State of Remote Work 2019

Who Took the Survey

We surveyed 1,202 full-time workers in the United States between the ages of 22 and 65.

Who Works Remotely

Of the 1,202 people we surveyed, 745 (62%) work remotely at any frequency, and 457 (38%) work on-site. In this report, we'll refer to "remote workers" as people who work remotely at any frequency, and "on-site workers" as people who never work remotely.

How Often People Work Remotely

The 62% of survey respondents who work remotely do so at different frequencies. 54% of respondents work remotely at least once per month, 48% work remotely at least once per week, and 30% work remotely full-time.

Last year's Global State of Remote Work report found that 68% of workers around the world worked remotely at least once a month, indicating that the U.S. is slightly behind the global average in its adoption of remote work. However, last year's report also found that only 18% of workers around the world work remotely full-time, indicating that remote workers in the U.S. work remotely full-time 66% more frequently than the global average.

Among remote workers, respondents are most likely to work remotely full-time, with 49% of remote workers working remotely full-time, and remote workers are least likely to work remotely at least once per month, with only 10% of remote workers working at this frequency.

Remote Work Frequency by Level

We broke down our survey respondents by job level to learn which levels work remotely most frequently.

There are 18% more executives working remotely than there are working on-site.

Additionally, senior executives and above say they work remotely at least once per week 34% more than those in lower positions.

Which Industries Are Represented

Below, we've broken down the top industries represented by all respondents, by remote workers, and by on-site workers to see where the majority of respondents come from.

OTHER CATEGORIES INCLUDED

Government (6%), Professional Services (6%), Technology/Internet (6%), Construction & Engineering (4%), Food & Beverage (3%), Hospitality (3%), Insurance (3%), Automotive (2%), Computing & Electronics (2%), Consumer Goods (2%), Entertainment (2%), Telecommunications (2%), Transportation (2%), Real Estate (1%), Agriculture (1%), Utilities (1%), Energy (<1%), Mass Media (<1%), Sports (<1%), Wellness & Fitness (<1%)

OTHER CATEGORIES INCLUDED

Healthcare (15%), Technology/Internet (10%), Financial services (9%), Education (8%), Manufacturing (7%), Professional Services (6%), Retail (6%), Construction & Engineering (5%), Government (5%), Computing & Electronics (4%), Insurance (3%), Automotive (2%), Consumer Goods (2%), Food & Beverage (2%), Hospitality (2%), Transportation (2%), Agriculture (1%), Entertainment (1%), Real Estate (1%), Telecommunications (1%), Energy (<1%), Mass Media (<1%), Sports (<1%), Utilities (<1%), Wellness & Fitness (<1%)

OTHER CATEGORIES INCLUDED

Healthcare (20%), Education (12%), Retail (11%), Government (7%), Manufacturing (7%), Financial Services (5%), Professional Services (5%), Construction & Engineering (4%), Food & Beverage (4%), Hospitality (3%), Insurance (3%), Automotive (2%), Consumer Goods (2%), Entertainment (2%), Transportation (2%), Technology/Internet (1%), Telecommunications (1%), Utilities (1%), Agriculture (<1%), Computing & Electronics (<1%), Energy (<1%), Mass Media (<1%), Real Estate (<1%), Sports (<1%), Wellness & Fitness (0%)

Which Departments are Represented

Among the respondents we surveyed, the departments that were most represented overall were Customer Support/Service/Success (17%), Facilities/Operations/IT (16%), Administrative (14%), Sales (12%), Other (8%), Product/Engineering (7%), Legal/Finance (7%), Human Resources (7%), Executive/Company Leadership (5%), Marketing (4%), and Education (3%).

Salary Information

We broke down the data to learn if remote work correlated with higher or lower salaries, and we learned that remote workers earn salaries higher than $100,000 per year 2.2x more frequently than on-site workers. Seventy-four percent of the remote workers we surveyed earn less than $100,000 per year, as compared to the 92% of on-site workers surveyed who earn less than that amount. Twenty-six percent of the remote workers we surveyed earn more than $100,000 per year, versus the 8% of on-site workers who earn more than that amount.

