COVID-19 and the Future of Work

Citrix Shares Lessons Learned One Year In

Employees are beginning to see light at the end of the long, dark tunnel they’ve been navigating for the last year as they’ve worked largely remote. And it’s illuminating the fact that the unplanned global work from home experiment has permanently changed how and where work will get done. According to new research from Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS), hybrid work is here to stay. And in this new world of work, delivering a unified, secure, and simplified work experience will be key to success.

To understand the impact the pandemic will have on the future of work, Citrix teamed with OnePoll to survey 7,250 employees in 12 countries and assess how their attitudes and expectations on work have changed since the crisis began. And three things were abundantly clear:

There’s No Going Back

While many companies viewed remote work as a short-term solution to the pandemic, they now recognize it must be part of their permanent workforce and cost management strategies.

“If there’s an iota of a silver lining in this crisis we’ve all been living through, it’s that it’s caused us to fundamentally rethink work – where it gets done, how it gets done, and even who does it,” says Tim Minahan, Executive Vice President of Strategy, Citrix. “Both companies and employees have seen the benefits more flexible work models can bring in terms of productivity, engagement and well-being. And they are not going back to working the way they did.”

The Citrix-OnePoll data supports this. When asked how they would prefer to work post-pandemic,

• 52 percent of respondents said they want a hybrid model where they can choose to work remotely or from the office each day
• 16 percent indicated they have no interest in returning to the office and would prefer a permanently remote role
• 45 percent noted that if they were to change jobs, they would only accept a role which offered flexible and remote work options
• Nearly 75 percent said they would likely consider relocating to a different city if they could perform their role to the same level without commuting to a place of work. And in a separate Citrix-One Poll survey of 2,000 US knowledge workers, one in four employees said they have abandoned their city dwellings, or plan to do so, because they can work remote

Work is too Noisy