Integrating Hybrid and Remote Workplaces into the Post COVID-19 Engineering Corporate Landscape

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced engineering firms to reconsider the role of traditional, corporate work facilities for their full-time workers. During the height of the pandemic, over 40% of engineering employees worked remotely. This greatly changed their perceptions and expectation about the remote work environment. Over 40% of engineering employees are now willing to “take a salary cut in order to have more flexible work arrangements, such as full-time remote and hybrid work facilities arrangements, from their employers.” Employers also learned firsthand the limitations and benefits of a large-scale remote workforce including cost savings. This has forced engineering managers to consider how to integrate remote and hybrid corporate work facilities into the traditional workplace, post COVID-19. We examined the data on the dynamics of traditional, hybrid, and remote workplace facilities to determine the best default work facilities arrangement. While we suspected the traditional work facilities arrangement would be the least viable option, we were surprised to find the benefits of hybrid work facilities be so clearly dominant, that we consider it to be the default engineering workplace of the future. © 2022 IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2022. All rights reserved.