essay on remote environment

IELTS Essay: Remote Natural Environments

by Dave | Real Past Tests | 12 Comments

This is an IELTS writing task 2 sample answer essay on the topic of remote natural environments from the real IELTS exam.

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IELTS Essay: Internet News

It is now possible for scientists and tourists to travel to remote natural environments, such as the South Pole.

Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?

The ability to travel to remote destinations such as the arctic and various islands contains advantages related to travel and research as well as disadvantages regarding environmental preservation. In my opinion, the pros decisively outweigh the cons.

On the one hand, the tradeoffs of being able to travel to remote areas are environmental. Most remote locations are untouched by the rapid industrialization of the last two centuries and despite the best efforts of local governments there is likely to be some contamination from tourism. A good example of this would be various South Pacific islands. The Philippine archipelago in particular is a popular tourist destination and this has resulted in increased litter and development of the natural environment for tourist friendly infrastructure such as hotels and restaurants. Similarly, the cultural environment for locals is at risk. Numerous indigenous cultures struggle to maintain their unique heritage as foreigners and modern products pour into previously isolated regions.

On the other hand, the main positives relate to travel for pleasure and research. Locations that are not currently occupied by traditional societies were effectively without purpose. Many of them, ranging from remote islands to terrain with inhospitable weather such as Mt. Everest, now offer attractive experiences for the intrepid traveller. For researchers, the benefits are even more tangible. The best known example of this was the Galapagos islands where Darwin sailed more than a hundred years ago conducted foundational research for his theory of evolution. Since then, the ability to explore new areas has resulted in thousands of discoveries and advances related to archaeology, medicine, marine life, and the environment.

In conclusion, despite the injurious impacts of tourism, it is my strong belief that the opening up of unexplored regions is a net positive. However, governments must still regulate such travel to mitigate the inherent dangers.

1. The ability to travel to remote destinations such as the arctic and various islands contains advantages related to travel and research as well as disadvantages regarding environmental preservation. 2. In my opinion, the pros decisively outweigh the cons.

• Paraphrase the overall essay topic.
• Write a clear opinion. Read more about introductions here .

1. On the one hand, the tradeoffs of being able to travel to remote areas are environmental. 2. Most remote locations are untouched by the rapid industrialization of the last two centuries and despite the best efforts of local governments there is likely to be some contamination from tourism. 3. A good example of this would be various South Pacific islands. 4. The Philippine archipelago in particular is a popular tourist destination and this has resulted in increased litter and development of the natural environment for tourist friendly infrastructure such as hotels and restaurants. 5. Similarly, the cultural environment for locals is at risk. 6. Numerous indigenous cultures struggle to maintain their unique heritage as foreigners and modern products pour into previously isolated regions.

• Write a topic sentence with a clear main idea at the end.
• Explain your main idea.
• Develop it with specific examples.
• Continue to develop it.
• Switch to a second disadvantage.
• Develop it even more fully if possible.

1. On the other hand, the main positives relate to travel for pleasure and research. 2. Locations that are not currently occupied by traditional societies were effectively without purpose. 3. Many of them, ranging from remote islands to terrain with inhospitable weather such as Mt. Everest, now offer attractive experiences for the intrepid traveller. 4. For researchers, the benefits are even more tangible. 5. The best known example of this was the Galapagos islands where Darwin sailed more than a hundred years ago conducted foundational research for his theory of evolution. 6. Since then, the ability to explore new areas has resulted in thousands of discoveries and advances related to archaeology, medicine, marine life, and the environment.

• Write a new topic sentence with a new main idea at the end.
• Explain your new main idea.
• Include specific details and examples.
• Swtich to the second advantage.
• Develop this one.
• Add on any extra detail that you can that is related for a better task achievement score.

1. In conclusion, despite the injurious impacts of tourism, it is my strong belief that the opening up of unexplored regions is a net positive. 2. However, governments must still regulate such travel to mitigate the inherent dangers.

• Summarise your main ideas.
• Include a final thought. Read more about conclusions here .

What do the words in bold below mean? Make some notes and then check below.

The ability to travel to remote destinations such as the arctic and various islands contains advantages related to travel and research as well as disadvantages regarding environmental preservation . In my opinion, the pros decisively outweigh the cons .

On the one hand , the tradeoffs of being able to travel to remote areas are environmental. Most remote locations are untouched by the rapid industrialization of the last two centuries and despite the best efforts of local governments there is likely to be some contamination from tourism. A good example of this would be various South Pacific islands . The Philippine archipelago in particular is a popular tourist destination and this has resulted in increased litter and development of the natural environment for tourist friendly infrastructure such as hotels and restaurants. Similarly , the cultural environment for locals is at risk . Numerous indigenous cultures struggle to maintain their unique heritage as foreigners and modern products pour into previously isolated regions .

On the other hand , the main positives relate to travel for pleasure and research . Locations that are not currently occupied by traditional societies were effectively without purpose . Many of them, ranging from remote islands to terrain with inhospitable weather such as Mt. Everest, now offer attractive experiences for the intrepid traveller . For researchers , the benefits are even more tangible . The best known example of this was the Galapagos islands where Darwin sailed more than a hundred years ago conducted foundational research for his theory of evolution . Since then, the ability to explore new areas has resulted in thousands of discoveries and advances related to archaeology , medicine , marine life , and the environment .

In conclusion, despite the injurious impacts of tourism, it is my strong belief that the opening up of unexplored regions is a net positive . However, governments must still regulate such travel to mitigate the inherent dangers .

remote destinations places far away

arctic near Antarctica

contains has

regarding as it concerns

preservation keeping safe

pros advantages

decisively outweigh definitely stronger than

cons disadvantages

on the one hand on one side

tradeoffs downsides

untouched never developed

rapid industrialization lots of machines, etc.

best efforts trying their hardest

local governments the countries themselves

contamination hurting

various South Pacific islands small islands in the Pacific ocean

Philippine archipelago the islands around the Philippines

popular tourist destination place tourists go

infrastructure buildings, roads, etc.

similarly relatedly

cultural environment the culture, traditions

risk threat

numerous indigenous cultures many native peoples

struggle try hard

maintain their unique heritage preserve traditions

foreigners people from other countries

pour into put a lot into

isolated regions places far away

on the other hand however

positives advantages

research studies

currently occupied right now those living there

traditional societies old cultures

effectively without purpose essentially no reason

ranging from including

terrain land

inhospitable weather bad weather

offer attractive experiences make people want to go there

intrepid traveller adventurous people

researchers scientists

tangible real

Galapagos islands some remote islands

sailed went by boat

conducted foundational research important studies

theory of evolution idea that we evolved from animals

resulted in caused

discoveries found out that

archaeology bones, artifacts

medicine medical science

marine life sea animals

environment nature

injurious hurts

strong belief powerful conviction

opening up allowing people in

unexplored regions places people have not been

net positive overall good

regulate keep in check

mitigate control

inherent dangers risks sure to come up

Pronunciation

Practice saying the vocabulary below and use this tip about Google voice search :

rɪˈməʊt ˌdɛstɪˈneɪʃənz   ˈɑːktɪk   kənˈteɪnz   rɪˈgɑːdɪŋ   ˌprɛzə(ː)ˈveɪʃən prəʊz   dɪˈsaɪsɪvli aʊtˈweɪ   kɒnz ɒn ðə wʌn hænd   treɪd ɒfs   ʌnˈtʌʧt   ˈræpɪd ɪnˌdʌstrɪəlaɪˈzeɪʃən   bɛst ˈɛfəts   ˈləʊkəl ˈgʌvnmənts   kənˌtæmɪˈneɪʃən   ˈveərɪəs saʊθ pəˈsɪfɪk ˈaɪləndz   ˈfɪlɪˌpiːn ˌɑːkɪˈpɛləgəʊ   ˈpɒpjʊlə ˈtʊərɪst ˌdɛstɪˈneɪʃən   ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌkʧə   ˈsɪmɪləli , ˈkʌlʧərəl ɪnˈvaɪərənmənt   rɪsk ˈnjuːmərəs ɪnˈdɪʤɪnəs ˈkʌlʧəz   ˈstrʌgl   meɪnˈteɪn ðeə juːˈniːk ˈhɛrɪtɪʤ   ˈfɒrɪnəz   pɔːr ˈɪntuː   ˈaɪsəleɪtɪd ˈriːʤənz ɒn ði ˈʌðə hænd   ˈpɒzətɪvz   rɪˈsɜːʧ ˈkʌrəntli ˈɒkjʊpaɪd   trəˈdɪʃənl səˈsaɪətiz   ɪˈfɛktɪvli wɪˈðaʊt ˈpɜːpəs ˈreɪnʤɪŋ frɒm   təˈreɪn   ɪnˈhɒspɪtəbl ˈwɛðə   ˈɒfər əˈtræktɪv ɪksˈpɪərɪənsɪz   ɪnˈtrɛpɪd ˈtræv(ə)lə   rɪˈsɜːʧəz ˈtænʤəbl gəlæpəgəʊs ˈaɪləndz   seɪld   kənˈdʌktɪd faʊnˈdeɪʃən(ə)l rɪˈsɜːʧ   ˈθɪəri ɒv ˌiːvəˈluːʃən rɪˈzʌltɪd ɪn   dɪsˈkʌvəriz   ˌɑːkɪˈɒləʤi ˈmɛdsɪn məˈriːn laɪf ɪnˈvaɪərənmənt ɪnˈʤʊərɪəs   strɒŋ bɪˈliːf   ˈəʊpnɪŋ ʌp   ˌʌnɪksˈplɔːd ˈriːʤənz   nɛt ˈpɒzətɪv ˈrɛgjʊleɪt   ˈmɪtɪgeɪt   ɪnˈhɪərənt ˈdeɪnʤəz

Vocabulary Practice

I recommend getting a pencil and piece of paper because that aids memory. Then write down the missing vocabulary from my sample answer in your notebook:

The ability to travel to r____________________s such as the a______c and various islands c________s advantages related to travel and research as well as disadvantages r____________g environmental p_______________n . In my opinion, the p____________________________h the c___s .

O______________________d , the t______________s of being able to travel to remote areas are environmental. Most remote locations are u____________d by the r_______________________n of the last two centuries and despite the b________________s of l__________________s there is likely to be some c_________________n from tourism. A good example of this would be v__________________________s . The P_____________________o in particular is a p______________________n and this has resulted in increased litter and development of the natural environment for tourist friendly i_____________________e such as hotels and restaurants. S____________y , the c__________________________t for locals is at r_____k . N___________________________________s s___________e to m_________________________________e as f_____________s and modern products p_____________o previously i___________________s .

O________________________d , the main p______________s relate to travel for pleasure and r_________________h . Locations that are not c_______________________________d by t______________________________s were e______________________________e . Many of them, r_________________m remote islands to t_________n with i______________________________r such as Mt. Everest, now o_____________________________s for the i______________________r . For r___________________s , the benefits are even more t_____________e . The best known example of this was the G________________s where Darwin s__________d more than a hundred years ago c____________________________________h for his t___________________n . Since then, the ability to explore new areas has r______________n thousands of d____________________s and advances related to a___________________y , m__________e , m____________e , and the e_________________t .

In conclusion, despite the i_______________s impacts of tourism, it is my s________________f that the o__________________p of u_______________________s is a n_____________________e . However, governments must still r____________e such travel to m___________e the i______________________s .

Listening Practice

Learn more about this topic in the video below and practice with these activities :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41cJy7wzIk&ab_channel=InterestingFacts

Speaking Practice

Practice with the following speaking questions from the real IELTS speaking exam :

• Are there many places in your hometown to see nice scenery?
• When you travel, do you stay in rooms with good views?
• Would you like to live in a house with beautiful scenery around it?
• Why do people like taking pictures of the scenery?

Writing Practice

Practice with the related topic below and then check with my sample answer:

Nowadays many people travel to foreign countries for pleasure. Some believe this travel has a negative impact on the countries travelled to.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

IELTS Essay: Travelling for Pleasure

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12 Comments

Is Arctic in North Pole and Antarctica in South Pole? Then how come Arctic become near Antarctica

Haha, yes you are right – the arctic is in the North…

Sir, I have a doubt.. you said pros decisively outweigh the cons.. so that means there are more advantages than disadvantages.. is it? So we should give more points for advantages. Right?. but here you gave 2 points in each case.. I am really confused. In this case did you fulfilled the task achievement

Thanks for the great question!

I did that deliberately and if you notice carefully at the beginning of each paragraph I have a more general main idea that I then break down to mention at least 2 advantages/disadvantages.

That is a trick to make sure you get the highest mark possible for task achievement.

Is that clear?

If we are doing that it will be like a balanced approach is it? After reading several times I felt like you are giving equal importance. I am afraid is it due to my lack of understanding or not.

Yes, it is fine to give them equal importance as long as you choose one as the overall winner.

In this modern era, researches and travelers are able to visit remote areas of the nature like Antartica. In my opinion, it is a positive development because the scientist will get more information about the nature and travel enthusiast can explore the earth to the fullest.

can you tell me whether this introduction is correct or not?

That’s fine! I tend to write about both sides but writing about one side like that is fine and your main ideas are clear!

Keep it up!

Sir, thank you for the reply… Tomorrow is my exam.. I hope I will rock the exam…

Best of luck and let us know how it goes!

Thank you sir, I got the results and I got 6.5 in writing and overall 7

Great – congratulations! You should be proud of those marks!

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It is now possible for scientists and tourists to travel to remote natural environment – IELTS Writing Task 2

Updated On Dec 08, 2023

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Given below is a real IELTS Writing Part 2 Essay question, It is now possible for scientists and tourists to travel to remote natural environment. We have provided sample essays as well as an essay outline so that you can practice writing your own!

Check out more IELTS Advantages and Disadvantages Essays !

Read the sample essay for It is now possible for scientists and tourists to travel to remote natural environment, such as the South Pole. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?

Sample Essay 1 for ‘It is now possible for scientists and tourists to travel to remote natural environment’

As technology has developed, people can now travel to remote natural areas. While this trend is beneficial to some extent, I would argue that its disadvantages are more significant.

On the one hand, visiting isolated natural places has some benefits. Firstly, this is a newer and more interesting type of travelling. Since going to other cities or countries has been too common for most people, it might be more exciting for them to explore new places such as the South Pole or the Amazon rainforest. This gives them valuable experiences and unforgettable memories. Secondly, when visiting remote areas, people, especially scientists, might acquire more knowledge about the natural habitat. For example, when coming to the North Pole, scientists can learn about the life of polar bears which live far away from humans.

On the other hand, I believe this development has far more drawbacks. The first one is that travelling to remote natural areas can be risky if the travellers are not sufficiently prepared. For instance, the temperature at the South Pole is usually very low, which adversely affects people’s health. Travelling to forests can also be dangerous as people have to face the risk of being attacked by animals. Also, since visiting isolated places often requires a large amount of investment in researching and ensuring the safety of travellers, the costs of travelling tend to be high. Therefore, it seems like only scientists and rich people can afford this activity, so this development is likely to benefit only a small group of individuals.

In conclusion, I believe the disadvantages of people being able to travel to remote areas outweigh its advantages.

Useful Vocabulary & Expressions:

• isolated: far away from any others ==>isolated rural areas
• common: happening often, existing in large numbers or in many places ==>Jackson is a common English name.
• adverse: negative and unpleasant==> Lack of money will have an adverse effect on our research program.
• ensure: to make sure that something happens or is definite ==>The book ensured his success.

Sample Essay 2 for ‘It is now possible for scientists and tourists to travel to remote natural environment’

It is true that humans can now set foot in wild regions far away from civilisation. While I accept that this development can have certain benefits for the human race, I believe that it is likely to have a harmful impact on nature.

On the one hand, undertaking expeditions to the wilderness can be valuable in terms of both science and recreation. There are a considerable number of undiscovered secrets that can be tremendously useful for researchers to conduct their studies. For instance, environmental scientists can analyse the data about the thickness of ice layers over millions of years in both hemispheres to predict the possible changes in global temperatures. Such findings are crucial for the governments to develop appropriate plans to alleviate global warming. Furthermore, the untouched beauty of these areas is usually appealing to travellers, providing people with an attractive option of holiday destination or excursion.

However, I would argue that these positive aspects are outweighed by the drawbacks. When people are given full and easy access to the distant and unpopulated areas, there are likely to be more moving there to reside or start their business. It has been shown that substantial damage has been done to nature such as massive deforestation or water contamination due to humans’ lack of environmental awareness. If there is inadequate protection of the environment from this type of action, wild regions in the world will no longer exist, unspeakably affecting not only the overall ecology but also the lives of other people.

In conclusion, it seems to me that the potential dangers of travelling to wild environments are more significant than the possible benefits for the mentioned reasons.

Useful Expressions:

• Appealing (adj): attractive or interesting  ==>Overseas students who are offered an appealing salary and position in a foreign company are usually unable to resist the offer and choose to remain in the country instead of returning to their native land.
• Distant (adj): far away ==>The application of technology in the form of electric household appliances has facilitate the enjoyment of people’s life to a great extent..
• Unpopulated (adj): having no inhabitants
• Reside (v): to live, have your home, or stay in a place ==>The huge waves of immigrants from poorer countries flocking to wealthier nations can threaten to take the jobs of those who have resided in their countries for a long time by accepting to work for a much lower pay.
• Substantial (adj): large in size, value or importance ==>By respecting the substantial differences between the older and the younger generations, the mutual understanding between them can be greatly enhanced.
• Massive deforestation (noun phrase): the destruction of forests by people on a large scale ==>Massive deforestation is largely attributable to massive deforestation because there are not enough trees to help to hold the flood water.
• Contamination (n): the action of making something less pure or poisonous. ==>In many rural villages in China and Vietnam, the supply of underground water which has been in use for hundreds of years is now incapable of meeting the growing demand of the expanding population, threatening the health of the people with using water which has not been tested for contamination.
• Environmental awareness (noun phrase): the understanding that the environment needs to be protected (ý thức bảo vệ môi trường). Ví dụ: The first step to environmental protection is concerned with raising the environmental awareness of individuals.
• Ecology (n): the relationships between the air, land, water, animals, etc ==>Oil spills cause terrible damage to the fragile ecology of the sea.

