Photo: Melker Dahlstrand / imagebank.sweden.se
Synthesis of the research project Remote work and multilocality post-pandemic
The project Remote work and multilocality post-pandemic was established by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2021, with project management and research activities conducted by Nordregio. Since the start of the project, researchers have published five reports and a policy brief:
- In 2022, an initial literature review was published (Remote work: Effects on Nordic people, places and planning; see Randall et al., 2022-a), followed by a quantitative study on various Nordic geographies (Local and regional experiences of remote work and multilocality; see Randall et al., 2022-b). The policy brief, Strengthening Nordic cooperation on remote work and multilocality (see Ormstrup Vestergård, 2022), summarises the findings of the two first reports and provides input to policy.
- In 2024, two reports on remote work in smaller towns (Remote work in smaller towns: Possibilities and uncertainties; see Granath Hansson and Guðmundsdóttir, 2024) and rural areas (Remote work in rural areas: Possibilities and uncertainties; see Bogason et al., 2024-a), as well as one report on the Nordic territorial typology developed within the project (Towards a grid-based Nordic territorial typology: A new tool for analysis across the urban-rural continuum; see Stjernberg et al., 2024), were presented.
This report marks the conclusion of the project (Figure 3). In the appendix, the main findings of the five previous reports are presented in chronological order.
A comprehensive summary of the project, as well as all published reports and policy briefs, can be found on the project website.
Figure 3. Overview of the contents of the six project publications
This project has taken the form of explorative research as it started during the COVID-19 pandemic and was carried out in its direct aftermath as a new normal unfolded and new working habits developed. During the pandemic when the research agenda was set, there was only limited knowledge on remote work and its potential spatial implications. To discover more, the project set out to explore how remote work and multilocality could be understood in this new context of work-from-home regulations and later optional remote and hybrid work arrangements. As of autumn 2024, when this report is being written, negotiations between Nordic employers and their employees are still underway; hence, it is still an open question what shape remote and hybrid work will take long-term in different Nordic geographies. However, as this report will show, we can begin to identify how remote work may influence and be influenced by the built and natural environment. Below, we provide a synthesis of the main results from the first five reports. In the chapter Spatial dimensions of remote work, we report more detailed research results linked to the highlighted themes.
Hybrid work is the new normal for a share of the population
Already before the pandemic, Nordic labour markets were characterised by high levels of trust and flexibility, as well as digitalisation, allowing higher levels of remote work. Post-pandemic, hybrid work, with work hours spent both at the workplace and at home or elsewhere, has emerged as the new normal for a share of the population that is characterised by higher education and self-employment levels. This has entailed new work arrangements in offices and homes as well as new mobility patterns. As will be outlined below, hybrid work—rather than fully remote work—has distinct spatial implications. Concurrently, the majority of the work force does not work remotely, which has varying implications for employers’ remote work policies, including social impacts related to, for example, control, trust, and equal treatment.
Remote and hybrid work can be a tool in regional development policies
Remote work and multilocality are already on the regional policy agenda in Nordic countries, as remote work has been considered a tool in regional development for some time. Finland and Iceland had regional policies related to remote work and multilocality already before the pandemic, and these policies were given momentum during and after the pandemic.
In Iceland, the majority of jobs are concentrated in the greater capital region. To counter this imbalance, the “jobs without specified location” initiative was launched in 2018 as part of the Strategic Regional Plan 2018-24. This initiative is intended to promote remote work from rural co-working spaces with the aim that staff selection shall not be influenced by place of residence. In the Regional Development Policy 2022-36, the initiative was further underlined as all state jobs are now considered “site-less” unless the work is specifically tied to a certain location.
Against a backdrop of population decline in some regions, Finnish policy supporting a balanced regional development has been on the agenda for a longer time. Remote work and multilocality, based on technology and location-independent norms, is generally seen as a partial solution.
In Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, links between regional policy and remote work are less clear. The preconditions for increased remote work are present, however, and fit well into broader regional development goals. In Norway, there is also an ambition to have a balanced distribution of government workplaces throughout the country, and a pilot project creating local public sector co-working hubs in four municipalities has been implemented.
The regional policy initiatives above are mainly focused on public jobs and co-working premises. The rural and urban case studies conducted within the project also pointed to the importance of including remote work in policies on transportation and digital infrastructure, including needs created by private employment. In cases when municipal interests need to be balanced, town centre development and housing might also be included in regional development dialogues. Emerging policy recognition of remote work impacts in regional planning are also noted (e.g. ÖMS 2023; Di Marino et al., 2024 on the Helsinki and Oslo regions; Regional Council of North Savo, 2024).
