GoodHire, a leading provider of employment and background screening services, released its inaugural report, “The State of Remote Work in 2021: A Survey of the American Workforce.” The report is based on an online survey of 3,500 Americans, ages 21-59 years, who shared their opinions about jobs, money and life in the era of remote work and COVID-19.
New or not, remote work is wildly popular in 2021. 68% of respondents said they preferred working from home to in-office work. So much so that 45% of Americans would either quit their job or immediately start a remote work job search if they were forced to return to their office full-time. Almost one-quarter of the respondents said, specifically, they would quit if a return-to-office mandate was instituted.
Some of the respondents even said they would be willing to take a pay cut of up to 50% to continue working from home. And, 70% of American workers would forfeit benefits to maintain remote working status, most commonly: health insurance, paid time off, retirement accounts, and more.
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“Many Americans have acclimatized to working from home and do not want to see a return to ‘normal,’” GoodHire’s Chief Operating Officer Max Wesman said. “Permanent remote working is the ‘new normal’ for many professionals and a large proportion of companies have come to accept this fact as their new status quo,” he said. “Our survey clearly shows that those employers resistant to this change will risk losing employees and applicants to more adaptable companies.”
According to Wesman, the floodgates have opened and there’s no turning back.
“The office is no longer the primary location of choice for employee collaboration and productivity,” he continued. “In fact, our survey showed that people are bypassing job ads altogether that don’t mention a remote work option.”
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The survey found that 85% of Americans prefer to apply for jobs that offer remote flexibility, while just 15% would apply for a position that requires total full-time office work. Further, 74% of respondents would need some sort of remote working arrangement to stay at their current job.
Wesman cautioned the prevalence of remote work brings along with it a new set of legal and practical challenges for employers and recommended companies update their hiring policies. “Since a new employee might be working remotely from a different state, a company wishing to conduct a background check will have to familiarize itself with applicable screening laws for the different states, counties, and cities they’re hiring in,” he said.
As employers navigate the new world of remote work, they can turn to a trusted background check partner that makes it easy to screen candidates remotely with a 100% paperless workflow. GoodHire’s background check platform features a mobile-optimized candidate experience with e-consent, as well as localized built-in compliance tools that help employers maintain compliance with various local screening laws and regulations.
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