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Hurricane Milton makes a case for remote work
Hurricane Militon and other powerful storms are a test of business resilience. One way to ensure continuing operations is to have the systems in place to support remote work.
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Deel, a global immigration services company, has remote workers in Florida areas affected by Hurricane Milton, and it plans to help them deal with the aftermath. It has a remote-first strategy, and its 4,500 employees work globally.
That approach might be a wise strategy, according to research. In an era of climate change, companies that build capacity for remote work are in a better position to manage a disaster.
"The push for full-time office returns can indeed be a risky strategy, particularly for companies in areas susceptible to billion-dollar disasters, like hurricanes Helene and Milton," said Sebastian Steffen, an assistant professor in the business analytics department at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Steffen provided written responses to questions from TechTarget Editorial in collaboration with co-researchers Wang Jin, a digital fellow at MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy, and Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and professor at Stanford.
Business continuity is top of mind for Deel, which designed its remote work strategy to reduce business risk. If it believes too many workers responsible for a particular system, such as payroll, are too concentrated in one region, Deel will deliberately hire in other areas.
"Do we have single points of failure in one location or another, and if we do, how can we mitigate that?" said Nadia Alaee, senior director of HR business partners at Deel.
Alaee noted that for Deel, "80% of our roles can probably be hired wherever we need or want them to be, so that broadens our talent pool."
The San Francisco-based company is well-practiced in supporting workers in areas prone to natural or experiencing conflict, such as Ukraine. Its efforts include giving employees flexibility during times of need and can include providing practical support such as transportation, satellite internet or coworking spaces.
"The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters expose the vulnerabilities of rigid, in-office work models," according to Steffen, Jin and Brynjolfsson. "Forcing employees back into the office during disaster-prone periods not only puts their physical safety at risk but also threatens business continuity when office spaces become unsafe or inaccessible due to hurricanes, fires or other extreme weather events."
Remote strategy pays off
Steffen, Jin and Brynjolfsson were part of a team that published a study in 2021. It found that companies with high levels of work-from-home readiness in response to COVID-19 had higher net incomes and sales than those that weren't as prepared for the shift.
Hurricane Milton is part of a growing trend of increasingly destructive natural disasters driven by a warming planet. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. experienced a record 28 billion-dollar disasters in 2023, marking a historic high in a year that was also the warmest on record.
Not all industries or roles can shift to remote work, and in-person meetings "have been shown to be crucial for innovation and effective knowledge transfer," noted Steffen, Jin and Brynjolfsson. But as digital work tools improve and there is better support collaboration, the need for in-person interactions may decrease, they added.
Deel's remote-first approach faces resistance. Amazon, for instance, said it's bringing employees back to offices. Its CEO, Andy Jassy, told employees that in-office work puts the company in a better position to "invent, collaborate and be connected."
Deel's Alaee said she believes that the company's remote work policy increases employee engagement and productivity. She said employees are more motivated when they aren't required to commute and have more time for work-life balance.
Staying remote also prompts the company to look at tools that could improve remote collaboration.
Enabling best work
"We're always leveraging as many new technologies as we can in the market," Alaee said. The firm leans heavily on Slack for much of its collaboration but also uses whiteboards and other tools. "We have to be able to enable our team members to do their best work."
Practices that afford companies the option of switching to remote work, when necessary, "act as a form of insurance," Steffen, Jin and Brynjolfsson said. There is also a moral element at work. "Requiring employees to commute through dangerous conditions or work in potentially unsafe office environments can significantly lower employee morale. Workers may experience higher levels of stress, disengagement and reduced loyalty if they feel their well-being is not valued by their employers."
Mark Benden, an engineering professor and director of the Center for Worker Health at Texas A&M, was part of a 2022 study that analyzed computer usage of workers at a large unidentified Houston company after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. It found that an ability to work remote "may improve the resiliency of employees to perform workplace tasks during" events such as major storms."
"Having a worker with two places they can be productive is an amazing backup plan," Benden said in an email. Still, it's not a foolproof remedy because of the possibility of simultaneous disruption. "Until both get wiped out, then it is just one more place to have to restore to get workers back up."
The data suggests that a large number of companies, especially in tech, continue to offer hybrid and remote options. Investment in remote work, such as secure networks and cloud-based systems might be expensive, Steffen noted. But in areas susceptible to natural disasters, "these costs are often justified by the increased resilience they afford in the long run."
Patrick Thibodeau is an editor at large for TechTarget Editorial who covers HCM and ERP technologies. He's worked for more than two decades as an enterprise IT reporter.