Do you have an essay on this topic? Please post it in the comments section. One of our IELTS trainers will evaluate your essay from an examiner’s point of view and reply to the comment .

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• Some People Think That Parents Should Teach Children How to be Good Members of Society
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Nafia Zuhana is an experienced content writer and IELTS Trainer. Currently, she is guiding students who are appearing for IELTS General and Academic exams through ieltsmaterial.com. With an 8.5 score herself, she trains and provides test takers with strategies, tips, and nuances on how to crack the IELTS Exam. She holds a degree in Master of Arts – Creative Writing, Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has worked with The Hindu for over a year as an English language trainer.

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Kasturika Samanta

Akanksha Tripathi

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14 comments.

Ogungbangbe Gbonjubola

Posted on Jun 3, 2022

Exploration to normally remote areas, such as the south pole, is now seen as a plausible reality for both scientists and tourists. However, there are pros and cons to these kinds of activities. I believe, however, that the disadvantages are greater than the advantages.

Being able to travel and explore a new environment definitely has it’s benefits. One of these involves the chance of a new scientific discovery. Places like these can be seen as beehive of new information learned from plants and animals unknown to mankind and can open up doors of knowledge about new drugs and cures for diseases. It could be a breakthrough in the world of research. Another reason is the chance for the common folks to learn new things about the world. It gives opportunities for the expansion of knowledge into nature and can even be seen as a form of excursion for kids. For example, I still remember how fun it was to visit an old landmark in my country when I was a child and that memory is still stuck with me

That being said, these advantages do not negate the fact that opening up isolated areas could lead to destruction of exotic species only known to that area. The “invasion” of some of these places could lead to the extinction of plants and even animals due to exposure to diseases we carry. Speaking of animals, there could be wildlife that are more dangerous than we can handle (mammals that are unknown and reptiles that could be poisonous). In this case, we may not have cures suitable enough to help the injured.

To sum up, while the possibility of learning about another part of out earth might seem fascinating, the dangers it poses may be above the benefits gained,

Posted on Jun 4, 2022

Band Score – 6

Concentrate on the correct usage of articles, prepositions, verb form and punctuation.

Use C2 level of words and appropriate linkers.

Posted on Feb 25, 2022

owing to the advancements in technology ,vacations and research trips to the rural enviroments ,escpecially those located in the south pole have become common.evidently ,this phenomenon has more demerits than merits,and thus ,this essay will elaborate on the topic and justify these views.

on one hand,hinterlands are rich in cultures,traditions and even languages .this makes them the perfect grounds for research work.moreover,they offer a varriety of undiscovered enviroments,ecosystems and animal species.this gives researchers more content to exploit .in addition,these enviroments have not yet been affected by excessive human behaviors that lead to enviromental degradation,therefore they are very authentic.this inturn means that,scientist can get first hand information that is unbiased.

on the other hand,this circumstance puts these formerly inaccessible areas at risk,especially those that are human induced.in the past ,the natives of these regions could preserve their natural habitats without any foreign intrusion.nonetheless ,with the ease of movement nowadays,there is a possible threat of invasion of their privacy.the value of their cultures will soon diminish ,and they can even lose their native languages in the long run,as they will be trying to adapt to the international ways of communication.additionally,there will be substantial degradation of the enviroment and pollution of all forms,due to the increased inflow of outsiders.poaching of the rare,endangered species will also become inevitable as more people with hidden agendas will be able to access these areas.

in conclusion,there is no doubt that the effects brought up by this phenomenon are not entirely positive or negative .nonetheless,the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

Zahid Iqbal

Posted on Oct 25, 2021

Transit to distant natural habitat is achievable by researchers and travelers at the moment, for instance, the South Pole. While there are considerable merits to this advancement, I believe the drawbacks are ubiquitous.

To begin with, there are endless possibilities of exploration of the uncharted. With the help of 21st century technological advancements, the scientists and explorers can uncover the hidden mysteries which will help them iron out the complexities of modern era. For instance, what if they find a bacteria or virus which can be modified to invent a cure for HIV or Cancer?. Besides, deep exploration can lead to not only a cure but it can help reveal a plethora of undiscovered species. Moreover, natural minerals and materials can be discovered by delving deep into the earth.

Secondly, such whimsical environment can contain some major demerits. Safety is the biggest concern for the scientists and travelers. If the surroundings are toxic and hazardous, it can put them in harm’s way. For instance, volcanic eruptions, emission of methane gas, acid rain and so on. Apart from that, even if they managed to reach the forbidden door, there is no guarantee they will not unintentionally harm the nature. Because of the voracious nature of human, It is evident that substantial damage has been done to nature, such as massive deforestation or water contamination due to mankind’s lack of environmental awareness.

To summarize, due to the obscure involvement of risks are far greater than the safety, I believe the hindrance are more significant than the possible benefits for the mentioned reasons.

Janice Thompson

Overall band: 5.0

Cohesion: Learn the use of cohesive devices. Concentrate on the linkers of contrast. Collocations: Learn when to use “human” and “man” Learn contextual vocabulary: The word “Hindrance” used in the conclusion is not the right word there

Azmira Zaman

Posted on Sep 11, 2021

Advances in transportation technology have resulted in easier access to isolated places like the South Pole, but this has a knock-on effect on the environment with many environmentalists struggling to cope with the problem. Despite the drawbacks of this development, there are some advantages as well. This essay outlines the perceived drawbacks and benefits of increased travel to remote places and explains why there are far more significant disadvantages.

The biggest advantage of this problem is that scientists can make new discoveries about microbes and other species of animals and plants. The lack of proper transportation deters researchers from examining the various forms of life available in those countries. For instance, in recent times a variety of new microorganisms and their characteristics have been discovered as opposed to the past. Such findings are crucial for the development of science. Thus the more accessibility to these places, the more growth in the different fields of biology.

Despite this, however, the disadvantage of loss of biodiversity can not be overlooked. Whenever more and more people visit these locations, some areas have to be developed to provide accommodations for them. Any development requires some interference with nature which comes at the cost of it. For example, there may be damage to the natural flora and fauna. Moreover, with more humans in an area, more resources would be required, resulting in the depletion of natural resources. The more popular these regions become, the more adverse effects it has on the environment.

To conclude, the increase in travel to remote areas leads to advancements in science. Nevertheless, the fact that it can be detrimental to the environment can not be ignored. Therefore, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

Posted on Aug 29, 2021

With advancements in technology, researchers and explorers can now travel to remote natural environment like the South Pole. I feel exploring the South Pole has more benefits than drawbacks.

For one, scientists will get a chance to conduct research on this untouched land. For instance, they can conduct research on penguins, polar bears, walruses and whales. Moreover, they can do experiments to reverse the rise in global temperature which will be a plus point for mankind. Additionally, visitors can experience extreme adventures that the South Pole has to offer. Hence, there are a lot of advantages in visiting the South Pole.

However, along with numerous advantages there are some disadvantages as well. Firstly, presence of humans will degrade the natural environment of the South Pole. People change their surrounding to their own convenience which adversely affects the environment. For example, when visitors were first allowed in the Amazon Forest for jungle safari, they left plastic bags and bottles there. Secondly, in the South Pole basic amenities are not available. People will have to be prepared for all the mishappenings that nature will throw at them. Finally, as temperature there is well below 0 degrees, travelers can face serious health problems even if they take extreme precautions.

The above look illustrates that though there are a few demerits in exploring the South Pole, the merits outweigh them. The research potential and the experience that South pole provides to scientist and tourists shadows the drawbacks that comes with it. Hence, it is worth exploring the south pole.

Posted on Sep 1, 2021

Overall band: 5.5

Grammatical Range: Work on grammatical numbers and prepositions

Lexical resource: Try to use complex vocabulary

Irfan Noor K

Posted on Aug 26, 2021

People always wanted to explore the untouched and uncharted territories of the South pole, but it was not possible until now. The remote natural environment of the region can possibly be visited by the researcher and general public alike. This essay will argue that despite, the vital information which would be provided by the scientists for the world by studying the south pole, there is a great chance that the continent would suffer due to tourist activities.

If scientists could study the glaciers in the South pole then they would be able to understand the effect of global warming on the rest of the world and would prevent the damage. Although it is hard to contemplate whether human activities have any effect on unexplored regions of the globe or not, nobody would know that unless the researches are conducted on those areas. For instance, if the glaciers are melting significantly then there is a high chance that the world is beyond saving and we are too late to right our wrongdoings, but if they haven’t been affected yet then the scientist could come up with a solution just in time.

On the other hand, tourists had done more harm to any tourists attractions than good; therefore, it is reasonable to state that their activities in the south pole would only harm its natural environment rather than preserve it. Tourists mostly visit places in their leisure while carrying many products for their pleasure, such as plastic bottles which are one of the biggest reasons for pollutions and could create greenhouse gasses after being burnt. Hence, human interactions with nature could cause damage to the environment which would be problematic for every living thing in this world.

People are naturally attracted to places they have never been to and the south pole is no exception in that regard; Although, scientists could provide life-saving information to the world but, the process could open the door for everyone and people can spoil nature for their pleasure rather than knowledge. in my opinion, the advantages can help humanity whereas the price to achieve that is much higher; hence, it is much efficient that the south pole should only be traveled by the scientists.

Overall band: 6.5

Work on improving your vocabulary.

Reza Eslami

Posted on Aug 16, 2021

Due to technology development, people are able to travel to remote destinations such as the arctic. While this trend is beneficial to some extent, in this essay, I would argue that its drawbacks outweigh the advantages. This essay will first demonstrate that touching such isolated places with tourist may change their ecosystems very quickly, followed by a discussion of how entering the scientist would lead to increasing the knowledge of environmental researchers. On the one hand, visiting remote natural places has some benefits. Firstly, when scientists visit such intact places, they can acquire more knowledge about the natural habitat . For example, researchers are able to learn more about polar bears by going to the North Pole. Scientists can also search about the plants growing in very cold weather and improve their information in this regard. Secondly, visiting the new isolated places such as the Arctic and Antarctic is very attractive for tourists. This gives them valuable experience and unforgettable memories. On the other hand, I believe that this possibility has far more drawbacks. The main one is that traveling to unexplored regions is considered as a danger to such places, for they need accommodation, food and transportation which result in soil and air pollution. Unfortunately, bulk of studies have showed human change surrounding ecosystem in favour of their benefits, in other words they are not kind to their natural environment. In conclusion, traveling to remote destinations can be advantageous for scientists, however, disadvantages regarding environmental preservation outweigh and are more important.

Posted on Aug 17, 2021

Overall band : 6.0

Concentrate on Grammatical Range and Accuracy, especially tenses, grammatical numbers and the use of articles.

Rashad Gayibkhanov

Posted on Mar 20, 2017

Nowadays, the opportunity has become available for tourists and scientists to travel to distant natural areas. In my opinion, I tend to believe that travelling these areas can bring about more problems compared to advantages it might bring. One the one hand, travelling to remote natural areas has some benefits. Firstly, scientists and tourists can discover new things about nature. Since the South Pole has not been completely discovered due to its climate, it provides an opportunity for scientists to learn interesting things about its environment. For example, a different sky vision can be seen only in south pole which many tourists and scientists are willing to see. Availability of such opportunity for tourists and scientists is a good experience. Secondly, being able to travel to remote areas tourists can experience life in different conditions. In other words, the temperature in the south pole is usually cold and having an adventure under extreme conditions is a great experience for some people. On the other hand, despite the advantages above, I believe people could face serious drawbacks from travelling those areas. One potentially dangerous problem is that the temperature of the south pole is usually below -10 degrees, and that would probably create some possible serious health risks for scientists and tourists. Making a decision to travel isolated areas with low temperature will probably put tourists and scientists into a big trouble. Another evident issue is that, many vehicles such as helicopters and their communications systems have failed to work in such areas. This would probably bring about life-threatening situations if not prepared beforehand. In conclusion, despite some benefits of travelling to isolated natural areas, I tend to believe that the disadvantages of travelling isolated areas far outweigh the advantages.

The words scientists and tourists are repeated many times in the essay. Try using different words. Work on Grammatical Range and accuracy – especially prepositions

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What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries

For many workers, COVID-19’s impact has depended greatly on one question: Can I work from home or am I tethered to my workplace? Quarantines, lockdowns, and self-imposed isolation have pushed tens of millions around the world to work from home, accelerating a workplace experiment that had struggled to gain traction before COVID-19 hit.

Now, well into the pandemic, the limitations and the benefits of remote work are clearer. Although many people are returning to the workplace as economies reopen—the majority could not work remotely at all—executives have indicated in surveys that hybrid models of remote work  for some employees are here to stay. The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

Now that vaccines are awaiting approval, the question looms: To what extent will remote work persist ? In this article, we assess the possibility for various work activities to be performed remotely. Building on the McKinsey Global Institute’s body of work on automation, AI, and the future of work, we extend our models to consider where work is performed. 1 The future of work in Europe: Automation, workforce transitions, and the future geography of work , McKinsey Global Institute, June 2020; The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow , McKinsey Global Institute, July 2019; Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation , McKinsey Global Institute, December 2017. Our analysis finds that the potential for remote work is highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of industries, occupations, and geographies.

More than 20 percent of the workforce could work remotely three to five days a week as effectively as they could if working from an office. If remote work took hold at that level, that would mean three to four times as many people working from home than before the pandemic and would have a profound impact on urban economies, transportation, and consumer spending, among other things.

The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

More than half the workforce, however, has little or no opportunity for remote work. Some of their jobs require collaborating with others or using specialized machinery; other jobs, such as conducting CT scans, must be done on location; and some, such as making deliveries, are performed while out and about. Many of such jobs are low wage and more at risk from broad trends such as automation and digitization. Remote work thus risks accentuating inequalities at a social level.

The potential for remote work is determined by tasks and activities, not occupations

Remote work raises a vast array of issues and challenges for employees and employers. Companies are pondering how best to deliver coaching remotely and how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety, among a host of other thorny questions raised by COVID-19. For their part, employees are struggling to find the best home-work balance and equip themselves for working and collaborating remotely.

In this article, however, we aim to granularly define the activities and occupations that can be done from home to better understand the future staying power of remote work. We have analyzed the potential for remote work—or work that doesn’t require interpersonal interaction or a physical presence at a specific worksite—in a range of countries, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We used MGI’s workforce model based on the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to analyze more than 2,000 activities in more than 800 occupations and identify which activities and occupations have the greatest potential for remote work.

The potential for remote work depends on the mix of activities undertaken in each occupation and on their physical, spatial, and interpersonal context. We first assessed the theoretical extent to which an activity can be done remotely. This depends on whether a worker needs to be physically present on-site to do a task, interact with others, or use location-specific machinery or equipment.

Many physical or manual activities, as well as those that require use of fixed equipment, cannot be done remotely. These include providing care, operating machinery, using lab equipment, and processing customer transactions in stores. In contrast, activities such as information gathering and processing, communicating with others, teaching and counseling, and coding data can theoretically be done remotely.

Additionally, employers have found during the pandemic that although some tasks can be done remotely in a crisis, they are much more effectively done in person. These activities include coaching, counseling, and providing advice and feedback; building customer and colleague relationships; bringing new employees into a company; negotiating and making critical decisions; teaching and training; and work that benefits from collaboration, such as innovation, problem-solving, and creativity. If onboarding were to be done remotely, for instance, it would require significant rethinking of the activity to produce outcomes similar to those achieved in person.

For instance, while teaching has moved to remote work during the pandemic, parents and teachers alike say that quality has suffered. Similarly, courtrooms have functioned remotely but are unlikely to remain online going forward out of concern for legal rights and equity—some defendants lack adequate connectivity and lawyers, and judges worry about missing nonverbal cues in video conferences.

So we have devised two metrics for remote work potential: the maximum potential, including all activities that theoretically can be performed remotely, and a lower bound for the effective potential for remote work, which excludes activities that have a clear benefit from being done in person (Exhibit 1).

To determine the overall potential for remote work for jobs and sectors, we use the time spent on different activities within occupations. We find that remote work potential is concentrated in a few sectors. Finance and insurance has the highest potential, with three-quarters of time spent on activities that can be done remotely without a loss of productivity. Management, business services, and information technology have the next highest potential, all with more than half of employee time spent on activities that could effectively be done remotely (Exhibit 2). These sectors are characterized by a high share of workers with college degrees or higher.

Remote work potential is higher in advanced economies

The potential for remote work varies across countries, a reflection of their sector, occupation, and activity mix. Business and financial services are a large share of the UK economy, for example, and it has the highest potential for remote work among the countries we examined. Its workforce could theoretically work remotely one-third of the time without a loss of productivity, or almost half the time but with diminished productivity. (Exhibit 3). Other advanced economies are not far behind; their workforces could dedicate 28 to 30 percent of the time to working remotely without losing productivity.

In emerging economies, employment is skewed toward occupations that require physical and manual activities in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. The potential for time spent on remote work drops to 12 to 26 percent in the emerging economies we assessed. In India, for instance, the workforce could spend just 12 percent of the time working remotely without losing effectiveness. Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

A hybrid model that combines some remote work with work in an office is possible for occupations with high remote work potential

For most workers, some activities during a typical day lend themselves to remote work, while the rest of their tasks require their on-site physical presence. In the US workforce, we find that just 22 percent of employees can work remotely between three and five days a week without affecting productivity, while only 5 percent could do so in India. In contrast, 61 percent of the workforce in the United States can work no more than a few hours a week remotely or not at all. The remaining 17 percent of the workforce could work remotely partially, between one and three days per week (Exhibit 4).

Consider a floral designer. We estimate that between half and one-quarter of his job can be done remotely. He can take orders by phone or online and contract for delivery through an app, but floral arrangement itself requires being in a shop where the flowers are stored in a refrigerated case and ribbons, moss, vases, and other materials used to create a floral design are at hand. To make a floral designer’s job more remote would require dividing his various tasks among all employees in a flower shop. In contrast, credit analysts, database administrators, and tax preparers, among others, can do virtually all of their work remotely. In general, workers whose jobs require cognitive thinking and problem solving, managing and developing people, and data processing have the greatest potential to work from home. These employees also tend to be among the highest paid.