Remote workers earn salaries higher than $100K/year 2.2x more frequently than on-site workers.

These findings align with our Equal Pay for Equal Work (From Home) study from April 2019, which found that part-time or full-time remote workers are more likely to earn salaries over $100,000 than people who never work remotely.

Tenure Data

We asked about the tenure of survey participants at their respective organizations to learn if more or less tenured employees are trusted to work remotely.

36% more on-site workers have been at their current organization for more than 10 years, and that 7% more remote workers have been at their current organization for 5 years or fewer.

We also learned that 75% more on-site workers have worked in their positions for less than a year, indicating that newer employees work remotely less frequently. This may be a reflection of the fact that some employees may only be able to work remotely once they've been in their position and built team-wide trust over a period of time. It could also be an indication that people are looking for new job opportunities that allow them to work remotely sooner.

How Remote Work Impacts Employee Loyalty

We asked survey respondents to agree or disagree with a series of statements to learn how the ability to work remotely impacts their happiness at work and their loyalty to their company.

Among other findings, we learned that remote work or the ability to work remotely makes employees happier, feel more trusted, better able to achieve work-life balance, and more inclined to take a pay cut to benefit from added flexibility.

Working Remotely in the Future

We asked respondents if they plan to work remotely more, less, or the same amount of time as they currently do in the future to learn how remote workers feel about their schedule — and if on-site workers want to work remotely at all. We learned that 42% of remote workers plan to work remotely more frequently in the next 5 years, and that more than half of on-site workers want to start working remotely. Only 19% say they do not want to work remotely.

We learned that 42% of remote workers plan to work remotely more frequently than they currently do in the next 5 years, and that more than half of on-site workers want to start working remotely.

How Remote Work Impacts Employee Happiness

We asked respondents if they feel happy in their job to compare employee happiness between remote and on-site workers. We found remote workers say they're happy in their jobs 29% more than on-site workers.

Full-time remote workers say they're happy in their job 22% more than people who never work remotely.

How Remote Work Impacts Employee Retention and Loyalty

We wanted to learn if employees who worked remotely were more loyal than on-site workers.

Remote workers say they are likely to stay in their current job for the next 5 years 13% more than onsite workers.

We also asked remote workers how it would impact their sense of loyalty if they were no longer allowed to work remotely in the future and learned that more than 6 out of 10 of remote workers would expect additional compensation to stop working remotely.

55% of remote workers would be likely to look for another job if they were no longer allowed to work remotely.

61% of remote workers would expect a pay increase if they were no longer allowed to work remotely.

Remote Work's Perceived Impact on Career Progression

Some employees express concern that a lack of office facetime or in-person mentorship could impact career development, but less than a quarter of remote workers shared their concerns.

68% of remote workers say they are not concerned working remotely will impact their career progression, while 23% say they fear it would.

The Top Reasons for Working Remotely

We asked the remote workers we surveyed about the biggest reasons they decided to work remotely. They responded with: better work-life balance (91%), increased productivity/better focus (79%), less stress (78%) and avoiding a commute (78%). (This makes sense, because 30% of respondents who don't work remotely but want to in the future have a commute of 30 minutes or more each way.)

This year's results represent a shift toward greater interest in work-life balance compared to our 2018 Global State of Remote Work, where increased productivity/better focus and less stress topped the list.

Which Benefits and Perks Are Most Important

We asked respondents about the perks and benefits that are most important to them when considering an employment opportunity and found there was little difference between preferences for remote and on-site workers.

For example, base compensation and health insurance were two of the top three priorities for both groups: 87% of on-site workers and 89% of remote workers prioritize base compensation, and 89% of on-site workers and 88% of remote workers prioritize health insurance. On-site workers care about health insurance 62% more than they care about stock options, and remote workers care about base compensation 43% more than they care about stock options.

Remote workers and on-site workers' priorities differ when it comes to schedule flexibility (92% more important to remote workers), workplace flexibility (42% more important to remote workers), and stock options (70% more important to remote workers).

