The Largest-Ever Work from Home Experiment - Part 2 CryptoTask Follow Mar 15 · 4 min read

Back on February 19th, 2020 we covered an article regarding how companies in Singapore, Hong Kong & China were having people work from home. At the time it was an unprecedented experiment. Now, one month later it’s not limited to just 3 countries. It’s now becoming the largest global experiment in our modern-day history. This may bring the needed change of the rooted 9 to 5 office job.

Comparing different Pandemic Eras

Yes, there were other times where a pandemic occurred and we can’t even imagine how that must have been. The Spanish Flu in 1918 infected around 1.8 billion people, roughly 27% of the global population and killing around 100 million. This was during war-time (WW1) and governments globally censored the disease to sustain the war efforts morale leaving many unaware of the risks. However, papers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain, thus giving the name “Spanish” flu. Today it is still unknown where the disease originated.

This was very different in what we are seeing now. Everyone who was not fighting in the front line had jobs primarily working for the war machine. You got sick with the flu, you recovered, you then went back to the factory. A lot of people were financially hurt by this.

Today with many jobs being on your computer, we can quarantine and still work without leaving the home. We have work accessibility through instant global communication. Some say the media is overhyping and causing panic, but instead we should appreciate the warning. We should in fact be more proud of how we are handling this in today’s era.

Sacrificing the short term economy to save the long term

Yes, this will briefly affect the economy, but we are talking about saving lives for the many of us who are working from home. We are saving economic costs for the long term rather than the short term. We will expect that those who can’t work from home or become sick will get government support. As of most recently, we are seeing the first steps in the US

from the announcement of President Trump’s payroll tax cut plan.

For the first time, we will see how we will cope with millions of people working from home. The downtown business office job will be an eerie ghost town except for a few. So how will working from home benefit after examining this global work experiment? For starters, if you are a US resident, you just saved an hour of your day.

Commuting is becoming more of an issue

The average commute to work has reached an all-time record. On average, a US resident drives 27 minutes to work. That is almost one whole hour stuck in a machine that is coughing up Co2 into the atmosphere. This is one whole hour away from friends, family and additional work. And there’s a reason travel is getting longer and longer to commute.

The geographical concentration of jobs within the US are clustered in rich cities. When we look at venture-backed investments, 80% goes to just three states. Massachusetts, New York, and California. Seventy percent of internet jobs are either located in the area between Washington and Boston or the crescent between Seattle and Phoenix.

Companies are missing out on a range of talented people

With the majority of the middle class unable to afford nor find an opening near such wealthy metro areas, companies miss out on a range of talented people. These people either need to commute long distances or not work at all for them. This displaces the American worker.

In fact, companies become restricted to only hire people from the same socioeconomic pool who share the same ideas and blind spots. Companies thus lack a homogenous culture of distributed knowledge and experience. Diversity comes from the interaction of different communities spurring creativity. A company that develops remote work features for their employees can bring that much needed diversity.

Will the COVID-19 pandemic bring vast changes to our rooted 9 to 5 office job? Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, we have been heading in that direction for some time, it really comes down to whether this will speed up policies from companies to allow remote work. Here at CryptoTask, we are building an application specifically for the freelancer and remote worker connecting businesses to hire and communicate with the worker.

What is CryptoTask?

CT is a decentralized freelance market ecosystem skipping 3rd party fees by directly connecting hirees and applicants peer to peer. CT uses a commercially scalable consensus mechanism with a reviewer board selection built into the blockchain. This means job disputes are resolved much faster and cheaper, while your reputation is stored on blockchain technology and there is no arbitrary censorship or hidden tampering, such as hidden boosting, something that centralised platforms are infamous for.

Make sure to check out our website and create your profile. You can also follow us on Telegram & Twitter to keep up to date with our launch preparations. Thanks for reading!