Remote working has been so successful for many businesses during the past year that many say they won't go back to a traditional way of working, new research has claimed.
A report from Zoom found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of organisations say their company is considering a flexible remote working model following the success of remote collaboration over the pandemic-enforced lockdowns.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given Zoom's expertise, the study found that video conferencing was largely to thank for this positivity towards remote working, with industries across the world seeing the benefits.
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Staying remote
Zoom's study, which quizzed 5,820 business leaders around the globe, found positive views towards flexible working technology across the board.
Nearly half (46%) of organisations said they expected over a third of employees to work remotely after the pandemic, with 70% of managers saying they would be more open to flexible remote working models than they were before the pandemic.
SMBs saw a significant rise in remote working, with around a 26x increase in the share of employees working remotely during the pandemic, with the education sector seeing the greatest increase in remote work (3.3x) and use of video conferencing solutions (3.5x) during the pandemic.
Over half (57%) of organisations expect approximately half of employees to use video conferencing after the pandemic, with the total overall time spent on video conferencing solutions increased 3-5x at businesses surveyed, and over 87% saying that such tools will continue to be "essential" to their business operations going forward.
Overall, Zoom claims that remote working has helped save millions of jobs across the world, as well as billions of dollars, with the report estimating that embracing these technologies helped save around 2.28 million jobs and $832bn in the US as well as 550,000 and $171bn in the UK.
"COVID-19’s impact has been profound. The world is different and the workforce is everywhere. The report’s findings tell us that people will continue to work together to overcome any obstacles ahead and technology will only continue to play a pivotal role in defining what’s next," wrote Zoom CTO Brendan Ittelson in a blog post announcing the findings.
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