CHARLOTTE — Enough with the perpetual ambivalence about the future of work: give the people what they want. According to Forbes, 98% of workers want to work remotely at least some of the time.
Companies that have gone all-in — choosing to extend full flexibility to an increasingly dispersed workforce and make no rules about commuting to the office — say the approach offers more benefits than challenges.
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“Last year was one of the best years from a revenue and growth perspective that we’ve ever had,” says Brooks Luquire, CEO of Luquire, a second-generation advertising and public relations firm in Charlotte that has gone to a remote-first model. “We made a business decision because we saw we were more efficient and more productive. We made the decision for the good of the business.”
According to Forbes, about 16% of companies are fully remote without a physical office. Almost 13% of workers are remote, while another 28% have a hybrid arrangement. That leaves nearly 60% of workers in the office full time — though few would claim that offices are two-thirds full.
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Some industries — like Luquire’s creative agency — are more suited to the home-office grind. The top industries for remote workers are IT, marketing, accounting and finance, project management, medical and health, HR and recruiting, and customer service.
Charlotte tech firm Hylaine allowed employees to work from home before the pandemic. But since 2020, the number of in-office employees has dwindled.
“The pandemic didn’t change anything other than how people actually use that policy,” says Adam Boitnott, CEO of Hylaine. “In 2019, there might have been 30 people in the Charlotte office each day; now there are about 10.”
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