Hard to Know Long-Term Impact of Remote Processes

Nobody knows yet the mix of positive and negative long-term impact of remote working and learning outcomes. In the short term the impact is likely deemed to be far better than expected. Many employees and employers report their belief that productivity, for example, is as good as was expected in the pre-Covid-19 setting.

The unknown issue is long-term effect on employee skill development, enculturation of new employees, innovation, applied creativity and team building. In the near term, all firms are running off of accumulated social capital: already-formed relationships, business culture understanding (“how we do things”) and social and professional networks. That is as true in the connectivity and data center business as in any other industry.

Every entity can, in the short term, sacrifice the intangibles provided by face-to-face interactions, both internally and in terms of relationships with customers and prospects. What remains untested is the long-term impact, as social capital decays. 

Consider opinions on remote learning. A recent survey by McKinsey found that, on average, teachers in all eight countries ranked online instruction at a score of five out of ten. In Japan and the United States, nearly 60 percent of respondents rated the effectiveness of remote learning at between one and three out of ten. 

source: McKinsey 

As always, “averages” can obscure big differences. In Japan, only two percent of teachers felt that online classes were comparable to learning in person; most felt it was much worse. So did most U.S. teachers. 

Just five percent of U.S. teachers agreed that online and remote instruction was as good as in-person teaching.

source: McKinsey 

Conversely, 32 percent of Australian and German teachers deemed remote learning to be as effective as in-person learning. Some 33 percent of Canadian teachers and 30 percent of Chinese teachers thought online instruction was as good as in-person teaching. 

The larger point is that the long-term impact of virtual or remote processes--ranging from education to sales--cannot yet be assessed. Results may well vary by industry, job roles and functions, worker age and experience, cultures and nations. 

Equally challenging will be an assessment of widespread hybrid or flexible work patterns. Knowledge worker or office worker productivity is notoriously hard to measure and the range of hybrid work scenarios might be quite disparate.