Work From Home (WFH) and the ‘Hybrid System’

A new report from freelance marketplace Upwork found that work-from-home arrangements are prompting a significant amount of people to move out of city centers.

Nearly half of movers are moving over two hours away, expanding the boundaries of the traditional metropolitan suburb. If companies don’t plan on bringing their workforce back to the office, employees could find themselves moving further and further from their office in order to get more bang for their buck… but still stay within relative traveling distance to it just in case they want to come in every once in a while – living up to the useful ‘Hybrid System’ that effectively supports the BPO industry in a variety of countries competing with the BPO industry in the Philippines.

• Upwork reports that 2.4% of American adults (about 4.9 million people) have moved because of remote work. 9.3% more said that they plan to.

• Where are people moving to? Most moves were local, but 13% were to places two to four hours away from where they live, and 28% were to places more than four hours away.

The conclusion: 41% were no longer concerned about needing to make a commute to work.

And these are people who do not suffer as much as BPO workers in the Philippines who spend many hours daily to get from home to the BPO office and back home after work. 

It is difficult to understand Finance Secretary Dominguez and the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) decisions to move all BPO workers back to their offices by April 1 and give up WFH, provided tax perks for this super important industry for the Philippines are needed beyond that deadline.

I loved the headline of the editorial of Business Mirror on March 14: ‘Let nobody kill the golden goose’. 

It made good sense that the IT-BPM industry issued a checklist for the next president, highlighting what the industry does for the Philippines. Let me just name a few:

• BPO companies and their 1.4 million employees,  mostly working from home, managed to deliver services to global customers with the same level of productivity and customer satisfaction as in pre-pandemic times;

• The industry experienced another resurgence in 2021 despite the threats of Delta and Omicron as it grew by an impressive 7- 8 percent in terms of headcount;

• The sector is projecting to have generated revenues of US$ 28.8 billion in 2021 and sees another 8% growth in 2022.

In my view, the next president has no choice but to support this super important industry and its employees by allowing WFH with tax perks. Some of the presidential candidates already confirmed that they will support a ‘Hybrid’ WFH policy if elected.

In conclusion, let my just highlight two columns that support these views:

Peter Wallace – It’s a hybrid world – March 17; Wallace…like it [email protected]

Solita Collas-Monsod – WFH: More pros than cons – March 19; [email protected]

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