Not Able To Build Strong Professional Networks While Working Remotely?

Many of us are now living in the most extensive distributed workforce experiment ever, with millions of employees around the world becoming remote workers practically overnight.

On Blind, an anonymous professional network, with 3.6M verified users, we asked:

Do you find remote work to be alienating?
Are you concerned about losing potentially career-boosting benefits of office life?
Are you able to build strong social and professional networks while working remotely?

Key Learnings:

59% of professionals find remote work to be alienating

82% of Visa professionals find remote work to be alienating

82% of Netflix professionals find remote work to be alienating

83% of Square professionals find remote work to be alienating

59% of professionals are concerned about losing potentially career-boosting benefits of office life

71% of Salesforce professionals are concerned about losing potentially career-boosting benefits of office life

90% of Netflix professionals are concerned about losing potentially career-boosting benefits of office life

66% of professionals are NOT able to build strong social and professional networks while working remotely

90% of Ebay professionals are NOT able to build strong social and professional networks while working remotely

88% of Facebook professionals are NOT able to build strong social and professional networks while working remotely

A user at Morgan Stanley asks, “Any actionable tips to build relationships with the skip manager when only interaction with them is through monthly 1:1s ??”

A user at Facebook shared, “Hi, I recently joined and as a new hire, it seems difficult to build relationships with the team members. What are your thoughts on this? Any suggestions?”

This set of questions is part 3 in a 5 part survey series, where Blind is trying to gauge the varying aspects of the impact of remote work. So far, through the data, we have learned that one of the professional’s most significant gripes with remote work is the inability to separate work from home life and loneliness. The data so far has shown users feeling vulnerable to job uncertainty, financial instability, and bleak company outlook while working remotely in social isolation.

The U.S. reported 83,718 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, marking the second day in a row that the country topped 80,000 daily infections.

With Covid cases on the rise again, Blind used the second part of this survey sequence to ask:

Do you feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH?
Has the current economic and political state given you a bleak company outlook?
Do you feel vulnerable to financial instability due to WFH?

Key Learnings (From ~2,800 responses 10/16- 10/26)

49% of professionals feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH
- 66% of Paypal professionals feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH
- 65% of Intuit professionals feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH
- 62% of Salesforce professionals feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH
- 57% of Amazon professionals feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH
- Only 32% of Apple professionals feel vulnerable to job uncertainty due to WFH
However, 61% of professionals say the current economic and political state has not given them a bleak company outlook
- Only 19% of Apple professionals say the current economic and political state has given them a bleak company outlook
  - Contrasted by 46% of Amazon professionals, who have a bleak company outlook
46% of professionals feel vulnerable to financial instability due to WFH
- 60% of LinkedIn professionals feel vulnerable to financial instability due to WFH
- 30% of Google professionals feel vulnerable to financial instability due to WFH
- 26% of Facebook professionals feel vulnerable to financial instability due to WFH

You can see the report highlighting the overall responses here.

A user at Amazon shared, “Hey everyone. I’m a new grad SDE at Amazon. Been about 2-3 months in. I am currently traumatized of the mandatory pip culture at Amazon (especially since I am on a visa). I worked really really hard to get this far in life, and I am immensely grateful, but I can’t function at work due to fear. My team and manager seem great, but I am struggling at work (new technologies/languages, internal tools etc), and the potential fear of pip is literally eating me up (and the “what-if” in case manager-changes / re-orgs).”

This surge indicates that working from home is here to stay. The professionals who survived the first wave of layoffs feel vulnerable to job loss again. Please email me back for questions or more employee sentiment as the COVID-19 virus enters a new phase.

Companies are trying to bridge the gap between the work from home present, and the future, when a vaccine or effective treatment will open the possibility of a safe return to the traditional workplace.

These job concerns are interesting when you take into consideration the key learnings from the first survey in this sequence, which asked:

How often do you want to work remotely?
Do you struggle with collaboration/communication during WFH?
Do you struggle with loneliness during WFH?

Key Learnings:

47% of professionals want to work remotely some of the time
- 53% of Amazon professionals want to work remotely some of the time
- 43% of Apple professionals want to work remotely some of the time
- 69% of Paypal professionals want to work remotely some of the time
45% of professionals want to work remotely all of the time
- 55% of Adobe professionals want to work remotely all of the time
- 60% of Salesforce professionals want to work remotely all of the time
43% of professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
- 65% of Intuit professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
- 58% of Facebook professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
- 40% of Paypal professionals state that they struggle with collaboration/ communication during WFH
48% of professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH
- 59% of Google professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH
- 59% of Adobe professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH
- 49% of Microsoft professionals are struggling with loneliness during WFH

You can see the report highlighting the overall responses here.

A user at Amazon asks, “How long before new Facebook employees can request to go full remote? I’m considering a role at FB based in Menlo Park but do not want to relocate to the Bay post-COVID. I assume I’d join but work remote until FB tells employees they need to go back to the office. Beyond that, is there a minimum tenure required for new employees before they can request to go remote?”

A user at Google shares, “I have had a feeling lately that due to COVID19 and due to bad wlb due to wfh people have become less collaborative these days. People have stopped replying on emails and teams chat. Not answering queries. Anyone else also feeling so?”

What are biggest challenges of hybrid work that you foresee? What are the biggest benefits? Download the Blind App and join the conversation!