Will remote work continue, or is it becoming a thing of the past?

Hung Lee, Editor at Recruiting Brainfood, joins TheStreet to discuss the future of remote work.

Transcript

00:00So let's talk some trends in the industry right now. From your perspective,

00:05what's your view on remote work? Is it here to stay?

00:11Remote work, we were very confident that it was going to be the game-changing

00:15thing. And it turns out that probably it was, we're less confident about the status of remote

00:23work simply because the economic conditions have changed such that employers have more power than

00:30they did 18 months, two years or so ago. Remote work, by the way, is generally a preference that

00:38the workers are more in favor for, whereas the employers and the bosses are less in favor of

00:45remote. So you can't sort of separate out the political dimension on this. And that tension

00:53between what is optimal for an employee and what is optimal for an employer is getting played out.

01:00I think there'll be certain types of work which are going to be remote, but I think there'll

01:04also be a big pressure for people to return to work, return to office, should I say.

01:10What I can tell you is that the new jobs that are being created and the new jobs that are

01:15being advertised, there's been a massive drop of remote jobs that are advertised.

01:20That tells me that the people who are currently working remote and individuals that have held on

01:25to their jobs over the last two or so years, but the new jobs that are being advertised today,

01:31they're telling people back to the office. And what about the hybrid trend? Is it just straight

01:38five-day work week back in the office or is hybrid more of a friendlier model than

01:47full-out remote work? Yeah, I think this comes down ultimately to the nature of the company,

01:54maybe even the culture of the organization. I think hybrid is a very acceptable compromise

02:01between the employer and the employee. I think most people would understand there's a need to

02:07sometimes get in the office and speak and work closely with your colleagues. And other times

02:15we recognize that it's great to be able to work more flexibly, particularly people that have

02:22primary caregiving responsibilities, for instance, or they've got other sort of issues that are very

02:27important for them to deal with. It's impossible to deal with if you're spending time commuting

02:33every day to the office. I think hybrid is the compromise that we'll shoot for. Most companies,

02:39I hope, will take a mature view on this, but there will be some organizations that will clearly say,

02:45you've got to be in the office all the time or bust. And I guess that's where

02:51individuals will have to make decisions as to what kind of company they prefer to work for.