13% of full-time workers have a fully remote job

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — Roger Kerr is comfortable working from home. He has been for years, but he just quit his job. “We were told to return to the office,” he said. “I had a different idea.”

Kerr’s former employer recently notified employees they would be required to work in the office three to four days a week. “I had a new job in a matter of two weeks,” he said. “I was a senior software engineer, and I’m still a senior software engineer.”

Like Kerr, a recent Bankrate survey reveals two in five full-time workers would change jobs for remote work. “It’s just off the table for certain kinds of jobs, and I think that that is why we’ve seen more of a push for better compensation, higher pay, particularly for those people that cannot have a hybrid or remote situation,” said Bankrate’s Mark Hamrick.

According to WFH Research, 57% of full-time employees work on-site, 30% have a hybrid schedule, and 13% have fully remote jobs. That number is expected to grow.

“I think one of the biggest factors is peace and work-life balance. I think those things became clearly priorities, certainly in 2020 and beyond,” said Brenda Cunningham, a Phoenix-based career coach. “We had this great awakening as a society that diversity means more than Black people and White people. It means different work styles and different ways of learning and functioning, and how some of us can really work best in the midnight hours versus 8 a.m. It doesn’t make you any less of an employee. It just makes you different.”

Cunningham knows some business leaders are resistant to remote work, but she says it may hurt them in the long run. “People who are really savvy at hiring, they have an advantage,” she said. “There are going to be some places that have become plain unaffordable to live in, but if I allow a percentage of my workforce to work remotely, then I actually increase my candidate pool 10 or 100-fold.”

For Kerr, there are a lot of reasons why working from home just works. He has the flexibility to help care for a loved one who has medical issues. He doesn’t have to waste time in traffic, and he doesn’t have to spend his hard-earned money on gas or pricey lunches during the workday.

“All of these factors add up very quickly,” he said, noting there’s only one regret about leaving his old job. “Just coworkers,” he said. “I have a lot of very good friends I made over the four years.”

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