Neil here.

This week, I came across some mind-blowing news that I’m pretty sure will influence the way we work forever.

In a major move for the work-from-home landscape, Jack Dorsey – the CEO of Twitter – announced last week that the majority of Twitter employees will be permitted to work from home “forever”… even when the pandemic and economic crisis subside.

This is a huge deal… and Twitter’s not the only one.

In early May, Facebook announced that even though their offices will reopen on July 6, they will allow most their employees to work from home for the rest of the year.

Google and Microsoft made similar announcements, extending their work-from-home policies toward the end of the year, even as their offices plan to reopen over the summer.

These are some of the world’s biggest companies, and they have massively upheaved their workplace policies… almost overnight.

And when influential corporations begin to make changes like these, people notice.

I’m expecting that these changes will influence how many companies across the world choose to run their businesses from now on.

Global Workplace Analytics reports that about 56% of U.S. employees hold jobs that are compatible with remote work, even if these employees have traditionally worked in office settings.

And now that many of those employees are actually working from home these days… companies are trying hard to figure out exactly what their office spaces will look like in the future.

In fact, I think that this crisis will only expedite trends that will make working from home the new normal.

Employees fearing the health hazards of working closely with other people could also increase pressure on their employers to allow them to continue remote work.

Employers who perhaps, at one point, didn’t always trust the idea of remote work, will need to loosen the reins a little bit to allow for greater workplace flexibility.

And at a corporate level, many companies who have been hit hard by ongoing financial crises may find that they just don’t want to pay the additional overhead costs its takes to run an office space full-time.

Instead, companies may choose to focus their energy – and their budgets – on improving their access to remote work technologies.

Considering the changes we’ve seen over the past couple of months, this really comes as no surprise.

Weekly conference room get-togethers have been replaced by Zoom meetings; face-to-face interactions have turned into daily Slack check-ins; and new considerations for securely accessing company databases and files from home have become a pretty urgent concern.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The next couple of years are going to be a very interesting ride that will permeate every single sector and industry… both nationally and worldwide.

I’m willing to bet that this will be a critical year for anyone scouting some serious developments in the remote technology space. Because as more and more companies are faced with the new reality of work life, I’m expecting some pretty creative folks to jump into this wide-open opportunity space.

And despite everything we’re going through this year… that’s what’s giving me hope.

I’ll be back soon with another update. But in the meantime, let me know what’s been catching your eye these days.

Until next time,

Neil Patel