The ability to work remotely also depends on the need to use specialized equipment. According to our analysis, a chemical technician could work remotely only a quarter of the time because much of her work must be done in a lab housing the equipment she needs. Among healthcare occupations, general practitioners who can use digital technologies to communicate with patients have a much greater potential for remote work than surgeons and x-ray technicians, who need advanced equipment and tools to do their work. Thus, among health professionals overall, the effective remote work potential is just 11 percent.

Even for the same activity, the context in which a job is done matters. Consider the activity “analyzing data or information,” which can be done remotely by a statistician or financial analyst but not by a surveyor. Crime scene analysts and workers who analyze consumer trends both engage in what O*NET describes as “getting, processing, analyzing, documenting and interpreting information,” but the former must go to the location of, say, a murder while the latter can do his work in front of a computer at home. A travel agent can calculate the cost of goods or services from a kitchen table, but a grocery clerk does that from behind a counter in a store.

And then there are jobs that require workers to be on-site or in person more than four days a week. Due to the physical nature of most of their work activities, occupations such as transportation, food services, property maintenance, and agriculture offer little or no opportunity for remote work. Building inspectors must go to a building or construction site. Nursing assistants must work in a healthcare facility. Many jobs declared essential by governments during the pandemic—nursing, building maintenance, and garbage collection, for example—fall into this category of jobs with low remote work potential.

This mixed pattern of remote and physical activities of each occupation helps explain the results of a recent McKinsey survey of 800 corporate executives  around the world. Across all sectors, 38 percent of respondents expect their remote employees to work two or more days a week away from the office after the pandemic, compared to 22 percent of respondents surveyed before the pandemic. But just 19 percent of respondents to the most recent survey said they expected employees to work three or more days remotely. This suggests that executives anticipate operating their businesses with a hybrid model  of some sort, with employees working remotely and from an office during the workweek. JPMorgan already has a plan for its 60,950 employees to work from home one or two weeks a month or two days a week, depending on the line of business.

Hybrid remote work has important implications for urban economies

Currently, only a small share of the workforce in advanced economies—typically between 5 and 7 percent—regularly works from home. A shift to 15 to 20 percent of workers spending more time at home and less in the office could have profound impacts on urban economies. More people working remotely means fewer people commuting between home and work every day or traveling to different locations for work. This could have significant economic consequences, including on transportation, gasoline and auto sales, restaurants and retail in urban centers, demand for office real estate, and other consumption patterns.

A McKinsey survey of office space managers conducted in May found that after the pandemic, they expect a 36 percent increase in worktime outside their offices, affecting main offices and satellite locations. This means companies will need less office space, and several are already planning to reduce real estate expenses. Moody’s Analytics predicts that the office vacancy rate in the United States will climb to 19.4 percent, compared to 16.8 percent at the end of 2019, and rise to 20.2 percent by the end of 2022. A survey of 248 US chief operating officers found that one-third plan to reduce office space in the coming years as leases expire.

The impact of that will reverberate through the restaurants and bars, shops, and services businesses that cater to office workers and will put a dent in some state and local tax revenues. For example, REI plans to sell off its new corporate headquarters before even moving in and instead begin operating from satellite offices. In contrast, Amazon recently signed leases for a total of 900,000 feet of office space in six cities around the United States, citing the lack of spontaneity in virtual teamwork.

As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history.

Nor is residential real estate immune from the impact of remote work. As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history. Conversely, bidding wars are breaking out in suburbs and smaller cities as remote workers seek less harried, less expensive lifestyles and homes with a room that can serve as an office or gym—though it is unclear how successful companies will be with workers scattered in far-flung locales.

Remote workers may also shift consumption patterns. Less money spent on transportation, lunch, and wardrobes suitable for the office may be shifted to other uses. Sales of home office equipment, digital tools, and enhanced connectivity gear have boomed.

Whether the shift to remote work translates into spreading prosperity to smaller cities remains to be seen. Previous MGI research in the United States and Europe has shown a trend toward greater geographic concentration of work  in megacities like London and New York and high-growth hubs, including Seattle and Amsterdam . These locales have attracted many of the same type of younger, highly educated workers who can best work remotely. It remains to be seen whether the shift to remote work slows that trend, or whether the most vibrant cities remain magnets for such people.

Organizations will have to adjust their practices to capture potential productivity gains from remote work

Is remote work good for productivity? Ultimately, the answer may determine its popularity, especially given the long period of waning labor productivity  that preceded the pandemic. So far, there is scant clarity—and widespread contradiction—about the productivity impact. Some 41 percent of employees who responded to a McKinsey consumer survey in May said they were more productive working remotely than in the office. As employees have gained experience working remotely during the pandemic, their confidence in their productivity has grown, with the number of people saying they worked more productively increasing by 45 percent from April to May.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers. Interviews with chief executives about remote work elicited a mixed range of opinions. Some express confidence that remote work can continue, while others say they see few positives to remote work.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers.

One impediment to productivity may be connectivity. A researcher at Stanford University found that only 65 percent of Americans surveyed said they had fast enough internet service to support viable video calls, and in many parts of the developing world, the connectivity infrastructure is sparse or nonexistent. Developing digital infrastructure will require significant public and private investment.

For women in particular, remote work is a mixed blessing. It boosts flexibility—not needing to be physically co-located with fellow workers enables independent work and more flexible hours—as well as productivity, with less time wasted commuting. Yet remote work also may increase gender disparity in the workplace, exacerbating the regressive effects of COVID-19. The female workforce in many economies is more highly concentrated in occupational clusters like healthcare, food services, and customer service that have relatively low potential for remote work. Previous MGI research on gender parity found that jobs held by women are 19 percent more at risk than jobs held by men simply because women are disproportionately represented in sectors most negatively affected by COVID-19.

Some forms of remote work are likely to persist long after COVID-19 is conquered. This will require many shifts, such as investment in digital infrastructure, freeing up office space, and the structural transformation of cities, food services, commercial real estate, and retail. It also risks accentuating inequalities and creating new psychological and emotional stresses among employees, including from isolation. For most companies, having employees work outside the office  will require reinventing many processes and policies. How long before someone invents the virtual watercooler?

The authors wish to thank Olivia Robinson, Gurneet Singh Dandona, and Alok Singh for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Stephanie Strom, a senior editor at the McKinsey Global Institute.

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Remote Teaching: A Student's Perspective

By a purdue student.

As many teachers are well aware, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 required sudden, drastic changes to course curricula. What they may not be aware of are all of the many ways in which this has affected and complicated students’ learning and their academic experiences. This essay, which is written by a student enrolled in several Spring and Summer 2020 remote courses at Purdue University, describes the firsthand experiences (and those of interviewed peers) of participating in remote courses. The aim of this essay is to make teachers aware of the unexpected challenges that remote learning can pose for students.

Emergency remote teaching differs from well-planned online learning

During the past semester, many students and faculty colloquially referred to their courses as “online classes.” While these courses were being taught online, it is nonetheless helpful to distinguish classes that were deliberately designed to be administered online from courses that suddenly shifted online due to an emergency. Perhaps the most significant difference is that students knowingly register for online courses, whereas the switch to remote teaching in spring 2020 was involuntary (though unavoidable). Additionally, online courses are designed in accordance with theoretical and practical standards for teaching in virtual contexts. By contrast, the short transition timeline for implementing online instruction in spring 2020 made applying these standards and preparing instructors next to impossible. As a result, logistical and technical problems were inevitable. I've listed a few of these below.

"...students knowingly register for online courses, whereas the switch to remote teaching in spring 2020 was involuntary..."

Observed Challenges

When teachers are forced to adjust on short notice, some course components may need to be sacrificed..

Two characteristics of high-quality online classes are that their learning outcomes mirror those of in-person classes and that significant time is devoted to course design prior to the beginning of the course. These characteristics ensure the quality of the student learning experience. However, as both students and faculty were given little chance to prepare for the move to remote teaching in spring 2020, adjustments to their learning outcomes were all but unavoidable. Instructors were required to move their courses to a remote teaching format in the span of little over a week during a time when they, like their students, would normally be on break. It was a monumental challenge and one that university faculty rose to meet spectacularly well. However, many components of courses that were originally designed to be taught in person could not be replicated in a remote learning context. Time for the development of contingency plans was limited, which posed additional challenges for the remainder of the semester.

Students' internet connections play a big role in their ability to participate.

At the start of the remote move, many instructors hoped to continue instruction synchronously, but this quickly became infeasible due to technological and logistical issues (e.g., internet bandwidth, student internet access, and time differences). A large number of my fellow students shared internet with other household members, who were also working remotely and were also reliant on conferencing software for meetings. The full-time job of a parent or sibling may be prioritized over a student’s lecture in limited-bandwidth situations. Worse, students in rural areas may simply not have a strong enough connection to participate in synchronous activities at all. These common realities suggest that less technologically reliant contingency plans are necessary and that course material should be made accessible in multiple formats. For example, in addition to offering a video recorded lecture, instructors could also consider providing notes for their lecture.

"These common realities suggest that less technologically reliant contingency plans are necessary and that course material should be made accessible in multiple formats."

It’s also important to design assignments carefully in online courses. For example, group projects, which can pose challenges even when courses are held in person (e.g., in terms of communication, coordination of responsibilities, and access to needed materials), can nevertheless offer students valuable opportunities for personal growth. However, these challenges only become more significant when group projects must be completed remotely. In these cases, access to secure internet and needed materials becomes critical to student success. Partnered students may be in different time zones or may even have been affected by COVID-19 in a way that hampers their ability to contribute to the project. Therefore, teachers may find it advisable to provide students with the option to complete work that would normally constitute group projects as individual assignments.

Teachers underestimate how much harder it is to focus in online courses.

When students no longer share a single learning environment, environmental diffferences can cause significant differences in their engagement. Students forced to use their home as a mixed work/academic space may encounter distractions that wouldn't be a factor in a traditional classroom. These distractions challenge students’ abilities to focus and self-regulate. The shift to remote leadning may also disrupt students’ academic routines. Experts in educational psychology and learning design and technology I spoke to for this piece argued that students’ abilities to handle this transition is partly age-dependent. Older students may not only have more familiarity with online classes, but also with the sort of self-regulation and planning that is required for academic success in the university. Thus, age and course level should be taken into consideration when devising ways to engage, challenge, and support students in remote learning contexts.

"...age and course level should be taken into consideration when devising ways to engage, challenge, and support students in remote learning contexts."

When students are new to taking classes online, explicit prompting from the instructor can be needed to replicate the missing human interactions that normally spur enagagement in the classroom. Thus, it is especially important that instructors closely monitor online learning spaces like discussion boards, looking for appropriate opportunities to chime in. An expert in learning design and technology I spoke to said that instructors should ideally be in touch with their students twice per week. They should frequently outline course expectations and maintain some availability to answer questions. This is especially true in instances where course expectations change due to the shift to online learning. This expert also noted that it is important that instructors provide timely feedback on assignments and assessments. This communicates to students where they stand in their courses and helps students adjust their study strategies as needed.

Students need opportunities to connect and collaborate.

One of the most special parts about being a student at Purdue University is being part of a single large learning community made up of a spectrum of smaller learning communities. At Purdue, students can form bonds with classmates, neighbors, and roommates with a diverse range of skills and interests. Through these friendships and connections, social networks develop, providing emotional and academic support for the many challenges that our rigorous coursework poses.

The closure of the university's physical classrooms created a barrier to the utilization and maintenance of these networks, and it is important that students still have access to one another even when at a distance. One way in which instructors can support their students in remote learning contexts is to create a student-only discussion board on their course page where students can get to know one another and connect. Students may also have questions related to course content that they may feel uncomfortable asking an instructor but that can be easily answered by a classmate.

Many students are dealing with a time change/difference.

For personal reasons, I finished the spring 2020 semester in Europe. Navigating the time difference while juggling the responsibilities of my job, which required synchronous work, and my coursework was challenging (to say the least). One of my courses had a large group project, which was a significant source of stress this past semester. My partner, like many of my instructors, did not seem to understand the significance of this time difference, which often required me to keep a schedule that made daily life in my time zone difficult. When having to make conference calls at 10:00 p.m. and respond to time-sensitive emails well after midnight, work-life balance is much more difficult to achieve. This was abundently clear to me after dealing with time difference of merely six hours. Keep in mind that some students may be dealing with even greater time differences. Thus, try to provide opportunities for asynchronous participation whenever you can.

"Navigating the time difference while juggling the responsibilities of my job, which required synchronous work, and my coursework was challenging (to say the least)"

While flexibility is necessary, academic integrity is still important.

Both teachers and students in my courses expressed discomfort and concern over issues relating to academic integrity. Some students questioned why lockdown browsers (i.e., special browsers used to prevent students from cheating during exams) were not used. According to a learning design and technology expert I spoke to, the short timeline for the transition to remote teaching and learning made the incorporation of such software infeasible. In addition this software can be incredibly expensive, and many professors do not even know that it exists (much less how to use it effectively).

However, several students I spoke with reported that, in their efforts to maintain academic integrity via exam monitoring, some of their professors mandated that students take exams synchronously. This decision disregarded the potential for technical issues and ignored the time differences many students faced, placing unfair stress on students in faraway countries and those with poor connections. Other faculty took an opposite approach by extending the window of time in which students could take exams. Receiving changing and often unclear instructions led to confusion about what students' instructors expected of them. Incorporating this software more consistently in online or remote courses may be a good way to ensure both students and teachers are familiar with it in the future.

The most difficult part of this pandemic has not been the coursework, nor the transition the remote learning, but instead the many unknowns that have faced students and teachers alike. We at Purdue are lucky that our education has been able to continue relatively unabated, and we can be grateful for that fact that most of our instructors have done their best to support us. This coming fall, nearly 500 courses will be offered as online courses, and many others will be presented in hybrid formats. With more time to prepare, courses this fall can be expected to be of higher quality and to have more student-centered contingency plans. As long as it strives for flexibility and gives consideration to students’ evolving needs, the Purdue educational experience will continue to earn its high-quality reputation.

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Challenges to Managing Virtual Teams and How to Overcome Them

Remote work allows companies to compete in an increasingly globalized society, so the real challenge becomes adapting to the new workplace.

Rebecca Bakken

In theory, virtual teams give employers the chance to build a dream team without boundaries. For employees, it offers the freedom and flexibility to attain a healthy work-life balance. In practice, things aren’t always so rosy.

Communication can get muddled if teams never meet face to face, trust and collaboration suffer when workers are siloed, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if employees are tasked with too little — or too much.

Despite these challenges, virtual teams are here to stay. Remote work allows companies to compete in an increasingly globalized society, so the real challenge becomes adapting to the new workplace. 

The Rise of Virtual Teams

Statistics show a steep increase in the number of remote workers in the United States, a trend that is only likely to continue. In 2017, for instance, more than 60 percent of companies offered ad-hoc telecommuting benefits, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2017 Employee Benefits Report . 

In 2019, that number increased to 69 percent, according to SHRM’s  2019 Employee Benefits Report . Plus, the on-demand economy has resulted in more freelancers and contractors in the workplace. According to the latest data from Upwork , 35 percent of the US workforce engaged in at least some freelance or contract work in 2019.

And remote work has been shown to both increase productivity and lower attrition, according to research from a Stanford professor . His study showed that employees working remotely found it easier to concentrate and were less likely to take sick days or prolonged breaks. In addition, employers saved an average of $2,000 per employee each year on real estate costs.  

Still, large companies like Yahoo and IBM have recently walked back their work-from-home policies. This belies the trends but underscores the problems some businesses have with remote teams.   

Research published in the Harvard Business Review states that remote employees are more likely to feel alienated or disconnected when compared to onsite employees. These communication issues become a problem for leaders. If you’re managing a group of employees, you also need to think about whether everyone is working toward the same goal and putting in their appropriate hours.

Rather than reverting back to the old ways of doing business, you can directly address the challenges of managing virtual teams. When you successfully identify and remedy remote workplace issues, you can build a strong, agile team that’s collaborative from all corners of the globe.

“Managing a virtual team requires managers to double down on the fundamentals of good management, including establishing clear goals, running great meetings, communicating clearly, and leveraging team members’ individual and collective strengths,” says Julie Wilson , founder of the Institute for Future Learning and instructor at Harvard University.

Wilson co-teaches Essential Management Skills for Emerging Leaders , along with a roster of other experts.

Let’s examine the top three problems leaders encounter with remote employees, and the solutions to solve them. We’ll discuss issues pertaining to communication, trust, and productivity.

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Challenge 1: Communication

Communication is key in any workplace — especially one where most interactions occur via email, chat, or calls. Ensuring a free flow of accurate information throughout your company’s structure means hiring the right people, fostering a communicative culture, and using the right tools for the job.

“Close attention to relationship-building and a process to ensure good communication is really important. When the group or the organization has a strong culture that supports collaboration, this can stand in for many of the detailed steps — it really helps,” said Jennifer Stine, former head of executive and professional education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Solution: Hire the Right People

The interview process is a great way to find out how well someone communicates. Your employees’ communication skills are a big factor in the success of virtual teams.

Accurately gauging communication skills in one interview is hard. So consider having several rounds of interviews via multiple mediums.

If the person will work remotely full time, it’s important to see how they communicate through writing and on calls. That said, face-to-face communication can be telling. Try to arrange an in-person interview, if possible.

Also, have several hands on deck when interviewing new candidates to get a range of opinions. This also gives candidates a glimpse into your company culture, helping them determine if it’s a good fit.

Solution: Foster a Culture of Communication

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to foster a culture of communication throughout the organization. Lead by example by giving regular updates and holding check-ins with your team. If your staff sees that you’re an effective communicator, they’ll follow suit by picking up your good habits.

Be explicit about how your staff should communicate. Remove the ambiguity that so often surrounds workplace communication by providing written guidelines that outline what kind of messages should be sent through which mediums, and how team members are expected to interact with each other.

This is especially important when you have a culturally diverse staff or members who are located in different time zones. Address any language or time barriers directly. And provide tips on how to effectively communicate in spite of them. (For instance, if not everyone is a native English speaker, you might suggest that employees avoid using slang or colloquialisms.)

