Remote work is shaped by geopolitics, not technology

Once upon a time, the big idea was simple—work from anywhere! Thanks to technological advances, you didn’t need to be tethered to your office desk to collaborate with coworkers (or swap memes with them). As long as you had your laptop and good Wi-Fi you could be by the pool on a tropical island, drink in hand, and a magnificent sunset in the background.

Forward-thinking companies would recognize that talent could be found in the most unexpected places. Employees get to mix and match their work with the life they love. Governments would enable this with offers of special digital nomad visas. The whole world would become one big, friendly workplace.

Hold that thought. Before you swap suits for flip-flops, you should recognize that the future of work might not be what you pictured. An alternate future is taking shape, where geopolitics is shaping who works, the location of work, and the type of work. Driven by national security concerns and a proclivity to support “their” companies at the expense of “others,” governments are reshaping the future of work.

YOUR remote work (Can YOU do the work remotely?)

The first promise of remote work was that work could be democratized. More people from around the world could access jobs in a far more distributed model of talent and collaboration. Ideas flow across the world and organizations benefit from a more global intelligence. But that promise collides with geopolitical reality.

Take the case of Apple. As the company started to move some of its manufacturing operations to India, it needed to hire workers at scale. According to an Economic Times report, Apple’s ecosystem in India was expected to create 600,000 jobs. But who works at these facilities is an increasingly geopolitically fraught question.

There were initially hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians supporting Apple’s expansion in India. But more than 300 of them were asked to return to China recently. The recall of engineers—the second in recent months—was seen as a push by China to curb technology transfer to Indian operations and prevent manufacturing exits from the country. To continue operations, Apple’s suppliers have turned to engineers from Taiwan.

Driven by geopolitical objectives, government restrictions increasingly shape who can work on leading or cutting-edge projects, the individuals a company can hire, and how long they can stay in those roles.

Global companies are taking a close, hard look at their workforce and making difficult choices about who gets to work on different types of projects. Technology companies in Silicon Valley are increasing security vetting of potential recruits to keep commercial information secure. Changing tariff rates could risk millions of jobs in Asia and elsewhere. Thai workers manufacturing solar cells are bearing the brunt of a trade war between China and the U.S. A large-scale study of foreign directors in listed Chinese firms found that as political relations deteriorated, foreign directors were more likely to exit from their roles. On the other hand, scientists at U.S. federal agencies facing layoffs—especially those with expertise in artificial intelligence—were targeted for recruitment to research operations in China.

your REMOTE work (Can you do the work REMOTELY?)

The second promise of remote work is that work could be done from anywhere. As the technology continues to improve, employees don’t need to be in the office or even in the country. Digital nomads skipped through cities, countries, or even continents. You could log in to work while also visiting your family in another country. You adopt a more flexible lifestyle. But geopolitical reality strikes again.

As countries emphasize sovereignty, data security, and the protection of strategic interests, the data, models, and technology resources that can be used from other countries becomes more limited. The Financial Times reported that foreign universities and research institutes lost access to China’s largest academic database. More countries are adopting data localization laws, which require businesses to store certain types of data within the country to protect national security. The U.S. restricts the transfer of citizens’ data to countries of concern. 

Such requirements make it harder to access data and information from another country, even for employees of the same company. American business travelers to China may not, for instance, have access to their work email. Financial analysts working at a fanatic pace to evaluate deal opportunities may find that they need to be on the ground in a given market to access relevant data, not because the technology to transfer those data to another country doesn’t exist, but because political interests prevent the transfer of such data overseas. Some companies are asking staff traveling to certain countries to use temporary loaner phones and not bring company laptops. Without your trusty laptop, expect disruptions to work and productivity.

your remote WORK (Can you do the WORK remotely?)

The final promise of remote work is that technology would allow you to do your job; i.e., execute the same tasks as you would have when it was business-as-usual. But geopolitics has changed the job description for many employees.

Focusing on teams, operations, or finances of a business used to be the typical mandate for a manager. With appropriate routines in place, these tasks could even be completed from a remote location. But today’s managers have to take on different tasks. Consider Jensen Huang, the CEO of the world’s most valuable company, NVIDIA. For years, Mr. Huang avoided the rough and tumble world of Washington lobbying, preferring the company of the video-gamers. 

But when the company’s AI chips became enmeshed in global politics, Mr. Huang’s work changed. He crisscrossed the world convincing lawmakers to facilitate the sales of his company’s chips. He became a geopolitical superstar convincing leaders from the U.S. to China about his company’s role in their vision.

Mr. Huang is not alone. Fortune reported on how companies set up teams to track political developments and quickly present leadership with options—but that those team members completely dropped their day jobs. With the need to have an ear to the ground and interact with political actors, remote work becomes increasingly challenging.

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