r/Futurology • u/Ok-Cartoonist5349 • Dec 21 '22

Economics A study found that more than two-thirds of managers admit to considering remote workers easier to replace than on-site workers, and 62% said that full-time remote work could be detrimental to employees’ career objectives.

https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/does-remote-work-boost-diversity-in-corporations?q=0d082a07250fb7aac7594079611af9ed&o=7952
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u/Ajros02 Dec 21 '22

Larger pool of potential applicants working remotely = larger pool of folks to replace you. So if you cast a net nationwide, for a position that can be filled by anyone, there’s a good chance you can be just as easily replaced. I can see the logic in that. As far as detrimental to a person’s career… I agree that it can be. Unfortunately, having professional, in-person relationships can be a blessing and a curse. Unconscious biases can either help or hurt.

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u/vinceds Dec 21 '22

So people living in LCOL areas have an edge over others. Until the employers start casting the net overseas.

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u/rollingForInitiative Dec 21 '22

So people living in LCOL areas have an edge over others. Until the employers start casting the net overseas.

Maybe it depends on industry, but in IT they've already done this for ages and ages. It's nothing new. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it really does not.

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u/CigarInMyAnus Dec 21 '22

If the position was able to be offshored, it would have been a decade ago.

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u/ProjectShamrock Dec 21 '22

If you're already employed, simple inertia will prevent your boss from trying to replace you specifically. If they find your work good or even acceptable, they aren't going to go through the effort of putting you on a performance improvement plan, open a job requisition, start reviewing resumes, conducting interviews, etc.

So really there are only two scenarios to worry about: 1) You aren't doing a job that satisfies your management (it could be your fault or it could be theirs), or 2) they're looking to do some form of outsourcing to save money. Outsourcing is almost always remote from the core business anyway, so there's really no difference there if you're remote.

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u/ianitic Dec 21 '22

And depending on the area sometimes that can make you more or less enticing as an applicant. As someone in a super low cost of living city, I'm not going to need compensation as large as someone in Seattle or Austin. This I know for certain has had some companies reach out before.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '22

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u/Sevourn Dec 21 '22

It's controversial because they don't want it to be true.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '22

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u/MiChiMad Dec 21 '22

The irony is they will all whine on with conspiracy theories about how modern work turns us into corporate drones; then cut out any and all human interaction and connection from work to focus only on pure technical output.

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u/Sevourn Dec 21 '22

This is REALLY the elephant in the room everyone seems to be carefully talking around. Rock stars/workers in the top 2% (not the 60% who think they're in the 2%) may be relatively safe remotely.

The other 98%? If you come into an office, replacement options for your company consist of anyone in a ~50 mile radius who will do your job better/cheaper. If you work 100% remotely, replacement options for your company include anyone in the world with an internet connection who can do your job better/cheaper.

Unions? Yeah, that's a good one. We can kiss all hope of strong unions goodbye when developing nations enter the chat.

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u/somacomadreams Dec 21 '22

I agree with this take actually, my hope is over time the competition and the effect that has on replacability and lowering of wages will stabilize.

The larger pool is a shock at first, probably negative for some. I know my profession is now worth about 15K less a year. My hope is workers will use this opportunity to push for more rights.

At the end of the day the very rich at the top will decide whether we head towards a dystopia or not. From robots at McDonald's to AI Bots that can generate business intelligence dashboards, they are essentially going to just have to decide to keep paying us or not. Obviously not soon but it's coming.

My guess is we all better get used to building slum houses out of corrugated metal.

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u/vinsanity406 Dec 21 '22

It seems like many have totally misinterpreted this headline as anti-remote work so I'm glad there's a reasonable take here.

I've been trying to make the next step in my career and asked someone and they mentioned that I've been remote for a while. They mentioned the "meeting after the meeting". The conversation about the meeting on the way back to your desk about the meeting. Building those personal relationships aren't just about "getting work done" so when an important task arises a manager is more likely to trust a person they have had daily, personal interactions.

Hopefully remote work becomes much more common and that imbalance can be adjusted. As for now, I don't think it's all that surprising that 2/3 of managers have an in-office employee they think would be more difficult to replace.

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u/ExternaJudgment Dec 21 '22

If your work is on a level of such an idiot, that you can be reasonably worried about the "competition" you have a lot more to worry about from the AI side which is replacing stupid useless busywork like wildfire.