If possible, make a point to get the whole team together in person once or twice a year. Meeting face-to-face as a group is an ideal way to team-build. It allows remote employees the chance to get to know each other beyond their job roles.

Solution: Choose the Best Tools

Technology is what makes virtual teams possible. Don’t shy away from the tools and software that can make your job easier. Below is a list of the types of tools that can facilitate communication in virtual teams, and some popular options* for you to consider:

• Chat: Slack , Twist , Google Hangouts
• Project management: Trello , Jira , Asana
• Web and video conferencing: Google Meet , Zoom , Cisco Webex
• Collaboration and prototyping: Invision , Marvel , Adobe XD
• Scheduling: Calendly , Doodle
• Workflow automation: Zapier , Microsoft Flow , Monday

Not every tool is going to be a good fit for your team. Consider trial periods or task someone with researching all the options to determine which suit your needs best. Provide training for your staff on the tools you select to ensure everyone is using them consistently and to the fullest benefit.

Developing communication strategies that resonate across your entire organization, including in-person and virtual teams, can be challenging. Some of our Professional & Executive Development programs are designed specifically to help leaders deliver clear, concise messaging to their teams.

Challenge 2: Trust

Trust is key in any relationship. When employees trust their managers and believe they’re working toward a shared vision, collaboration and engagement happen naturally. But it’s hard won in an environment where face-to-face interaction is a rarity. A shared mission, collaborative spirit, and strategic team building can help instill trust in remote and onsite workers alike.

Solution: Establish a Mission Statement

In a few sentences, document why your business is doing what it’s doing. Ideally, this should speak to the greater good of humanity, but obviously related to your industry somehow.

Nontraditional workers (especially millennials) value mission-driven organizations because they want to feel their time is being used for something worthwhile. State your mission clearly and embed it in everything you do. Demonstrate your dedication to the cause by donating to charity, holding volunteer days or incentives, or partnering with nonprofits that share your mission.

Solution: Encourage Collaboration and Team Building

Effective collaboration helps teams bond and builds trust as people get to know one another’s thought processes and working styles. When staff are able to build on each other’s ideas and play to their strengths, relationships flourish.

First, it helps to have clearly defined teams. This sets the expectation that people should be working collaboratively, even from a distance. It may seem like a no-brainer, but startups and small businesses sometimes undermine collaboration by failing to form teams within the company. This can lead to confusion and low cooperation among employees. Particularly with remote workers, it’s important for people to know where they belong and to whom they report.

Encourage teams to meet regularly via video conference, as these virtual face-to-face meetings can help build a sense of community and familiarity. As a manager, be sure to communicate your expectations for each team so they know they’re working toward a shared goal.

Solution: Establish a Shared Goal

What is your team’s overarching goal and how will it know when it has achieved it? You might have one goal, or you might have several. Regardless, it is vitally important that your team has a shared goal (or goals) and a common understanding of how progress will be measured.

These goals will likely be dictated by broader business goals, or it may be up to you and your team to establish your goals. This is a great opportunity to meet in person if at all possible, get to know each other better as colleagues, and work through a strategic planning process. If it’s not possible to meet in person, this work can be facilitated via video conference.

Challenge 3: Productivity

Low productivity is an obvious risk when employees work outside of a traditional office. In an environment without day-to-day oversight, some team members may not use their time wisely. On the other hand, certain employees risk burnout when working remotely due to a lack of boundaries.

Solution: Ensure Accountability

Without invading privacy, the best way to ensure everyone’s doing their job is to set clear expectations for each role and have regular check-ins to gauge progress. It’s unrealistic to expect everyone to work at the same pace, but you should have a general idea of how long tasks take and how much each person is accomplishing week by week, if not day by day.

You might also find it’s necessary to have team members track their hours using a tool like Harvest or Toggl *, particularly for those who do client work, because it gives you a clear sense of billable hours spent.

Even for those who don’t perform work for clients, tracking hours provides an unparalleled level of transparency. By seeing how long it takes to complete certain jobs, you are able to set baseline expectations that are useful for both current and future roles.

Solution: Form Supportive Structures

Be sure to pay attention to your best performers as much as you do the rest of your team. These may be the people at risk of overworking themselves. Without the clear boundaries that office life provides, the go-getters on your team may have workdays that never end, setting themselves up for exhaustion and resentment toward the company.

Encourage your staff to keep regular business hours and take advantage of their paid time off. Check in if you suspect someone is burning the midnight oil. Erratic or moody behavior, emails sent at odd times, and a drop in work quality are all signs that a remote worker needs to take a breather.

Conduct regular one-one-ones with each team member to not only hold them accountable for performance, but also to check in on workload and support needed.

Solution: Develop Processes

Many teams may find daily stand-ups — a.k.a. daily scrums or huddles — are essential to fostering productivity, transparency, and collaboration. Having an informal group check-in each day keeps the team on the same page and holds everyone accountable for their daily tasks and ongoing projects.

In addition to group check-ins, make it a rule for managers to set up one-to-one time with their direct reports every month or quarter. This takes the stress out of a sudden request for a meeting, and gives employees a designated time to talk about their progress or any issues they might be having at work.

Devising a Game Plan

“Managing a virtual team can be challenging, but addressing those challenges head-on is worth the effort,” said Julie Wilson.

When you overcome the challenges, you’ll enjoy the rewards of leading a cohesive virtual team — i.e. setting goals and reaching them; watching your team members develop and lean into their strengths; and benefiting from a healthy team dynamic that ensures the right decisions are made and implemented.

The challenges and solutions discussed in this post are complex, so approach any changes methodically and seek outside counsel if needed. 

*Disclaimer: Mentions of any proprietary tools or software are merely examples and do not constitute endorsements by Harvard University or any of its subsidiaries.

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Overcoming Remote Work Challenges

Decentralized teams face a number of challenges that can have damaging consequences if unaddressed — but they can be overcome..

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Remote work, once a rare and innovative strategy reserved for tech companies, is no longer a fringe business practice. The IWG 2019 Global Workspace Survey found that 3 out of 4 workers around the globe consider flexible working to be “the new normal.” This was before the coronavirus pandemic spurred even more organizations to implement remote work policies.

The remote work model offers many obvious advantages, from lower overhead and flexible schedules to reductions in employee commuting and increases in productivity along with lower attrition rates . It also brings obvious disadvantages, such as worker loneliness and burnout.

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However, decentralized teams also face other, often unacknowledged challenges that can have damaging consequences for an organization if they aren’t addressed: low-bandwidth communication, unnecessary meetings, and loss of passive knowledge sharing. Here’s how to overcome the three biggest challenges of remote work.

Challenge: Low-Bandwidth Communication

Face-to-face communication is considered high bandwidth because you can transmit and receive the greatest amount of information in a given time period. This is possible thanks to all the nonverbal cues and supplementary information those cues convey in a conversation. High-bandwidth communication results in more work getting done. For example, one study found that a face-to-face request is 34 times more successful than an email.

One of the biggest downsides of remote work, then, is the loss of face-to-face communication as companies turn more heavily toward low-bandwidth communication methods like email and chat. Although written communication can accomplish a lot, it falls short compared with the information exchange and personal connection of face-to-face conversations. Additionally, it is asynchronous, meaning conversations aren’t necessarily happening in real time. The real-time benefits of face-to-face interaction are lost in the delayed replies and other interruptions sprinkled in between.

To compensate, video meetings have become the standard alternative for business communication, Forbes Insights asserts. And while remote team members may sometimes be shy about turning on their cameras, the benefits of this high-bandwidth communication method can’t be ignored. Leaders should turn on their own cameras and encourage everyone else to do the same.

For remote teams working in different time zones, recorded video messages are also a powerful tool. These can be watched on demand, accommodating different schedules and replacing emails with a personal and effective messaging medium that is much higher bandwidth.

Challenge: Unnecessary Meetings

One common mistake leaders make when trying to increase face-to-face communication among remote team members is overcompensating by scheduling more meetings. In fact, a study from Owl Labs found that remote workers attend more meetings per week overall, with 14% of remote workers dedicating time to more than 10 meetings per week.

While meetings can bring a team together for knowledge sharing and decision-making, if the only purpose of a meeting is to clock some face-to-face time, it’s probably not worth having. Unnecessary meetings are frustrating and costly. Employee time is an organization’s most valuable resource, yet 71% of senior managers report that meetings are unproductive and inefficient , and subpar meetings cost companies around $37 billion in annual losses .

To stem the tide of remote work meetings, try adopting catchphrases like “No meetings without an agenda,” “No unnecessary meetings,” or, an old favorite, “Could this meeting have been an email?”

Leaders can also limit the number of internal meeting hours allotted per week, which makes meeting time more valuable and worth conserving. Attendees will likely be more engaged, alert, and motivated to use their precious time wisely.

Lastly, keep in mind that regular, scheduled meetings often result in remote team members waiting until the next meeting to bring up a problem or question. Unlike in a typical office setting, where someone might ask a colleague at the next desk for ad hoc input on ideas and observations, between-meeting lags can gum up processes and makes businesses less efficient.

Ditch unnecessary scheduled meetings and encourage ad hoc conversations — quick video calls or chats — to work through issues as they come up. Make it clear that during work hours, team members are free to reach out to one another for real-time conversation.

Challenge: Loss of Passive Knowledge Sharing

Finally, remote work generally threatens the informal information sharing and open communication lines facilitated by shared physical spaces. Often, sharing experiences in the kitchen during lunch or overhearing conversations with customers reveals a new possible approach or inspires ideas. With remote work, these serendipitous opportunities disappear.

Informal information sharing like this is tricky, but not impossible, to replicate remotely. Set aside the perception that informal conversations are tangential, nonessential, or unrelated to the organization’s goals. Every thought and interaction may not warrant a text, but do encourage team members to include nice-to know information when sending need-to-know communication. Think of it as a recommended “P.S.” on emails and other messages.

Teams can also benefit from virtual gatherings and chats with no formal conversational structure or agenda. Think “watercooler chat room,” where team members can engage in non-work-related conversation as they would at the office. These unstructured conversations can reveal experiences and ideas that otherwise would have remained unexpressed — and keep team members connected on a personal level.

There is great value in knowing how team members think, what they’re working on, and what their challenges are. Facilitate informal conversations to open that portal and get a glimpse inside.

Related Articles

Staying connected with remote work.

Without the right approach, high-quality communication on remote teams can be hard to achieve. As team members operate from physically distanced desks and possibly even in different time zones, opportunities for disconnect abound.

To bridge the gap, organization leaders need to take an intentional approach. Substituting face-to-face interaction with video chats and recordings, encouraging communication outside of meetings, and allowing for informal conversation can all help unite a team and improve operations. With leaders’ willingness to replicate underappreciated, everyday office practices, it is possible to reclaim the ingenuity and motivation of the pre-remote-work world.

About the Author

Josh Lowy ( @joshlowy ) is cofounder and CEO of Hugo , maker of collaborative meeting-note software.

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125 Remote Work Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Remote work has become increasingly popular in recent years, with more and more companies offering flexible work arrangements for their employees. As a result, many individuals are now able to work from the comfort of their own homes, or from any location of their choosing. This shift towards remote work has sparked a growing interest in the topic, leading to a wealth of research and discussion on the subject.

If you're a student or professional looking to explore the concept of remote work further, you may be considering writing an essay on the topic. To help get you started, we've compiled a list of 125 remote work essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your writing:

• The benefits and challenges of remote work
• The impact of remote work on work-life balance
• The future of remote work post-pandemic
• The role of technology in enabling remote work
• The psychological effects of remote work on employees
• The effects of remote work on company culture
• Remote work vs. traditional office work: a comparison
• The gig economy and remote work
• The pros and cons of working remotely as a freelancer
• Remote work and mental health: exploring the link
• Remote work and productivity: does it really work?
• The impact of remote work on employee engagement
• Remote work and the environment: a sustainable option?
• The legal implications of remote work for employers
• Remote work and job satisfaction: are remote workers happier?
• The challenges of managing remote teams
• Remote work and diversity and inclusion initiatives
• The impact of remote work on career advancement
• Remote work and the future of urbanization
• The social implications of remote work for society
• The effects of remote work on creativity and innovation
• Remote work and the gig economy: the rise of freelancing
• The impact of remote work on employee turnover
• Remote work and the digital nomad lifestyle
• The role of communication in successful remote work
• The effects of remote work on employee well-being
• Remote work and the future of workspaces
• The impact of remote work on team collaboration
• Remote work and the gig economy: a match made in heaven?
• The challenges of remote work for introverted employees
• Remote work and the future of work-life balance
• The impact of remote work on employee motivation
• Remote work and the rise of the virtual office
• The effects of remote work on employee creativity
• Remote work and the future of organizational structure
• The impact of remote work on employee engagement and retention
• Remote work and the future of office design
• The challenges of managing remote employees
• Remote work and the future of team dynamics
• The impact of remote work on employee autonomy
• Remote work and the future of employee benefits
• The effects of remote work on employee performance
• Remote work and the future of employee recognition
• The challenges of remote work for extroverted employees
• Remote work and the future of employee training and development
• The impact of remote work on employee satisfaction
• Remote work and the future of work-life integration
• The effects of remote work on employee stress levels
• Remote work and the future of flexible work arrangements
• The challenges of remote work for employees with disabilities
• Remote work and the future of remote team building
• The impact of remote work on employee burnout
• Remote work and the future of remote work policies
• The effects of remote work on employee creativity and innovation
• Remote work and the future of remote work technology
• The challenges of remote work for employees with children
• Remote work and the future of remote work culture
• The impact of remote work on employee performance and productivity
• Remote work and the future of remote work security
• The effects of remote work on employee communication and collaboration
• Remote work and the future of remote work tools
• The challenges of remote work for employees with mental health issues
• Remote work and the future of remote work trends
• The impact of remote work on employee health and well-being
• Remote work and the future of remote work training
• The effects of remote work on employee engagement and satisfaction
• Remote work and the future of remote work benefits
• The challenges of remote work for employees with chronic illnesses
• Remote work and the future of remote work performance
• The impact of remote work on employee happiness and fulfillment
• Remote work and the future of remote work management
• The effects of remote work on employee motivation and morale
• Remote work and the future of remote work communication
• The challenges of remote work for employees with caregiving responsibilities
• Remote work and the future of remote work collaboration
• The impact of remote work on employee autonomy and independence
• Remote work and the future of remote work flexibility
• The effects of remote work on employee performance and productivity
• Remote work and the future of remote work efficiency
• The challenges of remote work for employees with social anxiety
• Remote work and the future of remote work innovation
• The impact of remote work on employee engagement and commitment
• Remote work and the future of remote work sustainability
• The effects of remote work on employee communication and teamwork
• Remote work and the future of remote work culture and values
• The challenges of remote work for employees with communication barriers
• Remote work and the future of remote work benefits and perks
• The impact of remote work on employee satisfaction and well-being
• Remote work and the future of remote work technology and tools
• The effects of remote work on employee motivation and job satisfaction
• Remote work and the future of remote work training and development
• The challenges of remote work for employees with physical disabilities
• Remote work and the future of remote work policies and procedures
• Remote work and the future of remote work security and privacy
• Remote work and the future of remote work trends and predictions
• Remote work and the future of remote work benefits and incentives
• The impact of remote work on employee engagement and satisfaction
• Remote work and the future of remote work management and leadership
• Remote work and the future of remote work communication and connectivity
• Remote work and the future of remote work collaboration and teamwork
• Remote work and the future of remote work flexibility and adaptability
• Remote work and the future of remote work efficiency and effectiveness
• The challenges of remote work for employees with social anxiety and introversion
• Remote work and the future of remote work innovation and creativity
• Remote work and the future of remote work sustainability and environmental impact
• The challenges of remote work for employees with communication barriers and language differences
• The challenges of remote work for employees with physical disabilities and health conditions

These essay topics cover a wide range of aspects related to remote work, offering plenty of opportunities for exploration and analysis. Whether you're interested in the psychological effects of remote work on employees, the impact of technology on remote work, or the future trends and predictions in the remote work landscape, there's sure to be a topic on this list that piques your interest.

As you delve into your research and writing, be sure to consider the latest research, trends, and best practices in the field of remote work. By staying informed and engaged with the topic, you'll be well-equipped to produce a compelling and insightful essay on remote work that sheds light on this increasingly important aspect of the modern work environment.

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Remote Working and Work Effectiveness: A Leader Perspective

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Currently, job duties are massively transferred from in-person to remote working. Existing knowledge on remote working is mainly based on employees’ assessment. However, the manager’s perspective is crucial in organizations that turned into remote work for the first time facing sudden circumstances, i.e., SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The main aim of our study was to analyze remote work effectiveness perceived by managers (N = 141) referring to three crucial aspects, i.e., manager, team, and external cooperation. We assumed the perceived benefits, limitations, and online working frequency as predictors of remote work effectiveness. Further, we analyzed the possible differences in remote work perception referring to different management levels (i.e., middle-level and lower-level). Our findings revealed a significant relationship between the benefits and effectiveness of managers and external cooperation, specifically among lower-level managers. Limitations, particularly technical and communication issues, predicted team and external cooperation effectiveness. The results showed remote work assessment as being socially diverse at the management level.

1. Introduction

Currently, remote work has become a crucial organizational tool that enables effective performance in the increasingly competitive global market. Although working outside of the office has already been available, this form of performing job duties seems mainstream in modern organizations. Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, 14.2% of employees in Poland changed their current way of performing professional duties to a remote mode. Almost every sixth employee in the public sector and every twelfth in the private sector worked remotely [ 1 ]. 85.6% worked remotely for five days a week, and 64% were likely to perform their professional duties remotely even after returning to the work office, especially since 44% of employees declared that their efficiency at home did not decrease [ 2 ]. Half of them indicated that sufficient work outside of the office was performed mainly for two days, and every seventh employee pointed out three remote working days.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have been conducted on various aspects of remote working from the employees’ perspectives [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Generally, employees find working from home productive, albeit managers are often concerned about maintaining job performance at least on the same level as office work [ 8 , 9 ]. Thus, it seems crucial to look at how managers at different levels of management perceive the introduction of remote working on an unprecedented scale since they are responsible for organizing and controlling the employees’ work [ 10 ]. We decided to use managerial perception as previous research has proved the usefulness of subjective performance measures and their similarity with objective internal performance [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. This study aimed to determine how managers rated the effectiveness of their own work and how they assessed the effectiveness of their team and external collaboration while performing their job duties remotely.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Managers’ effectiveness has been defined as the impact of managers on the fluent functioning of an organization [ 14 ]. They can manage effective performance by using optimal acquisition and utilization of internal and external resources, i.e., human, financial, and instrumental resources. Since the managerial role is crucial in obtaining effective workflow and outcomes, this study was focused on managers’ perspectives.

