There’s an old adage that states “necessity is the mother of invention.” This saying has a lot of merit. Think about it. When the country was expanding and business and industry was booming, the US Postal Service did its best, but it was slow. There was a need for a faster, more immediate way for people to communicate. Born out of this necessity was the telephone.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created the necessity of figuring out how to keep workers at home and still be productive. No small task, but not insurmountable. There are companies that have had employees work remotely for a couple decades now. The technology is there and keeps getting better.

Of course, before the current climate, many businesses never gave working from home a thought. Now, they have to. Companies have had to adapt to this change in the way business can be conducted under the circumstances.

Procedures and protocols had to be put in place to allow for a business to succeed while their employees stayed safe and practiced social distancing. It hasn’t been easy, but many have found that it is feasible.

So now there is a new school of thought businesses are considering. When – not if – this pandemic ends, do we really need to physically staff an office with people that can just as easily get the job done from home?

The answer for a lot of forward thinking companies is no. We are productive and people working from home are getting the job done. So now they are thinking, “do we need this much office space if half our workforce is working remotely?” Again, the answer is no.

Smaller office space means less overhead. They can cut their rent in half. The same with other ancillary expenses that come with utilizing a large space. The electric bill will be less, and the janitorial staff can be cut in half, and they can save a lot on office supplies and equipment.

And, of course, the amount of bandwidth and speed for which they are paying can be greatly reduced, which will also add to the bottom line. Well, maybe that’s true. But maybe not.

Are the remote workers logging into a secure on site server? Instead of eight or ten people sitting in a conference room hashing out the day’s agenda, are they connecting through a video conference service?

Where before, everything was done across a desk, workers will now have to communicate remotely. This can put stress on bandwidth utilization and speed – or latency – and have a negative impact on the efficiency of day to day operations.

Or not. How will they know? The hybrid office may be the next invention born out of necessity, but the only way to know if they can downsize their Internet services proportionately is to monitor network performance and assess what they are using and what they need going forward.