Remote work practices lead to new residential preferences and mobility patterns
Migration data from the pandemic showed that migration mainly took place to municipalities surrounding the capital areas and smaller towns or rural areas within commuting distance of larger cities. This was supported by a study on Copenhagen for the years 2018-2021 conducted within this project. However, case studies of smaller towns showed that there is a limit in terms of distances and the level of attractiveness where smaller towns and rural areas are not able to attract larger numbers of remote workers. The dominance of hybrid work arrangements and the resulting need to travel regularly to a workplace entail that the zone around cities and larger towns that has the potential to attract hybrid workers will have its limits and be strongly linked to attractiveness and time and ease of travel.
Some rural areas that witnessed population decline before the pandemic experienced a slowing or reversing population development, as well as an increased demand for second homes during the pandemic. The extent to which these trends persist post-pandemic, in what areas, and how these trends are related to remote work, has yet to be studied in more depth throughout the Nordics. Meanwhile, the project results have shown that also smaller shares of in-migration might have distinct effects in less populated areas.
In the urban case study, researchers suggested that hybrid workers could be viewed as a sub-group of commuters that spend more time locally and therefore might increase demand for local goods and services. Although this is a simplified way of viewing hybrid workers, it may assist planners in getting a clear understanding of how new working habits influence spatial planning. In a similar way, some interviewees in the regional and rural case studies mentioned “part-time dwellers” and second homeowners as a sub-group that comes with its own sets of possibilities as well as challenges when it comes to planning.
Remote work has been associated with environmental sustainability if it reduces the need for travel. However, the lifestyle choices remote work enables may be accompanied by negative environmental impacts such as increased resource use and travelling longer distances through less environmentally friendly means. Moreover, lower demand for public transport has proven to impact service availability and cost in some areas.
Remote work opportunities are one of several potential ways to increase attractiveness
In regional policy, increased remote work opportunities are often expected to make smaller towns and rural areas more attractive and thus create opportunities for regional development. New skill sets, more innovative business environments, and improved public and private services could assist in countering out-migration and improve quality of life. Many municipalities and regions already worked around such strategies before the pandemic, trying to attract remote workers (Kull et al, 2020). Post-pandemic, despite the persistence of remote and hybrid work, there has not been general evidence for such a development. However, some places have reported a long-term effect, typically those that already were attractive and were able to build on those foundations. This calls for an active policy by municipalities and regions that wish to harness remote work as a catalyst for development. As expressed by municipalities interviewed in this study (and touched upon in the section Available data and methods below), there are considerable challenges to collect reliable data upon which planners and policymakers can build strategies. The case study municipalities in the research by Granath Hansson and Guðmundsdóttir (2024) and Bogason et al. (2024-a) did not have explicit policies for remote workers; instead, they opted for including remote workers in their general strategies to increase attractiveness.
The case studies made on smaller towns (Granath Hansson & Guðmundsdóttir, 2024) and rural areas (Bogason et al., 2024-a) pointed to the centrality of attractiveness and quality of life for sustaining or increasing population in less populated areas (see Box 2). In their work to increase attractiveness, municipalities regarded remote workers as part of a larger population they wished to retain or attract, including persons with roots in the society and skilled workers needed for economic vitality. Attractiveness was not conceptualised distinctly differently for remote workers compared to other existing and potential new residents. However, attractive housing, swift and comfortable mobility solutions as well as good digital infrastructure were mentioned as especially important for remote workers. Access to quality digital infrastructure was underlined in the rural case studies where such services were not taken for granted in all geographies. Here, good connections from co-working areas might have special relevance. Public and private co-working spaces were deemed a central tool to increase attractiveness in the studied rural areas. In the smaller towns, however, such spaces existed but were not used much by remote workers. The researchers hypothesise that remote workers in rural areas might have larger remote work allowances creating more demand for serviced space (e.g., co-working spaces providing resources like printers and meeting rooms) as well as general social interaction, networking, and cooperation. By contrast, standard hybrid work with some days every week in the office is more common in smaller towns; therefore, the need for office space outside of the home is in less demand.
An increase in population might entail larger demand for local goods and services, as well as infrastructure, which might have both positive and negative effects on existing populations, land use, and economic vitality. Municipalities and local public and private actors need to consider the prerequisites of a socially sustainable development where the needs of newcomers, temporary residents, and the existing population are balanced. In relation to multilocal populations, taxation regulations that provide striving municipalities with income to finance increasing service costs and needed development measures from those part-time inhabitants is a point of discussion.