Managers have different needs depending on their status [ 15 ]. Most often, the structure of managers in an organization consists of three levels [ 16 , 17 ]. The first one is top management which assumes top managers with most power, authority, and responsibility. The managers at this level define the company’s strategy, vision, and mission. They represent the company externally and visualize and define the company’s future. Top management is also responsible for dealing with the groups or individuals who may have different interests or intentions that do not have to align with the company’s interests. Their role is to unite or convince them that the interest of the organization stands above everything and is not in conflict with their actions [ 18 ]. The second level, namely middle management, is the one that sets the goals to achieve the organization’s strategy. Middle managers are tasked with communicating and implementing the plan received from top management [ 19 ]. They indicate organizational roles, and they work mainly with the low management. Thus, they rarely have contact with first-line workers. [ 20 ]. At the lowest level of the managerial hierarchy, lower-level managers usually have the most direct and frequent contact with front-line employees. As a result, low managers can significantly impact work effectiveness [ 21 ] since they operate and plan in the short term. They usually do not have the power to implement their own initiatives that can change the strategic goals [ 19 , 22 ]. Nevertheless, to ensure the stable functioning of the organization in unstable circumstances (e.g., at the time of the pandemic), they play a crucial role as first-line leaders. Therefore, the main objective of our study was the assessment of how managers with direct contact with subordinates (i.e., low- and middle-level managers) perceived work effectiveness.

The environment in which an organization finds itself is volatile, and managers at all levels should be open to change. Increased performance and job satisfaction from the perspective of individual employees are reported in trade journals [ 23 ] and academic sources [ 24 ]. However, the relationship between remote working and performance has not been well established from the managers’ perspective [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 25 , 26 ]. Virtual working, including working from home, comprises different benefits, e.g., saving time and other expenses, integrating the work of specialized employees, and expanding external co-operation. There is abundant research on the benefits and limitations of remote working [ 27 ]. The most common benefits include no commuting, reduced distraction, work–life balance and increased work flexibility, creativity, and motivation [ 28 , 29 ]. In addition, many studies have shown increased productivity [ 30 , 31 ]. Research indicates that proximity to co-workers often leads to wasted time and decreased productivity. The increased efficiency of employees in remote working is due to the lack of distractions present in the office [ 32 ]. On the other hand, employees indicate that the most significant disadvantage of remote work is the lack of non-work-related contacts [ 33 ], even though they can contact others via information and communication technologies (ICTs) [ 34 ]. Although Gibbs, Mengel, and Siemroth [ 27 ] emphasized that productivity depended on the worker’s characteristics, and measured employee productivity, the employees were able to maintain similar or slightly lower levels of output during work from home. Besides its positive aspects [ 30 , 35 ], existing research indicated a number of challenges generated by remote work, such as work–home interference, ineffective communication, procrastination, and loneliness.

As mentioned above, there are many advantages of remote forms of performing job duties, and several limitations that result in work outcomes and collaboration [ 31 ]. The responsibility of managing the remote work of employees rests with managers, particularly first-line managers and team leaders. Therefore, we assumed that the perceived effectiveness of remote work was connected with the experienced benefits and limitations ( cf. Hypothesis 1). Moreover, different management levels, i.e., middle- and lower-level managers, might perceive remote work differently ( cf. Hypothesis 2).

The perceived benefits, limitations, and frequency of remote work are related to the remote work effectiveness perceived by lower-level and middle-level managers.

The perceived remote working conditions differ between lower-level and middle-level managers.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. participants and procedure.

To evaluate the effectiveness of remote work, we recruited employees from one of the largest enterprises in Poland. The companies that provided data belong to one of Poland’s largest capital groups in the energy sector. The survey covered the executive staff of three companies employing 234 middle- and lower-level managers (68 women and 166 men). A total of 29% were middle-level managers. The survey mainly addressed managers who had worked remotely/hybrid since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two of the three companies surveyed previously could use remote working, but no more than two days per month. One company did not have remote working in operation. A vast majority of the managers were college-educated employees. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, all companies included in the survey had started remote working with the possibility of hybrid working. In the interests of employees, it was recommended that all individuals who were able to perform their duties (i.e., had the appropriate equipment) and agreed to work remotely took advantage of this opportunity.

We focused explicitly on the management staff during recruitment, i.e., department executives. Overall, the sample comprised 141 participants, including 18.7% middle management and 81.3% lower management. A total of 71% of participants were male, which reflects a male predominance in the real structure of the labor market and the share of males in the total number of employed managers in Poland [ 36 ]. All respondents were highly skilled and educated, mainly in the engineering field.

This cross-sectional study was based on anonymized employee data selected from the organizational resources. No person-related data were collected to ensure the anonymity of the study. The respondents received a link that directed them to the survey located on the company intranet. Participation was voluntary and free of charge. The participants were informed of the voluntary nature of participation in the study and the anonymity of data collection, i.e., their data would be analyzed collectively, and no personal information would be shared. They were assured that there were no wrong answers and that all of their opinions were important. Prior to participation, the respondents provided oral consent to participate in the study and were informed about the possibility of withdrawing from the study. All employees were aged 18 or older and completed their duties remotely from home.

2.2. Measures

Work effectiveness was assessed with three items related to different remote work effectiveness dimensions, i.e., the respondents were asked to assess the effectiveness of their own work, of the team, and of the co-operation with other business areas. All items required the participants to rate the extent to which they perceived work effectiveness (sample question: “Taking everything into consideration, how do you rate your work effectiveness as a whole?”) in all dimensions using a 5-point scale from 1 (ineffective) to 5 (very effective). Each dimension contained one-item measures. Using single-item measures is effective and more favorable in some respects than using multiple-item measures [ 37 ]; e.g., single-item measures are easier to understand by management, are completed more quickly, and require less effort. Higher scores indicated a higher level of perceived effectiveness in each dimension. The reliability of the scale comprising all three items in the current study was considered good, with Cronbach’s α = 0.8.

Benefits were measured using the one-item scale to assess perceived advantages of remote work with multiple-choice answers (sample categories: possibility to gain technical skills, on-task concentration, organized home life, and work economy). The list of chosen benefits was evaluated in terms of subjective fulfillment of criteria for remote working benefits by using competent judges. Benefits were defined as positive aspects, advantages, or profits gained from remote work. We asked five professionals, who were psychologists and managers, to evaluate the set of benefits on a 5-point scale (1 = does not refer to the dimension; 5 = fully refers to the dimension) and inspected the judges’ congruency concerning individual ratings (congruency index = 0.95). The ten benefits of remote work were positively verified by all five judges and were included in the study. The respondents reported the perceived benefits by checking them on a prepared list. The sum of selected benefits indicated the level of perceived benefits gained from remote work. In other words, a higher score indicated a larger number of benefits of remote work.

Limitations were measured with multiple-choice answers using a three-item scale assessing three dimensions of perceived disadvantages of remote work (i.e., organizational, technical, and social limitations). Limitations were defined as work aspects that limit the quality or achievement during remote work. The given limitations were verified by competent judges (congruency index = 0.93) and were introduced to the study. The overall-limitations measure was obtained by summing reported limitations from the possible ten statements which tap the various remote job facet (e.g., organizational, technical, and social issues). Higher scores indicated a higher level of limitations of remote work. The reliability of the scale comprising all three items in the current study was satisfying, Cronbach’s α = 0.7.

The respondents indicated the number of days of remote work per week to gain satisfactory team effectiveness, and the number of days of remote work per week to gain satisfactory management effectiveness. They rated on a scale between one to five working days.

Table 1 displays means, standard deviations, and correlations for the study variables.

Means ( M) , standard deviations ( SD ), and correlations between study variables.

Notes. Limit_org—limitations in the organizational dimension; Limit_tech—limitations in the technical dimension; Limit_soc—limitations in the social dimension; Online_leader—number of days of remote work to maintain high management effectiveness (per week); Online_team—number of days of remote work to maintain high team effectiveness (per week); Effect_leader—leader effectiveness; Effect_team—team effectiveness; Effect_co—external co-operation effectiveness; a Position is dummy-coded (1 = middle-level manager, 0 = lower-level manager); * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

The management position (i.e., lower-level and middle-level management) was negatively related to the perceived benefits ( p ≤ 0.05) and work effectiveness ( p ≤ 0.05), and positively associated with social limitations ( p ≤ 0.05).

In the first step, a regression analytical procedure was conducted to test the interaction between remote work conditions, i.e., benefits, limitations, online working frequency, and remote work effectiveness ( cf. , hypothesis 1). The regression model explained 37% of the variance in managers’ effectiveness (F(2, 134) = 17.94, p < 0.001), 31% of the variance in team effectiveness (F(2, 134) = 15.89, p < 0.001), and 37% of the variance in external co-operation efficacy (F(2, 134) = 13.45, p < 0.001). The managers’ position was dummy-coded and contrasted with “lower-level managers” and “middle-level managers”. The results are given in Table 2 .

Hierarchical linear regression of three aspects of remote work effectiveness.

Notes. Limit_org—limitations in the organizational dimension; Limit_tech—limitations in the technical dimension; Limit_soc—limitations in the social dimension; Online_leader—number of days of remote work to maintain high management effectiveness (per week); Online_team—number of days of remote work to maintain high team effectiveness (per week); a Position is dummy-coded (1 = middle-level manager, 0 = middle-level manager); * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

Table 2 shows the regression analysis of the relationship between dependent variables, i.e., manager effectiveness, team effectiveness, co-operation effectiveness, and predictors. Leader effectiveness was negatively related to a managerial position. The managers’ position was dummy-coded (0 = lower-level management; 1 = middle-level management). As shown in Table 2 , middle-level managers perceived the effectiveness of their work as lower ( β = −0.15, p < 0.05). Positive relationships were observed between the perceived benefits of remote work ( β = 0.14; p < 0.05), online working days ( β = 0.34; p < 0.01), and managers’ effectiveness. The same regression analyses were conducted for team effectiveness and relations with the external environment. Team effectiveness perceived by managers was negatively related to the experienced technological limits during remote working ( β = −0.20; p < 0.05) and positively related to the number of online working days ( β = 0.33; p < 0.05). The results showed that co-operation effectiveness was negatively related to the perceived technological limitations ( β = −0.18, p < 0.01), positively associated with the perceived benefits ( β = 0.22, p < 0.01), and positively associated with the frequency of remote work of managers ( β = 0.09, p < 0.05) and the team ( β = 0.32, p < 0.05).

Secondly, we assessed the significance of mean differences in remote work conditions perceived by lower-level and middle-level managers ( cf. hypothesis 2). The scores were normalized to a 0 to 1 range. We applied a Mann-Whitney U test that showed significant differences in the level of the perceived benefits of remote work between these groups (U = 642.50, p = 0.04). Middle-level managers perceived lower benefits ( M = 0.29) compared to lower-level managers ( M = 0.38). Analyzing the online work limitations, we found significant differences in the level of social limits (U = 1138, p = 0.02) and work effectiveness, (U = 519, p = 0.02) between the groups. Middle-level managers reported a higher level of social limits ( M = 0.30) compared to the lower-level managers ( M = 0.22). However, lower-level managers assumed themselves as more effective ( M = 4.37) compared to middle-level managers ( M = 3.95).

Based on the Mann-Whitney U test results, Figure 1 and Figure 2 present the benefits and limitations perceived by the analyzed groups in more detail. The p -value demonstrates significant means differences between the low- and middle-level management.

Remote work benefits perceived by lower- and middle-level managers. Notes. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01.

Remote work limitations, perceived by lower- and middle-level managers. Notes. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001; + p < 0.10.

We further tested the relation between the specified benefits (i.e., on-task concentration), limitations (i.e., lack of rules, decreased work productivity, poor communication), and perceived work effectiveness that significantly differentiated managers on different management levels. A Mann-Whitney U test showed that the communication issue and perceived own work effectiveness revealed a differential pattern (U = 1993.50, p = 0.02). In other words, managers who reported poorer communication as a limitation of remote working had a lower level of the perceived own work effectiveness than those who indicated no communication issues. A significant difference was observed in work effectiveness referring to perceived productivity (U = 1882.50, p = 0.001). A lower level of managers’ effectiveness was shown in managers who experienced lower productivity.

Although the lack of rules did not significantly differentiate own work effectiveness, the perceived effectiveness of co-operation with the environment was significantly different for managers who “suffered” more from a lack of rules than those who did not complain (U = 1099, p = 0.03).

On-task concentration reported by managers was significant in differentiating their work effectiveness (U = 1475, p = 0.001) indicating that managers who reported on-task concentration as a remote work benefit perceived better work effectiveness.

4. Discussion

The COVID-19 virus outbreak has made many people work from home on an unprecedented scale, especially in business sectors where employees had not had an opportunity to work remotely before. Consequently, we argued the necessity of conducting research to confirm the effectiveness of remote work in this unique context, particularly from the managers’ perspective.

First, we examined the role of the perceived benefits, limitations, and online working frequency in maintaining high work effectiveness in three dimensions (i.e., manager, team, and external collaboration levels). Our findings showed benefits as significant predictors of perceived manager and co-operation effectiveness. The more benefits managers reported, the more effective they felt at work. Therefore, activating the available strengths of remote work empowers organizational resources and work effectiveness. Available communication devices allow quicker performance of the tasks e.g., organizing and attending work meetings online is faster and easier compared to organizing face-to-face contacts [ 38 ]. This relationship mainly concerns lower-level managers. From the managers’ perspective, the benefits were not as important in predicting the team’s effectiveness. The results indicated significant relationships between technical limitations and effective remote work in team and external collaboration. Technical issues were perceived as lowering work effectiveness, independently of the manager’s management level (i.e., middle-level and lower-level).

Further analysis demonstrated the differences in the perception of work effectiveness among managers at different levels of management (i.e., lower-level and middle-level management). In the context of remote working introduced on such a large scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, our findings highlight that, on the one hand, increased effectiveness and perceived benefits can be observed. On the other hand, they are not at the same level depending on the management role connected with social interactions.

Our findings offer managers a new lens to view the advantages/disadvantages of working from home. Generally, employees’ lack of social interactions is perceived as a disadvantage [ 34 ]. Nevertheless, this study proposes an alternative view of telecommuting that can boost performance as a result of improving technical support and minimalizing unnecessary distractions. Although, Allen, Golden, and Shockley [ 9 ] emphasized that social relationships at work can suffer as a result of excessive remote work, and care should be taken to properly manage the negative effects of weakened relationships between employees. We cannot lead to workplace loneliness which can result in lower job performance [ 39 ] as a result of informal interactions and a team cohesion decrease [ 7 ]. The results showed that the possibility of concentration on the task was evaluated higher by lower-level managers. Work that requires more on-task concentration and problem-solving is done more preferably at home, with significantly fewer distractions [ 29 , 40 ]. As mentioned before, lower-level managers have more frequent contact with employees than higher-level managers, and recent research suggests that calls between remote workers are more task-focused and less distracted [ 32 , 34 ]. Consequently, referring to perceived remote work limitations, organizational issues (e.g., lack of rules), and social issues (i.e., lower productivity and ineffective communication with employees) significantly differentiated the managers at different managerial levels. The middle-level managers suffered more from the specific remote work limitations.

By identifying differences in the managerial levels in the perceived benefits and limitations, our findings shed light on a specific explanation as to why remote working is perceived more favorably by lower-level managers. Therefore, our empirical studies on how social implications of remote working can affect work effectiveness [ 32 ] indicated that a lack of distractions can increase workers’ effectiveness while working from home. We do not argue that the effectiveness of the remote mode is only due to employees’ lack of distraction in the home office. The perceived benefits and technological issues are also related to work effectiveness. An understanding of how managers perceive remote work and its effectiveness at different managerial levels and the discrepancy in the perception of benefits and limitations is crucial for understanding remote work effectiveness, especially since remote working offers indisputable convenience, which will contribute to its expansiveness in the organizational setting compared to the pre-COVID-19 level.

4.1. Limitations and Direction for Further Research

Despite the contributions we make, this study is not without limitations. First, our research did not explore the employees’ perspective or objective internal performance or work characteristics. Nonetheless, the managerial perspective is relatively rarely analyzed. Future research could explore how employee attributes and other factors such as personality or stress may shape the effectiveness of working online. Second, the sample size was comparatively small, with a male predominance, which limits the generalizability of the findings and the opportunity to explore other moderating mechanisms. Nevertheless, the sample provided sufficient statistical power to test the hypothesized relations. Next, our study was designed as cross-sectional. Considering the specificity of the sample and contextual conditions (i.e., pandemic), the cross-sectional design seemed reasonable and indicated the most significant relations. Finally, we used self-reported measures that are often the only possible way to examine one’s own perspective, such as self-perceived effectiveness in a specific context [ 34 ]. Nonetheless, there is still the need to use objective methods and include the employees’ perspective in the study. Using objective information (e.g., Key Performance Indicators or Return on Investment) could help solve this potential bias in the data in a future study.

Remote working in Poland is relatively new and introducing it on a such significant scale might provide unique experiences. Little is known about both direct and ripple effects that can bring us a widespread shift to remote work. Additionally, it would be useful to analyze the further relationship between social interactions and effectiveness by using objective measures. Further research requires more information concerning working online from a leader’s perspective. Longitudinal research would be necessary to demonstrate the development and changes of home office effects. Although the consideration of a leader’s perspective has given us new insights, avoiding a biased managerial perception of remote working as less effective is helpful. A more specific analysis of job characteristics and effectiveness can reveal conditions that are advantageous for employers and employees. Further interaction effects between remote work and HRM policies, as well as between social interactions, should be studied.

