Remote work is changing the face of the workforce, and a local chamber alliance wants to find out how much working from home is affecting the Greenwood community.
Aspire Economic Development and the Greenwood Economic Development Commission partnered to conduct a study to determine how many people living in Greenwood work from home, and how long they intend to stay that way.
Aspire mailed postcards last week to all Greenwood residents with a link and QR code to an online survey asking about work life. The survey asks Greenwood residents if they work from home, how long they intend to work from home, and additional questions about what type of home they live in and what businesses or parks they frequent.
The study is expected to last six weeks and cost about $14,000, paid for by the City of Greenwood.
The main goal of the study is to get accurate data about what Greenwood’s workforce looks like right now, and how residents working from home more might affect the community, said Amanda Rubadue, Aspire’s vice president of economic development.
"When you shift your location of where you work, it creates an impact on the businesses you’re closest to," Rubadue said. "You’re working from home now, so you’re not going to the grocery store close to your office, you’re going to the one close to home now, or you’re going to a different coffee shop."
The survey is also looking at whether residents go to more parks now because they are working from home, and internet access and quality.
"There are so many things that hadn’t been a consideration before that are more so now," Rubadue said. "We may now need to have great internet going to our homes the same as we do going to our businesses."
Determining how much of the local workforce is remote, and how that will continue past the coronavirus pandemic could play a big role in Greenwood’s future development.
Aspire recently received a request for information from a regional partner with a company looking to relocate to Greenwood, but most of its employees would need to work from home, Rubadue said.
"We didn’t even know, how do we incentivize that? The tools we have now aren’t set up for something like that. Like tax abatements, those aren’t really meant for a model like that," she said.