On-site workers care about health insurance 62% more than they care about stock options.

Remote workers care about base compensation 43% more than they care about stock options.

How Many Hours Respondents Are Working

One stereotype about remote workers is that they work fewer hours than on-site workers, but many remote workers work as many or more hours than their on-site counterparts because it can be challenging to unplug from work. We asked respondents how many hours per week they work to compare remote workers and on-site workers.

Remote workers say they work more than 40 hours per week 43% more than on-site workers do.

Why Respondents Are Working Longer Hours

For respondents who reported working more than 40 hours per week, we wanted to learn more about their reasons for working longer hours.

Remote workers and on-site workers are working 40+ hour work weeks for different reasons.

On-site workers are also working longer weeks because it's required, and more remote workers are doing so because they enjoy what they do.

Interestingly, 72% of both remote workers and on-site workers feel they're working the right amount of hours each week.

How Many Meetings Respondents Attend Each Week

Because meetings can be a challenging but critical opportunity for collaboration on remote and hybrid teams, we asked respondents questions about the number of meetings they attend each week so we could compare how remote and on-site workers are spending their time.

We learned that remote workers attend more meetings each week than on-site workers. 14% of remote workers are dedicating time to more than 10 meetings per week (vs. only 3% of on-site workers). On-site workers are spending 11% more time in 0-10 meetings per week, and remote workers are spending 11% more time in 11+ meetings per week.

Clear and open communication is critical for productive remote work, especially on hybrid teams, and it seems that remote workers are spending more time at work communicating with their colleagues, perhaps because they're working remotely.

We also analyzed how meeting schedules differ across different salary bands and job levels to learn if senior leaders or higher-paid individuals need to spend more time in meetings than other groups.

Challenges During Hybrid Meetings

During hybrid meetings (those with both on-site and remote meeting attendees from different locations), effective communication is the biggest challenge for both remote workers and on-site workers: Both groups cited interruptions and being talked over as their #1 challenge during these meetings.

The biggest challenges for on-site workers during hybrid meetings are interruptions/being talked over (61%) and staying focused during meetings (52%).

The biggest challenges for remote workers during hybrid meetings are interruptions/being talked over (67%) and IT issues during meetings (59%).

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How Meetings Impact Productivity

We asked respondents how they would evaluate the productivity of their meetings to see if they’re more or less helpful for remote workers compared to on-site workers.

Remote workers say meetings reduce productivity 1.8X more than on-site workers.

How Many Remote Workers and Managers Received Training

We wanted to learn if any remote workers or remote employee managers received specific training on working remotely or managing employees who work remotely. We found that 38% of remote workers and 15% of remote managers received no training on how to work remotely.

30% of survey respondents currently or have previously managed remote workers. Of that group, 89% of respondents who've managed remote workers are or have been remote workers themselves, and the remaining 11% of remote employee managers work on-site.

The Biggest Challenges Facing Remote Employee Managers

We asked remote employee managers about their biggest challenges and concerns when it comes to managing their remote employees.

Despite the fact that research (including this report) shows that remote workers are choosing to work remotely to increase productivity and improve focus during working hours, many managers are still concerned about whether they're getting work done. What's more, these concerns are ignoring some of the other challenges remote workers are facing, such as feelings of loneliness and isolation.

To support these hybrid and remote working relationships, managers need training that's specific to remote workers to give them tools to evaluate performance and manage expectations when they don't physically work with direct reports.

We found that remote employee managers who've received training are concerned about these challenges to a lesser degree than the overall contingent of remote employee managers, suggesting that additional training helps assuage manager fears and concerns about employee productivity and work environment.

The biggest differences relate to employee productivity and focus: Remote employee managers who've received training are 15% less likely to be as concerned about these challenges as remote employee managers overall.

Do remote workers still shower when they get up for work every morning?

We asked respondents to share if they shower or bathe before work every morning to see if remote workers have the same morning routine as on-site workers heading into the office, and we found very little difference between the two groups, indicating that remote workers don't fit into the pajama-clad stereotype.