Shift to remote working likely to become more permanent – study

Companies are facing the prospect of an increasingly flexible workforce in the future as the shift to remote working is likely to become more permanent, a study from Microsoft has found. The Future of Work report, which questioned business leaders and employees across the spectrum of Irish businesses, discovered companies believe 45 per cent of employees will continue to work remotely, while employees expect to spend up to a third of their time outside the office. “Almost every business leader cited the importance of changing their organisation’s way of working to become innovative and flexible,” said Aisling Curtis, commercial director with Microsoft Ireland. “That’s the theme that goes through the whole way. If you think about it, we are in a 200-year model of a nine-to-five, commuting either side of it, that now has been turned upside down with the onset of Covid.”