International Remote Work: Is this Global Mobility 4.0 now?

In August 2021, so basically one year ago and in direct response to the developments caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, my friend and colleague Michael Dickmann and I were doing research on international remote work. Together with the RES Forum, we explored working from anywhere as the emergence of a new paradigm. Of course international remote work has been around for quite a while before COVID-19. However, it was the pandemic starting in 2020 that pretty much forced the whole world into experimenting with all kinds of work arrangements that had nothing to do with a 9-to-5 office job. And when the world was past its first shock and international travel started to pick up (albeit slowly) speed again, there was a great number of employees who decided to interpret their work experience during the first year with COVID-19 as proof of concept that they could live and work anywhere (preferrably near a warm and sunny beach) and still do their job. Today, #workation is more than a buzzword and you don't have to be a Millennial to know what it means.

Our research in 2021 indicated that it is highly likely that temporary and permanent international remote work arrangements will grow strongly and will substantially influence the work of Global Mobilty within organizations.

So, let's have a look at where we are today with regard to international remote work, at least when we talk about white collar office jobs. Of course there is a vast amount of jobs that is impossible to be done remotely, so we are going to concentrate on those kinds of jobs where remote work is at least theoretically a possibility. In fact, a lot of studies besides ours have made predictions about the extent of remote vs. office work in the future and most of them look somewhat like this: 1/3 will continue to work fully remotely, another 1/3 predicts some sort of hybrid model, where a defined amount of time is reserved for in-person meetings, the rest is remote, and the final 1/3 predicts a complete return to the office. The chart below depicts what Wikibon found in a worldwide survey and nicely illustrates this split.

If we look at this it becomes clear that in the (near) future two in three people with an office job will continue to work remotely, at least to a certain extent. Whether this is across national borders and, thus, relevant for Global Mobility, is a different story. However, it is reason enough to further deal with it, as the trend is clear: remote work is here to stay.

And it is reason enough to ask, whether Global Mobility 4.0 has now arrived. In 2018, the Worldwide ERC proposed (in response to the developments around Industry 4.0) the concept of Mobility 4.0. They described it as the convergence "not only of technological innovations on the workforce, but also of immigration talent profiles and integrated tax compliance." That hits the nail on the head. After all, questions around international remote work are highly relevant from two perspectives: talent and (tax) compliance. However, I think that's only a part of it and organizations are facing many more challenges beyond securing talent pipelines and being compliant. In fact, once the first excitement about newly won freedom had disappeared, a great deal of organizations and employees have realized that (successfully!) managing international remote work is a lot more complex than they first thought. From additional workload, new and increased demands for the GM department to practical issues of daily leadership - making the work-from-anywhere-dream come true is not an easy task.

For instance, a global survey by Buffer looked, inter alia, at the biggest struggles people have when they work remotely. Multiple selections were possible and the top four challenges were not being able to unplug, loneliness, difficulty focussing, and - not surprisingly - timezone differences.

With my researcher hat on, part of me keeps thinking what's the problem with that? Time zone differences are great! Anyone who ever worked in a sequential project across timezones knows what I mean: you send off your part in the evening and when you're back at work the next day you've got the next iteration in your inbox to continue working. Lovely! On the downside, for project coordination and virtual team meetings (every tried to get someone from the US, Europe, and Asia in the same call?!) it's a nightmare. I don't even want to mention quick, spontaneous catch-up calls... And these are just a few examples, there are so many more interesting and fascinating issues to explore around international remote work.

So, where are we now? Is international remote work THE newly emerged paradigm, perhaps the new standard? In other words, is this Global Mobility 4.0 now? Or are we basically doing what we've been doing for ages and just come up with different names? The truth is probably somewhere in between and - at least until now - I am not aware of any organization that could truly and convincingly say that Global Mobility 4.0 is successfully in place and international remote work is perfectly managed (prove me wrong, please!).

Hence, I would love to kick off a discussion with you out there, whether you are a Global Mobility manager, HR professional, or an employee with interest in international remote work. What is the status quo in your organization? What are your biggest challenges and what are your key learnings so far? Please engage in the discussion and share your experience. Even though it may take a little longer until we really arrive in the Global Mobility 4.0 harbor, it is a fascinating journey and we can all learn so much from each other. So let's start a conversation!