Page 15 - FDI Alliance International Magazine. Spring 2021 Digital Interactive Issue

services and subsidizing internet access across resulting in a predetermined amount of time checks, are the leading strategies for employees
the country. Superior internet connections make working from home and at the office. at reopened business places. Fifty-two percent of
it easier for large pockets of the population to workers, according to the study, say they’d be
work from home and it means that important The hybrid model, combining remote and located comfortable sharing personal information (like
businesses and company services can happen work, will offer the best of both worlds for both health data) if their company were to develop
regardless of its location and geography. employee and employer. The hybrid option and enforce a contact tracing app to notify
creates two fundamentally different experiences in workers if people in the company have tested
WHAT DOES A WORK-FROM-HOME the workforce. As businesses start to reopen their positive for COVID-19.
ECONOMIC IMPACT LOOK LIKE? doors (with safety measures in place), working
at an office helps to encourage social bonding, As the world starts to realign in a post-coronavirus
While remote work has been shown to increase reinforce business culture, and an increase in world, look for more employees to start adapting
employee productivity, the impact on the economy business collaboration. to a work week that looks akin to three days at
has been mixed. As the lines between home life home and two at the office. While commercial
and work become blurred, working remotely can According to a ZDNet study, 64% of American real estate will still take a significant hit, expect a
lead to stress, isolation, and the dreaded feeling workers want to spend “at least some hours at an healthy balance between managing time remotely
of ‘cabin fever.’ There are also concerns about office, store, factory, or workplace” in the long- and on-location for millions of employees and an
the lack of human interaction and reduced team term, as opposed to working from home entirely. equally important balance of half-work weeks in
cohesion which come as a result of the substituted As per the study’s respondents, enhanced cleaning PJs and half in corporate garb.
video calls instead of face-to-face connections, protocols, reduced capacity, and daily wellness
among traditional human traits.

Because working remotely nullifies the need to
work in close proximity to a job, the work-from- ABOUT ResearchFDI
home shift could lead to worsening inequality as
educated, high-earning employees can swoop ResearchFDI is a specialized investment attraction consulting firm widely recognized within
in from anywhere around the world and take a the economic development industry for its accomplished lead generation programs, that
job that they may not have otherwise relocated have yielded over $50 billion in new investments for its clients worldwide.
to. Jody Miller, the co-founder and CEO of the
Business Talen Group in California, predicts In addition, ResearchFDI offers a suite of strategy and research reports that act as precursors
that the widespread adoption of remote work to any investment attraction campaign, such as developing economic development plans,
will create an increase in the “real global talent FDI strategies, marketing plans, benchmarking reports, sector profiles, industry reports,
marketplace,” especially for white-collar workers. investor pitches, pitch deck development and investment attraction training.
Whereas physical proximity used to be an
obvious essential requirement, “now, you really
are able to imagine hiring someone who doesn’t
need to be on-site,” she continued.
BRUCE TAKEFMAN,
REMOTE WORK’S EFFECT ON President & Founder at ResearchFDI
MAJOR CITIES
Bruce Takefman, Founder & CEO of ResearchFDI is an award winning,
Because of an immense increase in the amount serial entrepreneur and philanthropist who began his company in 2010. A
of work-from-home employees, experts predict decade on, and ResearchFDI, a marketing firm specialising in investment
that the pandemic will result in a steady decline attraction services for economic developers, that have helped secure over
of downtown cores throughout the world as $5 billion USD in new capital investment.
companies will be progressively moving away
from commercial real estate.
www.researchfdi.com bruce@researchfdi.com
The massive shift could be felt especially hard in
the tech industry, where the exodus of high-cost
regions, like the San Francisco Bay Area, could
become prevalent. A lot of big cities rely on tax
revenue from commuters, public transit, and
commercial real estate, all of which would be
affected as more people continue to work from
home permanently.

But, on the other side of the coin, megacities like
Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore have
proved that megacities don’t guarantee a high
infection rate, as opposed to New York City.

THE HYBRID WORK MODEL
In the end, as many North American cities
hover closer to COVID-19’s one-year shutdown
anniversary, it seems like the most realistic approach
will become the hybrid work-from-home model,

15. FDI ALLIANCE INTERNATIONAL