The scientist explains why this is happening, taking into account investor sentiment.
The company’s adaptability
First, some hard data. Tsipursky cites the Scoop Flex Index from the fourth quarter of 2023. It’s a fairly representative index—although focused on the U.S. labor market, it covers 4,000 companies, 25,000 locations, and 100 million employees. The data shows that companies that adopted flexible work models during the pandemic and stuck with them not only survived, but also thrived the most. The same cannot be said for companies that insist on herding employees into offices.
According to the researcher, in 2020-2022, organizations offering a remote work model outpaced their competitors by 16 percent in the case of companies in the technology industry and by 13 percent outside this industry. When it comes to the hybrid model, better results are also recorded here, although only by 3 percent. The specialist notes, however, that this also illustrates how a balanced approach drives business.
Tsipursky writes that by the end of 2023, 62 percent of American employers had already opted for some form of flexible work arrangements, up from 51 percent at the beginning of the same year. According to the researcher, this is a change that goes beyond a response to the pandemic – he believes it is a strategic move to better adapt to the new reality.
Eleventh: Don’t chase talent to the office
The leaders of the aforementioned changes are startups, of which as many as 93% offer flexible forms of employment, and this, as the author writes, is not limited to technology companies. According to Tsipusky, this is a clear marker of the future business landscape, in which working from a company’s office will become a niche phenomenon. This is of great importance when it comes to the company’s finances – according to the researcher, the possibility of remote work is key when making decisions for investors.
Why should investors care about the work model in the startup they invest in? Because they care about their wallets. As Tsipursky writes, especially in the technology industry, the key resource is so-called talent, i.e. highly qualified and particularly valued employees. Only a company that can attract them is interesting to investors. And a company that wants to herd talent into the office has a smaller chance of success.