This study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time. In order to rule out the impact of pandemic stress and its effect on effectiveness, it is necessary to repeat the study after the epidemiological threat has ceased. If home-office information on a management level is available, and if a comparison during and after the coronavirus crisis is possible, we can learn whether COVID-19 has contributed to a substantial structural change.

Other constraints that can affect leaders and managers are those that also can be connected with the issues that are familiar from the perspective of employees. One such constraint, for instance, might be the low turnover and the intensity of hiring, which was limited. In the case of employees, a decline in efficiency can be observed, which could be partly traced to having less experience, lower tenure, or being in the process of onboarding [ 27 ].

4.2. Practical Implications

This study provides meaningful implications for practitioners. First, our research suggests that effectiveness can be increased by managing remote work effectively and implementing HR policies to strengthen the benefits of remote work and minimalize shortcomings, mainly in technical dimensions (e.g., poor quality of internet connections, multiple communication channels), while organizations can set hybrid working from home and observe changes in the managerial perception. However, organizations may influence the supportive practices that come to managers of all levels. Employers can offer training on improving their managing skills in remote environments. Some researchers suggest that consideration should be given to the individual adjustment of work conditions (e.g., less disciplined employees might experience more challenges during remote working). Therefore, offering them online work would be unsuccessful [ 34 ].

Researchers emphasize the great role of managers and leaders in practicing working from home. They are ought to provide adequate support in response to the needs of employees with different challenges [ 7 , 34 ]. Otherwise, remote working might turn out to be ineffective causing problems such as a longer time spent on projects, difficulties with training, onboarding issues, etc. We can observe that, from a management point of view, working from home reached the highest level of productivity in COVID-19 and stabilized, but this situation might not be sustainable [ 40 ].

The main concern, from a managerial perspective, often suggested about working from home is a decrease in effectiveness [ 8 ]. Thus, it can have a negative effect on how they operate at different levels of management. This study contributes to clarifying this issue and gaining a better understanding of the sources of perceived effectiveness from the perspective of managers and leaders. It can have a positive impact on the level of employees’ commitment and dedication to their companies, resulting in higher effectiveness [ 8 ].

Without a doubt, remote work has become an inherent work system, and the challenge today is to maintain or indicate maximum efficiency. Undoubtedly, the best solution is to introduce hybrid work and combine remote work with office work [ 23 ]. It is necessary to take a closer look at the characteristics of the job in question and put in place solutions to perform tasks at their best, depending on whether it is more efficient to do them at home or in the office. So far, we know that some work is done effectively at home, while other work is better done at the office.

5. Conclusions

This study contributes to understanding how remote working influences effectiveness from the managers’ perspective. While previous research has recognized that working online may be more effective, the role of managers has received less attention, both theoretically and empirically. Generally, managers view remote working as resulting in decreased performance and lower managerial control [ 8 ]. Our study suggests that the more benefits managers perceive, the more effective their work is assessed in different dimensions (i.e., manager, team, external co-operation). Moreover, the results indicated the difference in remote work perception depending on the management level (i.e., lower-level and middle-level management). Managers who have more contact with employees are more aware of the benefits of working remotely. Accordingly, the perceived benefits are related to a higher level of reported work effectiveness.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, G.K. and K.Ś.; Formal analysis, K.Ś.; Investigation, G.K.; Methodology, G.K. and K.Ś.; Project administration, G.K.; Resources, G.K. and K.Ś.; Software, G.K.; Supervision, K.Ś.; Visualization, G.K. and K.Ś.; Writing–original draft, G.K. and K.Ś.; Writing–review and editing, K.Ś. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The current study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee, decision no. KEUS.67/11.2020.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Remote vs In-person Classes: Positive and Negative Aspects Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Positive aspects of remote classes, negative aspects of remote classes, a mix of remote and in-person classes.

Educators and learners approach the new normal of remote learning with concern or enthusiasm, optimistically or skeptically. While each of them might have genuine concerns, it is essential to open-mindedly understand the advantages and disadvantages online learning creates for both learners and teachers. There are always pros and cons for every good or bad idea, and remote classes are no different. Students, instructors, and all stakeholders in the American education sector must weigh the pros against the cons of developing a resilient model for today’s learning environment.

Remote classes allow students to access learning materials at any time, from wherever they are, and at their speed. Such access creates high levels of convenience and efficiency in place and time, enabling learners to study at the best pace and style. Online class discussion forums support high-quality conversations and are student-centered (Criollo-C et al., 2018). The asynchronous nature of discussion forums gives learners time to understand and reflect on posts from their instructor or fellow students before offering their comments or feedback. Traditional in-person classes require learners to respond on the spot, which gives them limited time for the articulation of ideas and forethought.

Educators reap the benefits of remote classes through higher creativity in content delivery and learners’ engagement. Instructors have to match their lesson delivery to the self-directed and self-autonomous nature of online classes, which include interactive environments (Mukhtar et al., 2020). Unlike in-person classes, remote classrooms require educators to upgrade their instruction styles, and course objectives, and create new content suitable for the online learning environment (Mukhtar et al., 2020). For example, while in-person classes do not require video lessons, some concepts must be demonstrated in videos for online learners. Traditionally, in-person presentations could not be repeated in front of learners but now students can watch the uploaded video as many times as necessary to understand a concept.

Limitations around technology, accessibility, and equity are the major drawbacks of remote classes. Both learners and educators should have access to an internet connection to participate in classes. Logistic, technical, and economic reasons can hinder access to the learning environment (Criollo-C et al., 2018). Successful remote learning should establish mechanisms to restore access as quickly as possible to ensure equal learning opportunities for all students. Computer literacy levels might also limit the use of the classroom features and functionalities for both educators and learners, lest they drag down the program. Technology failures pose a threat to accessibility as such systems are bound to experience downtimes, only when such failures will occur is unpredictable (Mukhtar et al., 2020). Such failures can occur at the individual or school level, ranging from personal computer (PC) problems, server crashes, network downtimes, and software malfunctions.

While online learning creates convenience and independence, individual educators and students might lack the qualities necessary to succeed in the environment. The autonomous and asynchronous nature of remote learning requires highly responsible and disciplined students, who have excellent organizational and time management skills (Mukhtar et al., 2020). Dependent and young learners may not succeed in such an environment. Educators must receive adequate training to ensure a successful transition from physical to online teaching. The instructors should be good at written communication and create a supportive environment to compensate for the lack of physical closeness (Mukhtar et al., 2020). Nevertheless, a supportive environment cannot replace physical classrooms and some students might feel left out.

School should not be 100% remote or in-person but a hybrid of the two environments. Instructional and learning models cannot be translated from physical to remote classes without adjustments. Additionally, hands-on and practical subjects that require practice and movement to achieve learning cannot be successfully conducted online (Hapke et al., 2020). Young and dependent learners require physically present instructors to support their learning. My school design would incorporate both remote and in-person classes for all the students. I would want dependent and young learners to take partial online classes to gain experience with digital education tools but most of their learning would be in physical classrooms. Hands-on and practical classes would be 80% in-person and 20% online. For all other classes, I would require students to have physical mid and end of term exams and project presentations while everything else is completed virtually. Therefore, every learner would have an experience with both in-person and remote classes.

Hybrid classes will reduce school dropout and absenteeism, which are typical in purely remote and in-person learning, respectively. The hybrid style will also enhance the usage of resources as most of the students learn remotely and relieve resources to utilize for the practical subjects (Hapke et al., 2020). For example, staff will not be overworking and teachers will have time to create quality content for online learners. Physical classrooms will also be free for the learners in practical subjects, which is a vital resource for maintaining safe social distance during this pandemic period (Hapke et al., 2020). In comparison to pure in-person learning, hybrid learning expands access beyond geographical boundaries. Therefore, a hybrid model of virtual and in-person classes is the best school design for the current generation.

Teachers and students might have concerns about online learning vs. in-person classes. Virtual classes have their benefits and drawbacks, as well as physical classrooms. It is essential to open-mindedly understand the advantages and disadvantages online learning creates for both stakeholders. All the parties involved in the American education sector must weigh the pros against the cons of developing a resilient model for today’s learning environment. Additionally, school administrators must consider the value of hybrid environments.

Criollo-C, S., Luján-Mora, S., & Jaramillo-Alcázar, A. (2018). Advantages and disadvantages of M-learning in current education . In 2018 IEEE World Engineering Education Conference (EDUNINE), 1-6. IEEE.

Hapke, H., Lee-Post, A., & Dean, T. (2020). 3-in-1 hybrid learning environment. Marketing Education Review , 1-8.

Mukhtar, K., Javed, K., Arooj, M., & Sethi, A. (2020). Advantages, limitations and recommendations for online learning during COVID-19 pandemic era . Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences , 36 (COVID19-S4), 27.

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Bibliography

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What Is Remote Environment? PESTLE Analysis and Impact on Business

What is a remote environment.

A remote environment often called the macro environment or general environment, represents the external factors and conditions that exist outside of an organization and exert an indirect influence on its business operations.

Definition 2

Remote environments are outside factors, including social, political, technological, and ecological forces, that affect a firm’s decision-making freedom and abilities beyond its influence or control.

Understanding Remote Environment

The Remote Environment comprises factors that originate beyond, and usually irrespective of, any single firm's operating situation:(1)economic, (2)social, (3)political, (4)technological, and (5)ecological factors.

  That environment presents firms with opportunities, threats, and constraints, but rarely does a single firm exert any meaningful reciprocal influence. 

For example, when the economy slows and construction starts to decrease, an individual contractor is likely to suffer a decline in business, but that contractor’s efforts in stimulating local construction activities would be unable to reverse the overall decrease in construction starts. Popularly, this environment is also be called the external environment .

The Six Pillars of Influence in Remote Environment

Several tools for strategic analysis of the remote environment are available for firms. But some of them are common and the PESTLE analysis is the most popular one.

1. Political Factors (P)

Here, P stands for political factors , which encompass government policies, regulations, stability, and political climate. These factors can either foster a conducive business environment or pose significant challenges.

2. Economic Factors (E)

E stands for economic factors , including economic growth , inflation rates , exchange rates, and market conditions. These elements directly affect a company's financial health and opportunities for growth.

3. Social Factors (S)

S stands for social aspects such as demographics , cultural trends, lifestyle changes, and consumer behavior . Understanding these factors is essential for tailoring products and services to meet customer demands effectively.

4. Technological Factors (T)

T stands for technological factors that plays a pivotal role in today's business landscape. Rapid advancements can create opportunities or disrupt industries. Staying abreast of technological trends is imperative for innovation and competitiveness.

5. Legal Factors (L)

L stands for legal factors, including laws, regulations, and compliance requirements. Adhering to these is not only essential for avoiding legal troubles but also for building trust with stakeholders.

6. Ecological Factors (E)

E stands for ecological factors , such as sustainability, climate change , and environmental regulations. Companies must be environmentally responsible to meet societal expectations and minimize negative impacts.

This tool provides an at a glance view of the firm’s business conduct. Strategy builders and managers use this tool for finding the firm’s current position in the market.

Applying PESTLE Analysis

The process of conducting a PESTLE analysis involves in-depth research and assessment of each factor. Companies can identify potential opportunities and threats by examining how each factor affects their business. Here is a quick rundown of the procedures:

• Political Analysis

Assess the political stability, government policies, and regulations that impact your industry. Understand how changes in leadership or policies could affect your business.

• Economic Analysis

Analyze economic indicators like GDP growth, inflation rates, and exchange rates. Determine how these factors could influence your company's financial performance.

• Social Analysis

Study demographic trends, cultural shifts, and consumer behavior. Identify opportunities to tailor your products or services to meet evolving customer needs.

• Technological Analysis

Keep a close eye on technological advancements and their relevance to your industry. Explore how adopting new technologies can enhance your competitiveness.

• Legal Analysis

Make sure all applicable laws and regulations are followed. Anticipate changes in legislation that may impact your business operations.

• Ecological Analysis

Embrace sustainability practices and consider the environmental impact of your operations. Align your company with growing environmental awareness.

Impact on Businesses

Businesses are faced with a dynamic combination of possibilities, challenges, and limits in the remote environment. It's important to note that while businesses are influenced by these factors, they often have limited capacity to exert reciprocal influence on the Remote Environment. Let's delve into how these factors affect businesses:

Opportunities

• Market Expansion : Favorable economic conditions and evolving consumer preferences can create new markets for businesses to explore.
• Technological Advancements : Innovation opens doors to improved products, services, and operational efficiency.
• Sustainability Initiatives : Embracing eco-friendly practices can attract environmentally conscious consumers.
• Economic Downturns : Recessionary periods can lead to reduced consumer spending and increased financial risks.
• Regulatory Changes : Alterations in government policies or regulations may necessitate costly adaptations.
• Competitive Landscape : Rival companies may capitalize on changes in the Remote Environment faster, posing a competitive threat.

Constraints

• Resource Limitations : Ecological concerns may lead to resource scarcity or increased costs for resource-intensive industries.
• Political Instability : Political unrest in regions where a company operates can disrupt supply chains and business operations.
• Technological Disruption : Rapid technological change may render existing products or processes obsolete.

Real-Life Examples

• Political Factors: Trade Tariffs and Global Supply Chains

The conflict over trade between the United States and China is a prime illustration of this. When tariffs were imposed on certain goods, companies that relied on components or materials from these regions had to rethink their supply chain strategies. 

Many businesses diversified their suppliers or relocated production facilities to mitigate the impact of political decisions on their operations.

• Ecological Factors: Sustainable Packaging Solutions

Food delivery services are replacing single-use plastic containers with biodegradable or reusable options. This ecological awareness not only aligns with sustainability goals but also appeals to environmentally conscious consumers, influencing their purchasing decisions.

Use of the Term in Sentences

•  The Remote Environment is a multifaceted landscape that shapes the destiny of businesses. 
• Understanding the remote environment is crucial because it helps businesses anticipate opportunities and threats.

Related Definitions

• The External Environment The factors beyond the control of the firm that influence...
• Environmental threat An environmental threat is a challenge posed by an unfavorable...

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Essay on Environment for Students and Children

500+ words essay on environment.

Essay on Environment – All living things that live on this earth comes under the environment. Whether they live on land or water they are part of the environment. The environment also includes air, water, sunlight, plants, animals, etc.

Moreover, the earth is considered the only planet in the universe that supports life. The environment can be understood as a blanket that keeps life on the planet sage and sound.

Importance of Environment

We truly cannot understand the real worth of the environment. But we can estimate some of its importance that can help us understand its importance. It plays a vital role in keeping living things healthy in the environment.

Likewise, it maintains the ecological balance that will keep check of life on earth. It provides food, shelter, air, and fulfills all the human needs whether big or small.

Moreover, the entire life support of humans depends wholly on the environmental factors. In addition, it also helps in maintaining various life cycles on earth.

Most importantly, our environment is the source of natural beauty and is necessary for maintaining physical and mental health.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Benefits of the Environment

The environment gives us countless benefits that we can’t repay our entire life. As they are connected with the forest, trees, animals, water, and air. The forest and trees filter the air and absorb harmful gases. Plants purify water, reduce the chances of flood maintain natural balance and many others.

Moreover, the environment keeps a close check on the environment and its functioning, It regulates the vital systems that are essential for the ecosystem. Besides, it maintains the culture and quality of life on earth.

The environment regulates various natural cycles that happen daily. These cycles help in maintaining the natural balance between living things and the environment. Disturbance of these things can ultimately affect the life cycle of humans and other living beings.

The environment has helped us and other living beings to flourish and grow from thousands of years. The environment provides us fertile land, water, air, livestock and many essential things for survival.

Cause of Environmental Degradation

Human activities are the major cause of environmental degradation because most of the activities humans do harm the environment in some way. The activities of humans that causes environmental degradation is pollution, defective environmental policies, chemicals, greenhouse gases, global warming, ozone depletion, etc.

All these affect the environment badly. Besides, these the overuse of natural resources will create a situation in the future there will be no resources for consumption. And the most basic necessity of living air will get so polluted that humans have to use bottled oxygen for breathing.

Above all, increasing human activity is exerting more pressure on the surface of the earth which is causing many disasters in an unnatural form. Also, we are using the natural resources at a pace that within a few years they will vanish from the earth. To conclude, we can say that it is the environment that is keeping us alive. Without the blanket of environment, we won’t be able to survive.

Moreover, the environment’s contribution to life cannot be repaid. Besides, still what the environment has done for us, in return we only have damaged and degraded it.

FAQs about Essay on Environment

Q.1 What is the true meaning of the environment?

A.1 The ecosystem that includes all the plants, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, water bodies, fishes, human beings, trees, microorganisms and many more are part of the environment. Besides, all these constitute the environment.

Q.2 What is the three types of the environment?

A.2 The three types of environment includes the physical, social, and cultural environment. Besides, various scientists have defined different types and numbers of environment.

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Remote Tech Environments Essays

Remote tech environments, popular essay topics.

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Morphological characterization and detailed geomorphological mapping based on GIS and remote sensing applications for environment sustainability: a case study on the northern slope of Welirang Young Volcano, Maspo Sub-watershed

• Masruroh, Heni
• Sumarmi, Bachri, Syamsul
• Sahrina, Alfi
• Rohman, Fatchur

Sustainable environmental management by utilizing detailed scale geomorphological information is urgent research in developing countries that have received little attention from environmental policymakers.. This research was conducted in the Maspo Sub-watershed area on the northern slopes of Welirang Volcano, Mojokerto Regency, East Java.. We apply landform classification based on the Topographic Position Index to describe morphological conditions and a visual image interpretation approach for the first time to create a detailed (1:10,000) scale geomorphological map based on the Italian Geomorphological Mapping System.. This paper explains the morphological characterization of the Maspo Sub-watershed in detail. Overall, the morphological characteristics in the study area are dominated by open slopes above the lava flow bedrock, ridges and valleys due to erosion processes, and plains downstream, which indicate the presence of anthropogenic activity. The most dominant geomorphic systems in the Maspo Sub-watershed are landforms of fluvial and runoff origin, followed by landslide, anthropogenic, and volcanic systems. Fluvial landforms highlight features formed due to the action of water, whereas runoff highlights erosion processes resulting from flowing water eroding the surface. In other words, the erosional process is still active today, considering that the study area is a young volcano. Meanwhile, the depositional process is more difficult to identify because of the intervention of anthropic activities. Ultimately, morphological and geomorphological characterization results based on GIS and remote sensing can be used as an essential reference for establishing sustainable land use planning strategies and managing hazards and natural disaster risks.

