Hybrid models of working are on the rise in the United States according to survey data covering worker habits between 2019 and 2024. In the second quarter of 2024, ** percent of U.S. workers reported working in a hybrid manner. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a record number of people working remotely to help curb the spread of the virus. Since then, many workers have found a new shape to their home and working lives, finding that a hybrid model of working is more flexible than always being required to work on-site.

Before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 17 percent of U.S. employees worked from home 5 days or more per week, a share that increased to 44 percent during the pandemic. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the remote working trend, as quarantines and lockdowns made commuting and working in an office close to impossible for millions around the world. Remote work, also called telework or working from home (WFH), provided a solution, with employees performing their roles away from the office supported by specialized technology, eliminating the commute to an office to remain connected with colleagues and clients. What enables working from home?

To enable remote work, employees rely on a remote work arrangements that enable hybrid work and make it safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology supporting remote work including laptops saw a surge in demand, video conferencing companies such as Zoom jumped in value, and employers had to consider new communication techniques and resources. Is remote work the future of work?

The response to COVID-19 has demonstrated that hybrid work models are not necessarily an impediment to productivity. For this reason, there is a general consensus that different remote work models will persist post-COVID-19. Many employers see benefits to flexible working arrangements, including positive results on employee wellness surveys, and potentially reducing office space. Many employees also plan on working from home more often, with 25 percent of respondents to a recent survey expecting remote work as a benefit of employment. As a result, it is of utmost importance to acknowledge any issues that may arise in this context to empower a hybrid workforce and ensure a smooth transition to more flexible work models.

The trend of working remotely has been slowly increasing globally since 2015, with a *** to ***** percent annual increase rate. However, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 upended the world economy and global markets. Employment trends were no exception to this, with the share of employees working remotely increasing to some ** percent in 2022 from just ** percent two years prior. The industry with the highest share of remote workers globally in 2023 was by far the technology sector, with over ** percent of tech employees worldwide working fully or mostly remotely. How are employers dealing with remote work? Many employers around the world have already adopted some remote work policies. According to IT industry leaders, reasons for remote work adoption ranged from a desire to broaden a company’s talent pool, increase productivity, and reduce costs from office equipment or real estate investments. Nonetheless, employers worldwide grappled with various concerns related to hybrid work. Among tech leaders, leading concerns included enabling effective collaboration and preserving organizational culture in hybrid work environments. Consequently, it’s unsurprising that maintaining organizational culture, fostering collaboration, and real estate investments emerged as key drivers for return-to-office mandates globally. However, these efforts were not without challenges. Notably, ** percent of employers faced employee resistance to returning to the office, prompting a review of their remote work policies.

The top reasons why people want to work remotely are saving money, the possibility to work from anywhere, and to spend more time with family. All three of these reasons where named by more than ** percent of respondents in the survey.

In 2019, 73 percent of people currently working remote said flexible working improved their personal wellbeing and the ability to balance work with outside activities, while 60 percent said it improved their professional development.

The statistic shows the company policy of IT organizations on remote work for their personnel in 2019. According to the survey, ** percent of respondents allow their staff to work remotely "only a specified amount of time", while * percent of respondents did not allow any remote work in 2019.

In 2019, ** percent of employees who worked for a firm with over 500 employees in the United States had access to remote work. On the other hand, *** percent of employees who worked for a firm with fewer than 50 workers had access to remote work.

The monthly traffic on remote working platforms peaked in March 2020, when a considerable number of people started working from home due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Over the observed period, Trello proved to be the most popular platform with *** million users in March 2020.

One third of employees in Russian companies with up to 15 staff members worked remotely as of March 2019, one year before the COVID-19 pandemic. In medium-sized enterprises with over 100 employees, this share amounted to 13 percent.

Over the observed period, monthly traffic on remote working platforms peaked in March 2020, when a considerable number of people started working from home due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Skype proved to be the most popular platform with 368 thousand users in March 2020.

Over the given period, trello.com reached the largest traffic volume at about 288 thousand users on average. Skype.com was the second most used remote working platform in Hungary.

This statistic depicts the results of a survey about companies allowing employees to work from home in Italy in 2019. According to the data, 24.7 percent of firms allowed remote work, whereas 42.7 percent allowed their employees to work from home only when given permission to do so. By contrast, 32.7 percent of companies never allowed remote work.

In 2019, remote workers in the United States attended more meetings on a weekly basis than on-site workers. ** percent of remote workers attended more than ** meetings per week, while only ***** percent of on site-workers attended more than ** meetings per week.

The largest traffic volume among the listed remote working platforms in Poland was recorded on trello.com at about 1.1 million users on average over the given period. Skype.com reported over 750 thousand of average traffic during the months under consideration.

In a survey conducted in 2019, the majority of respondents (58 percent) affirmed that Mexico was not prepared to adopt remote work practices. Although 40 percent of the people surveyed thought working from home would improve their work-life balance, only eight percent of respondents said they would feel more motivated working remotely.

According to the Statista Consumer Insights, the share of workers in the United States who indicated that they did not commute to work peaked in 2022 at nine percent. For the period between October 2022 and September 2023, this figure stood at a slightly lower eight percent.

In a 2019 survey, the majority of respondents in Mexico (88 percent) said they used their smartphones to work remotely or from home. Laptops were the second most preferred device for mobile work or home office, with 72 percent of respondents. Only 36 percent of the employees surveyed said they worked remotely using a tablet.

In order to work remotely, having access to the corporate e-mail was the most used IT solution according to respondents in Mexico in 2019. Around 61 percent of the people surveyed said they needed to access their work e-mail while working from outside the office. In addition, cloud storage and data virtualization solutions were chosen by 45 percent of respondents.

In 2019, ** percent of respondents in the United States said that remote working enables them to build their work day around other commitments, while ** percent said remote working could enable better concentration on work due to fewer distractions.

In 2024, the telework rate of financial industry workers was almost 65 percent. Comparatively, the accommodation and food services industry had the lowest rate, with 1.7 percent of employees able to work fully remotely.