Following the news that Facebook expects 50% of its workforce will work remotely within the next five to ten years;

David Bicknell, Principal Analyst in the Thematic Research Team at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“COVID-19 has forced many tech companies to turn their working strategy upside down and embrace remote working at scale. The pandemic has mandated strategic changes at an extremely rapid rate and could change the way the industry works for good.

“Facebook once paid its employees a bonus of up to $15,000 to move within a ten-mile radius of its Menlo Park campus in Silicon Valley. Now it is prepared to permanently embrace remote working, diversify away from its home and look for talent in cities outside California. This shift will hasten the end of on-site presenteeism in Silicon Valley as a badge for advancement. There will also be no excuse for tech companies if their collaboration products are not up to scratch because they should have been rigorously tested by their own remote workforce.

“India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has ditched a legacy operating model, in which staff have typically serviced clients from large campuses, and adopted a plan under which only 25% of the company will work from the office by 2025. Other tech companies are also examining their working practices, with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google all extending remote working for the majority of employees until either later this year or into 2021.”