According to a recent McKinsey survey, 54% of executives believe the shift to remote working is here to stay while only 23% expect the change won’t stick.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) research found CEOs expect 65% of the  workforce to follow a hybrid remote model after COVID-19 — and 18% are expected to be fully remote.

Why are things not reverting back to norms pre-March? One of the reasons is that remote working brings meaningful economic benefits to employees.

In North America, Global Workplace Analytics estimated a typical employee can save $2.5-4K/year by working at home half the time. 

(1) Those savings are primarily due to reduced costs for travel, parking, and food. They are net of additional energy costs and home food costs. 

(2) A half-time telecommuter saves the equivalent of 11 workdays per year in time they would have otherwise spent commuting.

(3) Extreme commuters save more than three times that amount. These estimates assume a 75% reduction in driving on telework days.

In Europe, BCG estimated hybrid remote working could save employees €1.5-4K/year (add extra rent savings of €5-10K/year in full remote working).

Employees also value other benefits of remote working — wearing casual clothes (69%), personalized workspace (49%), and more time with family, friends and hobbies (47%).

Remote working is not without challenges. BCG highlights four of them:

Each team’s context is unique, and our research shows purposefully-designed virtual experiences help distributed teams successfully avoid deterioration of work culture, reduction of team spirit and productivity, and slowdown of innovation.