Remote Working, Video Interviews, and Building Better Jobs

“Allowing employees to work remotely is a core business strategy today... We need to de-parent, de-gender, and de-age the perception of the flexible worker.” - Cali Williams Yost

In this week’s post, we examine what a future of remote workers means for big cities, discover a new way to interview candidates gaining traction, and consider the idea of building a future of good jobs to replace the ones that won't come back.

Location, location, location... doesn't matter anymore.

Jury's out on how premature of a trend this may be, but those who can (ie. have the means) seem to be leaving expensive cities. A new report showed that 5% of New York City's population, which is about 420,000 people, left the city over the span of the last 2 months. Most of those leaving are in the upper tier of earners, in the 1% to 5% range.

While many of these people fleeing the city are likely taking temporary measures for safety and health reasons, many analysts think that it could be a permanent move for anyone who can work remotely. And as more jobs become remote access due to the ongoing pandemic, the less reason there is to take up residence in expensive metro cities like New York. In fact, a recent survey by Blind showed that "69% of New Yorkers in the tech and finance field would consider relocating if they knew they could work from home permanently."

The Takeaway: Hiring managers, take note. We may be at the dawn of a new workforce that not only doesn't want to be in the same office, but maybe not even the same city anymore. Remote working may become the new standard, turning places like New York into "working class" cities all over again. Are you ready?

Job interviews on demand, or how you'll learn to stop worrying and love the self-tape.

Remember video dating? Job interviews might look similar to that in the coming months. A recent article in Forbes highlighted the new promise of "job interviews on demand." In essence, candidates will record video of themselves answering pre-determined (and potentially pre-recorded) questions from the employer, submitting them at any time, to be reviewed at any time. It's 24/7 hiring made real.

For businesses who have been forced to embrace video interviews, they are already coming to know the efficiencies involved. This strange idea of not-real-time interviews seems just the next logical step, especially when trying to hire rapidly. Recorded interviews mean no scheduling, no commuting, and can be effective ways to screen at least the first round of applicants. And keep in mind, Hollywood has been casting by self-tape for decades now, and it's worked just fine for them.

The Takeaway: This pandemic may permanently alter our sense of "how business is done" when it comes to hiring. In an era of online dating, is it truly that strange to hire an employee with a submitted video resume and interview? It will be interesting to see if traditional businesses can pivot in this direction, or whether there really is no replacing true human interaction and a firm handshake.

The old jobs may not come back. Might as well make better jobs.

Since researchers are estimating that 42% of pandemic-induced layoffs will be permanent, a slew of old jobs are going away and will either be replaced with a universal basic income (unlikely) or millions of new jobs. In the latter case, many are calling on businesses and the government to take this opportunity to rebuild American jobs better, stronger, faster.

A piece in Harvard Business Review expounded on the current "bad jobs" system where employees were undertrained, underpaid, and underwhelmed with their work lives. This was bad for businesses too, often facing high turnover rates and slim margins. So instead of, say, retail jobs being spurned for always being bad, why can't there be good retail jobs? The piece pointed to Costco as an example of a company providing good retail jobs, and they're not wrong. Costco employees are generally some of the happiest workers in their industry.

The Takeaway: This pandemic revealed the problems in the American workforce, but with a paradigm shift in jobs looming, businesses can remodel the next decade or more of what good jobs are. Hiring good people with good benefits is going to be a cornerstone of this work revolution. Store owners need to be ready to hire smart to survive the future.

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