リモートワークの広がり

Triggered by the spread of a new virus around the world, "remote work" (working from home) spread rapidly. A way of working that until then had been done at only some companies became, within just a few months, an ordinary thing for many people. It can be said that people's attitudes toward how they work have changed greatly over these past few years.

Remote work has various advantages. First, you are freed from the daily commute. There is no longer any need to be jostled in a packed train for long hours, and that time can be spent with family or used for one's own studies. Also, because people have become free to choose where they live, more are moving away from the cities to regions rich in nature.

For companies too, the advantages are large. By reducing the size of their offices, they can hold down costs such as rent. Moreover, many companies say it has become easier to newly hire talented people from far away, for whom commuting was difficult until now, or those caring for children or elderly relatives.

On the other hand, the challenges are not few. Because the distinction between home and workplace has disappeared, some people end up working long hours instead. With fewer chances to meet colleagues face to face, one also hears voices saying that people feel lonely, or that it has become harder to ask small questions.

There is also the problem that it is hard to train employees who have newly joined the company. Some experts point out that, with few chances to watch and learn from senior colleagues up close, a sense of belonging to the company is slow to develop.

Even so, it is hard to imagine people easily giving up a convenience they have once experienced. In the society to come, rather than returning everything to how it was, what will be required is to skillfully combine working in the office and working at home according to the situation.

What matters is not the place of work itself, but how to create an environment in which each person can work with energy. We must not only put in place a system that lets people choose to work from home, but also think, together with that, about mechanisms for employees to interact casually and about ways to evaluate results fairly.