• Remote sensing;
• Morphological characterization;
• Geomorphological mapping;
• Young tropical volcano;
• Maspo Sub-watershed

Who Really Benefits From the Great Remote-Work Experiment?

According to one study, women with more job experience suffer the most.

Four years after the great remote-work experiment began, the public debate has boiled down to: Bosses hate it and workers love it. That’s the story we’re told time and again in a zero-sum debate that leaves little room for nuance. In reality, remote work depends on all sorts of things—the industry, the occupation, and interests of employers and workers, not to mention the interests of government and the broader public. Somehow, remote work is both a remarkable boon and a tremendous loss.

In our first episode of Good on Paper , I talk with Natalia Emanuel, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who has co-authored a paper trying to tease out what happened to workers after they went remote. Her research focuses on software engineers at an unnamed Fortune 500 company, some of whom were functionally remote even before the pandemic because their teams were spread out over a large campus. When COVID-19 came and everyone was sent home, it created the perfect circumstances to assess what was really happening to workers once they went remote.

Our conversation delves into all sorts of questions. Do people understand the tradeoffs they are making when they choose to work remote? What’s the impact on a team if even one person goes remote? Does remote work benefit older women at younger women’s expense? What happens to people’s social lives in the era of remote work?

Listen to the conversation here:

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Jerusalem Demsas: My name is Jerusalem Demsas, and I’m a staff writer here at The Atlantic . And this is the first episode of Good on Paper .

Good on Paper is a policy show that questions what we really know about popular narratives. Narratives do a lot to drive what our world looks like—whether they exist in the broader media ecosystem or as a consensus within a specific group of people, like economists or policy wonks. But sometimes these narratives are built on shoddy ground. One fact, or a set of reasonable facts, spins out of control and is woven into a tale that goes well beyond what we actually know.

This show came about as an extension of my own writing and reporting here at The Atlantic because over the years, as I’ve written about a bunch of things—from why it’s so hard to build a wind farm in Alabama to why a bunch of people had babies during the pandemic—I’m struck time and again by the strength that certain narratives have. There are overly broad and often overly simplistic claims about the world that play a huge role in how our political system works.

And I’ll be completely honest. There are plenty of times where I’ve realized those kinds of ideas are playing a role in my own thinking. That’s sort of my beat. I dig in when I see something that seems off or undertheorized or at least not super fleshed out. And while there’s no one right answer, the goal of this show is to figure out what we really know about a topic and use research to get a deeper understanding of the truth.

This episode of Good on Paper is about the messy economics of remote work.

Behind the scenes in this whole debate is the presumption that remote work is good for employees and bad for employers and bosses. But is that true? For my part, I’ve been a bit disillusioned by the remote-work experiment. There are, of course, amazing benefits to remote work. For those with disabilities or dependents, remote work can be more than just convenient; it can open up opportunities that hadn’t been possible.

But at the same time, there have been some serious costs—missing out on the social part of work. Sure, there’s some annoying water-cooler chitchat, but I have a nagging feeling that I’ve lost out on important learning and connections by being remote.

Most of all, it’s not really clear to me how you make these decisions fairly. Can my desire to work in person with my colleagues trump another person’s desire to work from another city? It’s still something I’m working out.

A few weeks ago, I talked with Natalia Emanuel. She’s a labor economist working at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. And she wrote a really interesting paper that helps unlock the varied impacts of remote work.

All right, Natalia. Welcome to the show.

Natalia Emanuel: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here. Before we begin, I do note that the views I would express today are my own. They don’t reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System at all, so they’re simply mine.

Demsas: Yeah. So you were finishing your Ph.D. when COVID hit, right?

Emanuel: That is correct.

Demsas: How was that? Did remote work feel that different to you? I kind of imagine academics siloed off in their offices, never speaking to each other.

Emanuel: Ah, well, my co-author on two remote-work papers—her name is Emma Harrington, who is now an awesome professor at University of Virginia—she and I were randomly put into the same office in a second year of graduate school, and then partly because of that, we ended up becoming co-authors. Because before that, we actually hadn’t really known each other particularly well. So there is an element of: Yes, we were siloed. Yes, we were in the basement with almost no light at all. But by being in the same windowless office together, we did form a nice bond that way.

Demsas: This feels like an econ paper that’s, like, come to life. Isn’t this like a finding?

Emanuel: Exactly.

Demsas: Academics that sit near each other tend to co-author or something.

Emanuel: Correct, yeah. In terms of the actual COVID during the job market, it had a very important impact on us, which is that all of our job market was done remotely. So we were doing interviews remotely. We were doing flyouts to visit the potential places we might take jobs. All of that was not an actual flyout. That was a Zoom flyout. And so that was the place where it had more impact, perhaps on the actual paper writing.

Demsas: Did you think it affected the interviews or anything?

Emanuel: So purely anecdotally, I would say the people who I have given talks to remotely remember me and remember my findings less than when we were in person.

Demsas: Wow. Just because everyone’s doing, I don’t know, The New York Times Connections game while they’re listening to you. That makes sense.

Emanuel: I imagine it was email, but I think you have a more enjoyable thing. Maybe they liked my talk more because at least they were doing something fun.

Demsas: Yeah. I feel like before we get into the meat of your study, there are very different estimates about how many people are actually remote working right now. And it led me to realize: How do we actually know what’s happening? Do you have a sense of how many are remote working? Why does it feel like we're getting different answers from different data sources?

Emanuel: There is a big difference among different ways that you could ask this question and exactly what you mean by remote work. Does that mean that there is no place you have to go to for your work? Does it mean that you have to be in your workplace’s office as opposed to a cafe shop? Does it simply mean that you have to have left your bedroom?

You also can get different answers when you’re asking, Are you fully remote ? versus, Are there certain days of the week when you are remote ? versus, How many hours a week are you remote ? And so those two dimensions can give a lot of variation in terms of exactly what number we’re getting.

Demsas: So the one that I’m going to just try to use in my head—and, for listeners, is what the BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, is doing—so in 2024, in February, their survey data shows that 77 percent of people did not telework at all. Around 11 percent of people teleworked all hours. And roughly 12 percent teleworked some hours. So it feels like this is a really big conversation, for 12 percent of the population to be fully remote working. Do you feel like that's an outsized conversation that we’re having about remote work?

Emanuel: Well, I think the 77 number of people who are not working remotely, that makes a lot of sense, insofar as some jobs are just really hard to do if you’re not on-site, right? Being a car mechanic: very hard to do if you are not actually at the car. Similarly, trauma surgery: Maybe one day it’ll be done by robots, and the robots are controlled by people who are far away; that’s not how trauma surgery is happening right now. Similarly, we’re not thinking about occupational therapists or nursery-school teachers. So many of those jobs, there just isn’t a possibility of them even being remote.

And so what we’re thinking about here are the jobs where there is a possibility of being remote. You can imagine sales, customer service, consultants, software engineer—many jobs that are more computer based, those are the ones where we should be thinking about remote work is a possibility.

Demsas: And the quintessential people who can work from home are probably software engineers and coders, which brings us to your study. So you have a working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research—NBER—and it came out last November. Can you tell us about it?

Emanuel: Sure. We are looking at software engineers at a Fortune 500 company, and this is a sufficiently large company that they have on their main campus two buildings where the software engineers sit, and those buildings are about 10 minutes apart. Well, 12 minutes if you’re on Google Maps—10 minutes if you’re me.

We found that some of the people who were on teams where everybody could be in one building—whereas because there’s not as much desk availability, some teams actually had to be separated across those two buildings. And so the teams that were separated across the two buildings had most of their meetings online, because if you’re only having a 20-minute meeting, you’re not going to spend exactly the length of your meeting walking there and back.

And so we can see beforehand what happened to those particular teams. And then once the pandemic forced everybody to work remotely, we can see what happens thereafter. And so we can use the teams that were already meeting remotely, and they’re our control group: they’re remote before the pandemic; they’re remote after the pandemic. Whereas the people who are on one-building teams, they were with the rest of their colleagues, and then after the pandemic, they’re working remotely.

Demsas: Mm-hmm.

Emanuel: That’s an interesting context to look at, from our perspective, because it allows us to understand there is a measure of productivity, and then there’s also a measure of digital collaboration. And so we were trying to understand what remote work does for the pieces that you might learn from colleagues, right?

There’s another study that finds that a sixth of all skills that one acquires over their lifetime are coming from colleagues. And so we were very interested in the impact of remote work on this collaboration and on-the-job training.

And so we also think that software engineers are particularly interesting because, in many ways, it’s the best-case scenario for remote work. So for one, all of their output is digital. Also, software engineers have established mechanisms for giving each other digital feedback on their code, and that was something that they had sort of industry standard and has been for decades before the pandemic.

Demsas: What are your main results? You’re observing these software engineers, and as you say, these software engineers are basically just coding full-time. They’re just writing a bunch of code, and they’re getting comments on that code, and that’s how you’re looking at feedback. So what are the findings of that observation?

Emanuel: Yeah, we’re finding that the folks who were in person with their teams, they were in the same building—we’re going to call them one-building teams—they were getting about 22 percent more feedback from their colleagues on their code. So they were just getting more skills, more mentorship when the offices were open.

And then when the offices closed and everybody was going remote, pretty immediately we see that gap closes. And so then everybody is getting less feedback than they were. And this is useful as a counterfactual because if you imagine you’re saying, Oh, well. They’re getting 22 percent more feedback. Well, maybe that’s just because they tend to be chattier, or maybe it’s because they really actually need that feedback a little bit more, the people who are on one-building teams . If that were the case, then even after the offices close, that would still persist, whereas if this is something really coming from being in person with your colleagues, then that gap would close. And that’s exactly what we find.

Demsas: So there are 11.5 percent more people commenting on engineers’ work if they’re in one-building teams than if they’re in the multi-building teams, right? So there are a lot more people commenting on your work if you’re in a one-building team. So what is happening there? Why is it that someone who’s in a one-building team is seeing more comments?

Emanuel: We look at this in terms of the exact type of comments. So part of this is they’re just getting more comments on the initial go, but then also they’re asking more follow-up questions and then getting more replies to the follow-up questions. And so we’re seeing the depth of conversation is partly driving this. We additionally see that this is happening in terms of speed—that they’re getting faster feedback, as well. And so there are many dimensions here.

I would also put a small asterisk here, which is that we’re measuring this in terms of the digital comments that they’re getting. But people who are in person, it is much easier to just turn to your neighbor and say, Hey, can we just talk about this for a quick second? And so if we think that that’s happening more among the people who are sitting next to each other, then the estimates that we’re getting are actually lower bounds.

Demsas: And so what’s the effect of all this? What’s the effect of getting more comments?

Emanuel: There are a number. The first is that, as you might imagine, if they’re working on building skills and responding to these comments, their actual output is a little bit lower, so they’re producing fewer programs overall. And, accordingly, because they are producing fewer programs, they also are less likely to get a pay raise.

But once the office is closed and that level of mentorship has now equalized, the people who have been working on building their skills, they’re actually more likely to be getting pay raises. And they’re actually twice as likely to be quitting to go to a higher-paying job or a job at a higher-paying company.

And so, it really depends on the time frame that you’re thinking about this. In the short run, it looks a little painful because they’re not doing as well. But in the long run, you’re seeing the fruits of their labor.

Demsas: I find this really interesting because what it indicates is that there’s this investment that happens early on in someone’s career, and then when they go remote, the people who had that kind of investment are able to still capitalize on it. But in time, they’re going to look less productive than their more remote peers. Those remote peers are just banging through code. They’re not having to respond or engage with their mentors or with the older engineers. It’s a strange finding because it would indicate that managers would really prioritize and see that remote work was doing well in the short term.

Emanuel: Totally. And I think that is consistent with what we saw at Meta, right? Early in the pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg was like, Yeah, this sounds great. People seem to actually be more productive when they’re remote . And then sort of three years in, that’s when Mark Zuckerberg was like, Actually, let’s come back to the office. It seems that people actually are more productive when we have some amount of in-person time . And so it does seem as though it does take a little bit of patience to be able to realize these different effects over different time horizons.

Demsas: Wait, you mentioned Meta. Is this Meta?

Emanuel: So I’m actually not allowed to share what company we’re studying.

Demsas: Okay, great. Well, I will just, in my head, imagine a giant campus in Silicon Valley that has multiple buildings where software engineers work far apart.

Emanuel: That sounds like a perfect thing to imagine.

Demsas: And people can draw their own conclusions.

And so do these findings contradict earlier findings in the space? Existing literature about remote work and productivity, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s kind of mixed. But there’s the seminal 2015 study from Nicholas Bloom where he looks at a 16,000-employee company in China. And the study design there, it’s employees that volunteer. They then randomly assign those to either be work from home or in the office. And they find that work from home leads to a 13-percent performance increase in productivity, so both more minutes per shift and more calls per—it’s a call center—so it’s more minutes per shift that they’re making calls and also more calls per minute. And so that feels very different than what you’re finding here.

Emanuel: Yeah, so first of all, I think that it is totally possible to have different findings in different settings. One of the things that makes Nick’s study particularly interesting is there it was, as you mentioned, all volunteers. Right? These were existing workers who had been at the company already, and they volunteered to go remote. So that’s not necessarily the case when we’re thinking about the pandemic. Not everybody volunteered to be remote.

Also, in that context, everybody had to have their own room to work in as a specific workspace, as separate from people who are working on their bed. And so that also could change it. And so you do see potentially different outcomes there.

Also at a travel agency, that is pretty siloed work, whereas as software engineers, they do need to understand what this code base is doing, how people have been thinking about that particular function already. And so there is a little bit more of a collaborative nature there.

Emanuel: The other thing I would note is that, eventually, remote work unraveled in that context because there were fewer promotions happening among the remote workers. And so people ended up wanting to come back to the office because that’s where they got the visibility to be able to get the promotions that that higher performance really warranted.

Demsas: And so they weren’t getting promotions, because they were doing worse work? Or they weren’t doing promotions, because managers had this attitude that people who are in person, who they’re talking to in the office—those people are just more worthy of promotions?

Emanuel: Well, I wouldn’t say that they were doing worse work. According to Nick’s paper, it seemed as though they were actually doing better work.

They were overall more productive. But it does seem as though there is a disconnect between pure productivity metrics and the human component of promotions.

Demsas: And so you have a 2023 study where you look at a call center. It’s a U.S.-based call center, and I’m not sure how else it may differ from Bloom’s study. But you find that pre-COVID, remote workers were answering 12 percent fewer calls per hour, and that feels like there’s something going on that’s stably less productive about remote work, even in the same work context. So what’s going on in understanding the differences in your findings versus Nick Bloom’s?

Emanuel: Yeah, so in our study, we were finding that before the pandemic, the people who elected to work remotely, at least in this company—which, again, as you mentioned, we were thinking about a Fortune 500 company and their customer-service workers—and there we found that the people who chose to work remotely tended to have lower productivity, on average, than the people who chose to be in person. And so that’s what economists would call negative selection.

But that is also consistent with, if you anticipate that the people who are going to get promotions are those who have closer connections to the managers and are those who are going to be in person and that you might be, not to use a horrible pun, but you might be phoning it in a little bit—

Demsas: ( Laughs .)

Emanuel: Then that would make sense that you would be more willing to be remote. Now, of course, I have no idea what was in each individual person’s mind, but that is consistent with understanding that there is a promotion penalty to being remote.

Demsas: Okay. So returning to your original new study also about remote work, but I think the thing that’s really interesting about the research you find is this junior-versus-senior benefits to remote work, right?

So I really want to talk about how different it is if you’re an early-career software engineer versus a late-career software engineer. What happens to people early career versus late career when it comes to remote work? How does that affect their productivity? How does it affect how they do their jobs, what research they’re getting, and their long-term outcomes?

Emanuel: In general, it’s the people who are most junior who have the most to learn and are getting the most comments and therefore having to do the most learning. And who’s giving this feedback? Well, that’s the more senior people. Those are the people who have been with the firm a lot longer.

We see that the hit to productivity is actually happening both among junior people, but then particularly it is concentrated among the senior people who then have to be really understanding somebody else’s code and thinking deeply about it and giving them feedback to try to think, Oh, how can I help this person grow? And how can I help make sure that this code is doing well?

And so that meant that for the senior people, there was a cost in their productivity from being in person and providing all of that feedback. And so that means when they go remote, particularly the senior people’s productivity actually increased. And so again, for them, you could see a boost in productivity right at the beginning of remote work. And then from the firm’s perspective, you could imagine that that might not persist forever if you're then getting your junior engineers who aren’t getting as upskilled as you might hope.

Demsas: So senior folks are just like, Thank God I don’t have to answer all these comments all the time. I can just do my job , and that benefits them. I wonder though—I think this is really interesting, right? Because popularly understood is that people who are young really want to work remote and that older people are more willing to come back to the office for whatever reason.

Why is there this disconnect if it is the case that young people are really missing out on this both productivity-enhancing but also, as you said, wage-enhancing and promotion-enhancing benefit of learning from senior engineers? Why aren’t they clamoring to get back in the office?

Emanuel: One hypothesis is that they simply don’t know, right? Maybe they are not aware of the benefits of mentorship from being in the office. Maybe they’re not aware about how that mentorship and the skill building actually translates into future jobs, future earnings. So that’s one possibility.

Another possibility is: Maybe they have a different value system, right? Maybe they’re willing to say, Look, my job is not the top priority for me, and it’s much more important for me that I am spending time with my roommates, my neighbor, my friends, my loved ones . That’s a possibility.

I think another possibility, and there our paper gives a little bit of evidence, is that if you have even one colleague who is remote, that yields about 30 percent of the loss from having everyone be remote.

