Move data, not people.Years ago, I first heard telecommuting proponents say that. The question appears to be whether the COVID-19 pandemic will motivate organizations to put more of their employees in telecommuting status. A recent City Journal article explored the ramifications of moving out of the office building.
Here are some points from the article. Read the article to get all the details.
The pandemic is pushing us to remote solutions because “the expert advice—not least from the National Institute of Health’s chief immunologist, Anthony Fauci—is for people to engage in social distancing and ‘telework’ in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. As I write, more than 300 million students around the world are out of school; many are telecommuting to classes. And millions of adults are working from home.”
Telecommuting hasn’t been widely adopted yet. Some background information suggests “Remote working remains limited in value for much of what people need to do—and especially for replicating the intangible productivity of personal interactions.”
Another limitation of telecommuting is it’s “only marginally useful for many critical industries and infrastructures” like running machines, delivery, etc.
The article also reviewed the use of tech to defeat diseases and concluded “when the next one [pandemic] comes, silcon machines may finally give humanity the tools it needs to win its Sisyphean battle with viruses.”