes, it cannot replace human innovation and collaboration. With this in mind, we could see workers keen to get back into the office to ensure their roles remain relevant.
At present, remote working and hybrid working looks set to stick around. Not only does hybrid working allow employees a level of flexibility in how they do their job, it also implies a level of trust in workers that may help to facilitate better relationships between employers and employees.
For the foreseeable future, employers should expect to have to offer remote working unless they can make a strong business case against it. Naturally, there are some roles that cannot be done remotely, but in this case workers could expect allowances and additional perks to make up for this disparity between those in other fields. Employes should expect candidates to be ready to negotiate on everything from salary to their normal place of work.
Want to stay ahead in remote-friendly hiring? Submit your vacancy to partner with a recruitment team that gets flexibility.
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