Many companies have tried — or are trying — remote work even if the geographical location is not a barrier. For example, in Metro Manila, the traffic problem is causing a lot of stress on employees who have to allocate at least one to two hours of travel time, one way when going to work.

With the COVID-19 scare, some organizations have encouraged remote work so as not to disrupt business operations while at the same time ensuring the safety of their employees.

“A deep dive into LinkedIn’s data shows a sharp spike in searches for “remote working” content on the LinkedIn Learning platform since late January,” according to its media release. Key Asian markets including Hong Kong, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Chinese Mainland are the ones driving this trend. Trending search terms on LinkedIn Learning related to remote working, such as “Communicating in virtual meetings” and “Managing remote teams” reiterate the same story.

Have you read “Survey: Age key barrier to work opportunities for Filipinos”?

Amid all this, as well as other conditions that would make remote work ideal, professional networking platform LinkedIn saw an increased interest in “remote work” as evidenced by searches for various related topics within the site.

In the report by Buffer, 40% of respondents in the survey it conducted believe that a flexible schedule is the biggest benefit to remote work. Also, contrary to employers’ fears, the survey reported increased productivity from employers who choose remote work.

LinkedIn: Searches for content on remote work grew by 2.6X since March 2018.

Productivity

The networking site sees that some companies may have apprehension in adapting this setup. Productivity is one of the major concerns as employees are unsupervised during “work hours” if they choose to work remotely.

To assist employers and employees in exploring what could be called a “novel concept,” LinkedIn Learning has a number of courses such as “Working remotely” and “Leading at a distance” which discuss helpful information on virtual collaboration, and virtual leadership to help learners ace remote work.

LinkedIn’s Think Insights, which is powered by billions of data points from its members, shared that to be able to ensure the success of remote work, the arrangement has to be a collective effort: While team members act on time management and productivity tips, team leaders have to understand how to manage virtual teams and ensure that team members are engaged.