THE GLOBAL LOCAL: REMOTE WORKING FROM EMERGING TREND TO MAINSTREAM

The then-emerging pre-COVID business model of the digital nomad has now become so embedded in the business world that it’s hardly noticed…unless you really look for it.

What was once even marketed as a potential niche tourism market has become mainstream thanks to technology, especially reliable telecommunications systems including the undersea global fibre-optics cable network.

Cayman has positioned itself well in this respect given the international nature of the economy.

Signs of this trend and opportunity started emerging before the COVID-19 pandemic sent shock waves around the world and put our lives in a tailspin.

What had been the preserve of a select few rapidly became the norm as society adjusted to the realities of the suffocating grip of the pandemic.

The previous working-from-home privileges for some - and necessity for others were replaced overnight by a mass shift in the work paradigm.

Whereas previously there had been concerns about productivity being negatively impacted if staff ‘stayed at home in their pyjamas’, that was quickly disproved.

In fact, productivity increased in many office-based areas of work. That is evidenced by how the world responded to COVID-19 including right here in Cayman, a major ‘local global’ business hub.

Coming out of that experience has been a time-zone-flattening, better work/life balance and improvements in productivity (even using the Caymanian Times experience as a point of reference).

Caymanian Times which has based its business model (long before the pandemic) on a network of local and global journalists, production teams, and business relationships, has been an early adopter of the relevant technologies - much of it utilising Caymanian tech expertise.

As we continue on this journey in 2026, further tapping into the available and evolving relevant technology, we have already started putting more of our administrative processes online for speed and efficiency.

But our journalism remains people-centred and Cayman community oriented, while keeping a watchful eye on the external developments of interest to, and impacting Cayman.

Your Caymanian Times community paper will continue to be published twice weekly and distributed throughout the Cayman Islands.

Caymanian Times, is published by Lewis Cayman Islands Ltd.