Credit: Christina Morillo / GamOI
Developers forced to work remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic have proved to be so productive they may never return to the office, according to a study by analyst firm Accelerated Strategies. The study was commissioned by CloudBees, a provider of CI/CD software and cloud services.
The forced shift to remote work has required organisations to act quickly, doing business through online meetings, cloud applications, and digital collaboration tools, the report notes. Infrastructure and services have had to be put in place to support workers at home. Many organisations now anticipate that much of their workforce will stick to their new work paradigm.
The study found that 64.4 per cent of remote workers anticipate working remotely three or more days per week or permanently once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
Nearly 60 per cent of respondents said their software teams were significantly more productive than they were pre-pandemic. Only 12.4 per cent saw a decrease in productivity. A smaller percentage of developers and development teams, though, have been working remotely with success for years.
Labelled "The Future of Remote Work and Software Development", collected responses from 347 participants from organisations of varying sizes from 23 countries and regions, representing 20 industry verticals. The data was collected from August 24 to September 4 of this year.
Among the findings six per cent of developers worked remotely prior to the Covid-19 pandemic for some portion of their work, while six per cent of respondents reported that it has become somewhat easier to complete work tasks in a timely fashion since the pandemic.
Delving deeper, 37 per cent of respondents found it easier for their software teams to work across time zones since Covid-19 took hold with seven per cent stating that it became "somewhat easier or much easier" to manage unproductive distractions during the pandemic, while 36.36 per cent said it had become harder.
Software teams generally have been working more closely with product and project management, operations, and security teams during the pandemic - 75 per cent said Covid-19 has prompted an increased focus on devops while 52.25 per cent stepped up their migration to cloud services.