Demsas: Wait, so if just one person on your team goes remote, you lose all of that benefit of being in person?

Emanuel: Well, a third of it, yeah.

Demsas: A third of it. That’s huge!

Emanuel: Right. It’s huge, from just one person.

Demsas: Does it scale up? If it’s a second person, did you find anything there?

Emanuel: We didn’t actually look at that. But it is a huge impact. Really, in some ways, that’s validating. It means every single person really matters.

But if it’s the case that when they come into the office, not everybody is there, and so they’re still doing some remote Teams meetings or Webex or whatever it is while in the office, then it’s possible that they’re not actually getting the whole benefit of being in the office. And so, perfectly rationally, they’re saying, Maybe it’s not so much. Maybe I’m not getting all of this mentorship .

And so there you go: three hypotheses.

Demsas: I am partial to the last two things you said. I don’t really buy hypotheses, usually, where someone’s just being dumb and they’re doing something that’s bad for them. I usually buy that they either are prioritizing something else—like, not everyone wants to be a productivity-maximizing machine. They may want to just not have a commute. They may want to live near their family. Whatever it is.

And I think also this last thing that you said is really important, too. Because The Atlantic offices are open, but there’s a lot of hybrid work, and so you’re coming in on a day where there might be 10 people on your team, and then coming in on a day where you’re like, Wow, I’m the only person on my team here . And those are very different days, and they are very different things you might get out of that. So that hits stronger for me.

Emanuel: One of the things that’s pretty interesting is that we find even when you’re in a building with colleagues who are not on your team, we still find a bump in the mentorship and the feedback that one gets. And it’s not from your teammates, then, of course. It’s from the non-teammates. But there still is an element of enhanced mentorship, feedback, collaboration simply by being around people.

Demsas: We’re going to take a quick break, but more with Natalia Emanuel when we get back.

Demsas: I think that probably the most interesting angle in your piece is the angle on gender. Can you tell us a little about this? What is different about how women in this firm receive feedback on their code?

Emanuel: Yeah, so before the pandemic, we find that female engineers are receiving about 40 percent more comments on their code than our male engineers, giving us an effect that’s roughly twice the size as it is for male engineers, overall. And so we’re finding that this mentorship is particularly important for female engineers. And to unpack where that’s coming from, we find that the female engineers are much more likely to ask questions when they are in person.

Demsas: So, when I first heard this, I was just like, Okay, are they getting more feedback because people are just nitpicking women’s code ? How did you decide whether or not this was actually actionable feedback or if it’s just people being sexist?

Emanuel: Yeah, this was one of our first concerns. One of the first people we presented to said, Are we sure this isn’t mansplaining? And so what we did is we took a subset of the code, of the comments, and we gave them anonymized to other engineers and said, Is this comment helpful? Is it actionable? Is it rude ? And we then took their reviews back, and we found that they are equally actionable, not differentially nitpicky for female engineers. And so it does really seem as though these are substantive, meaningful comments but not simply mansplaining—and interestingly, not differentially rude, either.

Demsas: That’s great to hear, actually. And, sorry, these external reviewers, they were blind to gender when they were looking at the code, right?

Emanuel: They were blind to gender. They were blind to seniority. They were blind to whether you were proximate or not proximate to your colleagues. All they saw was the comment.

Demsas: And what that raises for me, though, is this question: If women are disproportionately getting actionable feedback, is the claim that women’s code is just worse than men’s?

Emanuel: So we don’t actually see the code itself, but we can see that we’re not finding they’re more problematic overall. It’s not as though we’re seeing, Oh, there’s bigger issues brought up in the comments , or sort of, They will always break, or something like that.

Demsas: I find this interesting. And I also think it’s interesting because this is not the only plane on which women are affected differently than men in your study. You have this finding that junior women are receiving a lot more code and a lot more actionable feedback, and it’s benefiting them potentially down the line. But you’re also finding that the people who are giving them all that feedback tend to be senior women engineers who, for themselves, as you said before, giving all that feedback takes time. That’s something that hurts your productivity, so that cost seems disproportionately borne by senior women.

Emanuel: Yeah, I think you said it exactly right, that the feedback that’s going to both female and male junior engineers, a lot of that is coming from female senior engineers. And so the giving of the mentorship is also coming from female engineers. And so we see a lot of exaggerated effects on both the benefit sides for females, so junior women are getting the benefits, but also senior women are paying the price.

Demsas: And so when they go remote, do senior women get more productive?

Emanuel: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Demsas: That’s really weird, right? Because I feel like the dominant frame for the pandemic and gender was mostly around this idea that women, when they were going remote, were being now doubly burdened, right? So you go home, and if you’re a mother, you have to do more child care. Often, you’re finding you have to share space with your male partner, in a lot of cases. And it was the sense that potentially women are now having to be doubly burdened by the responsibilities of home and the responsibilities of work. Obviously, it’s not contradicted by your evidence, but were you surprised by this finding?

Emanuel: I would make one technical point and then one overall comment. The first technical point is that this is why it’s really, really helpful to have a control group, right? Because in both of our groups—both the people who are working in one-building teams beforehand and the people who are in multi-building teams and therefore a little remote beforehand—both of them would be similarly burdened by the pandemic. And so we can difference out the impact of the pandemic and really just zero in on the effect that’s only coming from working remotely. So that’s one component there.

The other piece that I would mention is that in our sample of engineers, only 16 percent are parents, so that doesn’t seem to be the main component here. And in some ways, I think that, while not helpful in terms of thinking about the impact of the pandemic, it’s potentially helpful in terms of thinking about remote work long term. When we’re thinking about remote work post-pandemic, we’re not really thinking about Oh, but you will also be trying to supervise your fifth grader’s language-arts exam .

Demsas: It’s hard for me to know how generalizable these findings are. And basically every major study I see on remote work is mainly done in the context of software engineers or call-center employees. And those are just two very specific types of jobs and are not maybe similar to a lot of other jobs that are potentially work remote, whether you’re working in HR or you’re working in media or you’re working as a lawyer or anywhere in the legal profession. It’s hard for me to know how much you can take away from this and apply to other contexts. How do you think about that?

Emanuel: Yes, you are totally right that the existing literature feels as though it really focuses on sales, call center, and software engineers, partly because those are places where we have really good measures of productivity. I would love to be able to think about this for other occupations, but I do think that we have a bit of a quantification problem.

As I mentioned earlier, I think one of the things that’s useful in our context is to think that software engineering is probably most amenable to remote work, and that other contexts don’t have these established ways of giving each other feedback online, don’t have very structured systems for how to meet. Software engineers often work on the agile system of meeting, where they have daily standup meetings that happen regardless of whether you’re in person or not. They have very structured ways of exactly when they are going to be doing a sprint on exactly what type of work, and they have a lot of coordination around who’s doing what when. And so for occupations that don’t have either of those things—digital means of giving feedback and that meeting structure—you can imagine remote work is likely to work less well for them.

Demsas: That feels like something that a lot of different industries could innovate on, right? One of the things that I’ve heard pointed out is how many more patents there are now on remote-work technologies. Not even just those technologies that help make it possible for a lot more firms to work at home, but also just the cultural technology: the fact that you can just ping someone on Slack, the fact that you can just huddle quickly—clearly, I use Slack way too much—or you can figure out a way to have a standup with your manager. In a media environment, you usually just walk over in a newsroom, but people now have standing meetings that they will just have with their manager. So how much of that is not portable to other workplaces?

Emanuel: Oh, I totally think many of these are portable. And I do think that we’re going to have some growing pains as people realize, Oh, I could just have a standing meeting , and then realizing that, Oh, but now I have a standing meeting with 15 people, and it’s taking up half of my Friday . And so I do think there will be some growing pains, but that there is quite a lot to learn from other organizations that have already done remote work pretty effectively.

Demsas: And so, zooming out a bit, Adam Ozimek—he’s also a labor economist, and he’s also a longtime booster of remote work—he once half-jokingly said that skeptics of remote work could basically be described as either extroverts, urbanists, workers in obviously non-remote occupations, and downtown office-building owners.

And a Venn diagram of labor economists and urbanists has significant overlap, and so I wanted to ask you if you think your background as a labor economist biases you against remote work or thinking that it’s positive. Do you feel that you’re coming into the work feeling like it’s not going to go well? Or how do you think about that?

Emanuel: Well, I’m definitely not an extrovert, so we can cross out that one. I would not say I had strong priors going into this. It was one of those topics that I was genuinely extremely excited to see whatever the results would be and could totally have spun a story that it could go in either direction.

Demsas: But, I mean, do you think that you would be surprised if long-term remote work was viable at a large scale across these firms? Even what you said at the beginning, when we started chatting, about your ability to meet Emma, your co-author, and work with her—I mean, those kinds of findings are often really strong underlying belief systems for labor economists.

Emanuel: I do think there’s totally a world in which remote work really takes off and we can have massive productivity gains. I think that this comes with a lot of growing pains that we were discussing, of trying to figure out exactly how we can still make sure that we form deep connections, have a lot of mentorship.

And I think we see a lot of firms doing some incredibly creative things, whether that’s quarterly offsites or teams coming in at regular intervals and trying to do sort of a round-robin of who's meeting with what. And so I do think we’re in a period of experimentation while we’re trying to learn how this is going to work. But yes, I would definitely say that there is a world in which this does work and that we have to figure out exactly how it's going to work.

Demsas: So, we’ve talked a lot about productivity here, but life isn’t just about productivity. There are lots of reasons why someone may or may not want to work remote. What’s your sense of the impact of remote work on individual well-being?

Emanuel: This is the question in many ways. On the one hand, maybe it allows folks to live close to their family, their community, and so there’s a really wonderful gain in terms of people’s well-being because they have these strong social connections. On the other hand, in many decades past, a lot of people found their friends at work, and many enduring friendships, many marriages originated in work. And so if people are not making those connections at work, there has to be some other way that they are going to be able to make those social connections that are going to sort of fulfill their needs.

Maybe that substitution is happening. I don’t think we have a great idea yet. And so I think you, again, could imagine it going either way, and I am extremely excited to see research coming out that can give us insight as to which one we’ll weigh more strongly.

Demsas: I’m a little bit pessimistic about it and, in part, I am because I feel like the trend of work technology has been to just eat into more and more of our leisure hours. Email gets invented, and all of a sudden you leave the office, and it doesn’t mean that you’ve left the office. And Slack gets invented. Now you have to be instantly available; even if you’re in the bathroom, you know that your boss has messaged you.

And then there was a 2021 paper that looked at GitHub activity and found that users were more likely to work on weekends and outside 9-to-6 hours when they went remote. And it feels to me that this is just another step in the machine of, Okay, remote work means now that there aren’t even defined hours. And in some sense, theoretically, that could mean flexibility, but in another sense can mean your entire life is now work .

Emanuel: I think that’s totally possible. I would say that there’s a world in which that GitHub finding that you mentioned is actually a really good thing, right? So imagine the world in which I know exactly what my hours of output have to be. I know the product that I need to create. But I actually want to stop work at 3 p.m. so I can pick up my kids from school, hang out with them until, you know, 7:30 or 8, when they go to sleep. And then I want to put in my extra two hours that, you know, would have happened between 3 and 5 but now can happen after bedtime.

So maybe that extra flexibility is actually welfare enhancing, and the people they’re studying are actually really happy about that. And so I think simply based on that statistic, it’s not obvious to me whether we think of this as a good thing or a bad thing.

I do think work creeping and taking over one’s entire life so that there’s nothing else there and there’s no time for anything else—I think that’s almost certainly a bad thing. But again, I’m not sure exactly how to think about the welfare implications there.

Demsas: Before we close things out, our last question: What’s an idea that you’ve had that was good on paper?

Emanuel: So I sew a lot. I’ve sewn 17 quilts, several wedding dresses, only one of which was for me. And so one idea that I think tends to look good on paper is the home sewing machine that is computerized.

Demsas: Oh. What is that?

Emanuel: It’s just a sewing machine that has a screen on it and that you can say, Oh, do this embroidery pattern, and it’ll output that. And, I would say, for the type of sewing that I was doing, it was 100 percent useless. It meant that it was much harder to maintain, much harder to troubleshoot. You can’t do your own oiling and maintenance in the same way that you could for a mechanical sewing machine.

At one point, the sewing machine actually just decided to only run in reverse. And rather like driving in New York City in reverse, it’s possible, but it’s a little anxiety inducing—not the world’s safest thing. So I ended up reverting back to the sewing machine that’s fully mechanical, was made in 1910 by Singer sewing machine, is actually foot powered, hadn’t been used in the entirety of my lifetime but with a little bit of elbow grease was totally great. So it was one of those things that, in the abstract, seemed great and, in real life, was not.

Demsas: Well, this feels like a metaphor, a productivity-enhancing machine that actually reduced your output. On that note, well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Natalia.

Emanuel: Thank you so much for having me.

Demsas: Good on Paper is produced by Jinae West. It was edited by Dave Shaw, fact-checked by Ena Alvarado, and engineered by Erica Huang. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

And hey, if you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It’s how people hear about the show. Or you can let a couple of friends know on your own.

My name’s Jerusalem Demsas, and we’ll see you next week.

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Program Officer (Program and Budget Analyst), FSL-0343-04

Opening and closing dates.

Agency : U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Organization : Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, Center for Agriculture-Led Growth (REFS/CA) Location of Position : Washington, DC Telework/Remote Eligibility : Telework up to four days per pay period (two days per week). The position is not remote eligible. Open Period : June 14, 2024 – July 5, 2024 Appointment Type : This is an excepted service, time-limited appointment not to exceed two years and three months; may be considered for two two-year extensions depending on the needs of the service. Salary : (USD) $87,223 – $128,106 per year Number of Vacancies : One

Description of Organization : The position is located in CA. REFS coordinates across USAID Missions, Bureaus, and Independent Offices to foster a world in which all people have sustained access to safe water, nutritious food, a healthy environment, and improved livelihoods as a result of inclusive, locally driven development strategies that protect the planet and our future. REFS oversees four high-level, integrated efforts in support of this mission: Feed the Future, guided by the Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS); the USAID Multi-Sector Nutrition Strategy; the U.S. Global Water Strategy; and efforts to increase resilience in areas of recurrent humanitarian crisis. Additionally, REFS leads or co-leads the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), the United States Government's contribution to the global effort to address the impacts of the climate crisis; the U.S. Plan to Conserve Global Forests; the Just Energy Transition Partnership; the Save Our Seas Initiative; and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment in coordination with the Department of State. To deliver on this work, REFS partners with other federal departments and agencies, USAID Bureaus and Missions, universities, civil society, and other public sector and private sector actors. CA leads the Agency’s agriculture work. Through technical assistance, training, and curated learning products, CA supports USAID Missions’ programming, policy, and partnership work in agriculture input systems, production systems, market systems, and finance. Through strategic engagement and partnership, CA influences global agricultural investments and agendas. CA also manages global research and analysis investments to generate agriculture innovations and evidence for widespread application.

Description of Position : See Attachment 1 in the attached pdf to see the full position description.

Conditions of Employment :

• Must be a U.S. citizen. Candidates must indicate citizenship on their application. If citizenship is not stated, the application will not be considered; and
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Secret-level security clearance.

Required Documents:

• A cover letter expressing interest and clearly addressing the stated requirements for the position, and
• A resume/CV.

Other Applicable Documents:

• An applicant claiming Veteran's Preference must submit all appropriate documentation (DD-214, Service Disability Letter, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty, etc.); and
• An applicant serving as a current/former political appointee must submit all appropriate documentation (SF-50s, appointment letter, etc.).

Please submit your application package to [email protected] with the subject line: “ REFS_171, FSL APPLICATION PACKAGE: Program Officer (Program and Budget Analyst), FL-0343-04, REFS/Center for Agriculture-Led Growth, P# 43374. ” Application submissions are required by 11:59 p.m. EDT, July 5, 2024 . Incomplete packages without all of the required documents, or packages not submitted by the deadline with the specified subject line, will not receive consideration. This notice may be used to fill additional vacancies, as the workforce needs of the Bureau may change.

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Any questions concerning this notice may be directed to Jerry Glover at [email protected] .

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Build a Corporate Culture That Works

There’s a widespread understanding that managing corporate culture is key to business success. Yet few companies articulate their culture in such a way that the words become an organizational reality that molds employee behavior as intended.

All too often a culture is described as a set of anodyne norms, principles, or values, which do not offer decision-makers guidance on how to make difficult choices when faced with conflicting but equally defensible courses of action.

The trick to making a desired culture come alive is to debate and articulate it using dilemmas. If you identify the tough dilemmas your employees routinely face and clearly state how they should be resolved—“In this company, when we come across this dilemma, we turn left”—then your desired culture will take root and influence the behavior of the team.

To develop a culture that works, follow six rules: Ground your culture in the dilemmas you are likely to confront, dilemma-test your values, communicate your values in colorful terms, hire people who fit, let culture drive strategy, and know when to pull back from a value statement.

Start by thinking about the dilemmas your people will face.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

There’s a widespread understanding that managing corporate culture is key to business success. Yet few companies articulate their corporate culture in such a way that the words become an organizational reality that molds employee behavior as intended.

What Usually Happens

How to fix it.

Follow six rules: Ground your culture in the dilemmas you are likely to confront, dilemma-test your values, communicate your values in colorful terms, hire people who fit, let culture drive strategy, and know when to pull back from a value.

At the beginning of my career, I worked for the health-care-software specialist HBOC. One day, a woman from human resources came into the cafeteria with a roll of tape and began sticking posters on the walls. They proclaimed in royal blue the company’s values: “Transparency, Respect, Integrity, Honesty.” The next day we received wallet-sized plastic cards with the same words and were asked to memorize them so that we could incorporate them into our actions. The following year, when management was indicted on 17 counts of conspiracy and fraud, we learned what the company’s values really were.

• EM Erin Meyer is a professor at INSEAD, where she directs the executive education program Leading Across Borders and Cultures. She is the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business (PublicAffairs, 2014) and coauthor (with Reed Hastings) of No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention (Penguin, 2020). ErinMeyerINSEAD

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