The number of those affected by the spread of the coronavirus is adding up. A lot is still unknown about how the world economy will fare after the major fallout is over. One thing we do have going for us now over if this had happened in the past is the ability to work remotely. Because a number of jobs can be converted to work from home, many jobs are saved in industries that don’t have to come to a complete halt. Here’s how remote jobs are saving our economy.
Local impact. Remote opportunities meet people where they currently live. When people live, and now work, in a neighborhood, they are putting their dollars back into their own communities. Workers don’t have to move for opportunities, so we have a greater impact on improving struggling areas when we can meet employees where they are. Organizations are also able to have more control over scaling and costs, which allows them to possibly survive setbacks like the coronavirus.
Reduced carbon footprint. Eventually, the coronavirus is expected to be behind us, but one ongoing benefit of continuing to work from home is that we use less resources. We are using less fuel to get back and forth to work, as well as creating less pollution. As we utilize cloud services, we need less and less office supplies and fewer printed copies. On top of that, we eat at home more and possibly conserve the use of plastic as we carry food out for lunch.
Societal inclusion. The atmosphere of working from home allows people who are different to have an accepted role in the work place. For example, discrimination might come less into play as people work virtually. In addition, those with any kind of disabilities that affects their abilities to process quickly, or perhaps need to take more breaks, may now find an acceptable way to do their jobs.
We are fortunate as a society to have the option now to work from home in many industries. Just a few years ago, we didn’t have the technology in place to easily exchange files or answer incoming lines. The gap is closing more and more to take many jobs into someone’s home office. The coronavirus may be more survivable as a culture because we’ve continued to make those advances in recent years.