From Accommodation to Architecture: How Associations Have Rebuilt Themselves around Remote Work

For years, remote work was treated as a workaround — a policy exception layered onto an office-first organization. New benchmark data from the Virtual Association Network (VAN) "2026 Report of Survey Research Insights" suggest that era is over. Remote and hybrid work has become an operating model in its own right, and the associations getting the most out of it aren't just allowing remote work. They are rebuilding around it.

The findings, drawn from 156 association executives surveyed by VAN in partnership with Association Laboratory, point to a field that has moved well past experimentation and into architecture.

The Shift Is Structural, Not Superficial
The data make clear this isn't a temporary accommodation. Eighty-five percent of associations report that at least a quarter of their staff work remotely three or more days a week; for nearly three-quarters of organizations, the arrangement has been in place for five to nine years. Remote staffing levels have grown by at least 50 percent since before the COVID pandemic at an overwhelming majority of associations.

Please select this link to read the complete article from ASAE's Center for Association Leadership.