The terms retention and attraction of populations describe the various factors that encourage people to either remain in or relocate to these geographical areas. These terms are not straightforward– critically, geographers have challenged the notion of attractiveness in urban planning discourse by highlighting its subjectivity and its tendency to characterise cities predominantly as entities competing for capital in the form of its citizenry (Hidman, 2018). However, the term can also provide planners and policymakers with a better understanding of the macro flows of migration as they seek to identify the many complex push and pull factors that may contribute to individuals’ decisions and/or capacities to move or remain in place.
The concept of urban attractiveness in smaller Nordic towns is the theme of a related research project at Nordregio which evaluates characteristics of attraction and retention, specifically public space, housing, and connectivity.
The publications in this project are found on the project website: https://nordregio.org/research/small-town-attractiveness/
Remote work enables work force exchange between settlement areas
The urban and rural case studies showed that municipalities see remote or hybrid work as a two-way exchange which both has the potential to attract new permanent or seasonal populations, but also creates opportunities to recruit highly qualified personnel not living in the area. Many municipalities struggle to find qualified staff and possibilities to recruit well-qualified and experienced staff working remotely or hybrid might assist in maintaining important functions and services that benefit the permanent population and hence make towns more attractive. The case studies showed that remote and hybrid recruitments were made in smaller towns and rural areas already before the pandemic, but that this practice has gained momentum based on experiences during the pandemic. This two-way exchange might also mean that local residents compete with remote or hybrid workers living elsewhere for local jobs, or that local employers lose employees living locally as they seek new opportunities in other areas based on remote or hybrid work arrangements. Moreover, recruitment was said to be facilitated when the future employee’s spouse had the opportunity to work remotely, as this could make the relocation decision easier and also allow for a greater amount of alternative employment opportunities.
There is a lack of available data and methods for studying the nuances of remote work
This research project has explored various quantitative and qualitative methods to better understand the spatial implications of remote work and multilocality. However, available statistical data turned out to be a major constraint as it could not explain the drivers and effects of remote work in a reliable way. The shortage of data was echoed by municipalities taking part in interviews in the case studies. The lack of data was said to prevent municipalities from taking action in relation to new working trends as they could not fully identify potential new populations and understand their local impact and/or needs. Further, response rates to the survey limited generalisability of answers. Selected interviews and document studies generated rich data, which was limited to specific spatial contexts. Going forward, new statistical data customised to catch remote work patterns would be valuable as a basis for further research. Moreover, theory and methods need to be developed and customised to data limitations. Here, national agencies and regions could take a front seat along with academic researchers.
Future studies could utilise the urban-rural typology developed within the project to better understand the implications of remote work. The Nordic typology categorises all urban and rural areas into seven groups (inner urban areas to sparsely populated rural areas) on a detailed grid level. Users can then add selected statistical data to reveal geographical patterns. This enables users to compare, for example, population trends and settlement patterns between different types of areas in different countries. The detail of the typology greatly improves results and analysis for the Nordic Region compared to commonly used tools (Figure 4). The EU is financing the development of a similar typology for Europe, and Nordregio takes part in this work through the research project GRANULAR (Box 3).
The Nordic urban-rural typology
Nordregio is also taking part in the European research project GRANULAR
Figure 4. Comparison of how territories are classified in the Nordic urban–rural typology and in the DEGURBA classification.
Nordic policymakers can capitalise on emerging remote work trends by hosting knowledge-sharing events, establishing a taskforce on the topic, and developing partnerships among local and regional stakeholders
Remote work has the potential to impact society in a variety of ways, but the project revealed a considerable uncertainty as to what remote work opportunities will bring long term. Simultaneously, there is a window of opportunity to shape remote work policy in a way that supports outcomes in line with the Nordic Vision. Therefore, remote work-related developments need to be followed and scrutinised by both policymakers and researchers going forward.
The policy recommendations from this project have thus far emphasised knowledge exchange between the Nordic countries showcasing good practices and elucidating common challenges. Input gained could inform national level responses and prevent Nordic actors from “reinventing the wheel,” so to speak, or working in isolation. As the most notable differences between the countries are their regional policy responses, the greatest potential for Nordic added value might be found in that area.
In the project’s previously published policy brief (Ormstrup-Vestergård, 2023), the Nordic Council of Ministers was recommended to: (1) host a Nordic knowledge-sharing event aimed a national policymakers and senior officials, (2) establish a Nordic taskforce on multilocality, and (3) develop a partnership program aimed at supporting knowledge exchange between local and regional stakeholders in the Nordic countries.