20 Predictions on What will Happen to Remote Work in 2022

Chris Herd
4 min readDec 17, 2021

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I’ve spoken to 3,000+ people about remote work in the 2021

20 predictions on what will happen in 2022

🚜 Rural Living: World-class people will move to smaller cities, have a lower cost of living & higher quality of life. These regions must innovate quickly to attract that wealth. Better schools, faster internet connections are a must

⏰ Asynchronous Work: Offices are instantaneous gratification distraction factories where synchronous work makes it impossible to get stuff done. Tools that enable asynchronous work are the most important thing globally remote teams need. A lot of startups will try to tackle this

⚽️ Hobby Renaissance: Remote working will lead to a rise in people participating in hobbies and activities which link them to people in their local community. This will lead to deeper, more meaningful relationships which overcome societal issues of loneliness and isolation

🌍 Diversity & Inclusion: The most diverse and inclusive teams in history will emerge rapidly. Companies who embrace it have a first-mover advantage to attract great talent globally. Companies who don’t will lose their best people to their biggest competitors

βœ… Output focus: time will be replaced as the main KPI for judging performance by productivity and output. Great workers will be the ones who deliver what they promise consistently. Advancement decisions will be decided by capability rather than who you drink beer with after work

πŸ’° Private Equity: the hottest trend of the next decade for private equity will see them purchase companies, make them remote-first. The cost saving in real-estate at scale will be eye-watering. The productivity gains will be the final nail in the coffin for the office

😴 Working Too Much: Companies worry that the workers won’t work enough when operating remotely. The opposite will be true and become a big problem. Remote workers burning out because they work too much will have to be addressed

✈️ Remote Retreats: purpose built destinations that allow for entire companies to fly into a campus for a synchronous week. Likely staffed with facilitators and educators who train staff of how to maximize effectiveness

❀️ Life-Work Balance: The rise of remote will lead to people re-prioritizing what is important to them. Organizing your work around your life will be the first noticeable switch. People realizing they are more than there job will lead to deeper purpose in other areas

πŸ’© Bullshit Tasks: The need to pad out your 8 hour day will evaporate, replaced by clear tasks and responsibilities. Workers will do what needs to be done rather than wasting their trying to look busy with the rest of the office

πŸ§˜β€β™€οΈ Health & Wellbeing: A lack of commute will give workers 25 extra days a year to do other things. Workers will exploit the freedom they have to organize things more freely in their day. Afternoon runs, morning meditation, 2 things a lot of people I know now do

πŸ€– Personal RPA: robotic process automation will transform work for individuals. No-code tools that enable workers to built bots that automate menial parts of their roles will be huge

πŸ’€ Death of HQ: the office is dead but offices will persist. They’ll be used less frequently then hardly at all. Co-working, subscription clubs, will emerge that let workers who prefer that mode of work to operate from there

🚐 Remote Living: Work from anywhere RVs will become huge business. Associated business parks and services will spring up. This will happen even more rapidly as self driving tech emerges. Expect a Tesla product in this space

βš–οΈ Lifework balance: massive increases in part-time and freelance work. A recognition that we no longer have to sacrifice work for living, we can organize work around our lives

πŸ‘¨β€πŸ‘©β€πŸ‘§β€πŸ‘¦ Community Led SaaS: as no-code continues to grow, tech is barely a barrier. Communities become the most important most a company has

🎟 Remote Visa: small nations coming together in order to attract remote workers at different stages of the year. Huge opportunity to synchronise education to enable families to be more fluid in their locations

πŸ›‘ Meeting Death: wasting 2 hours travelling to a meeting will end. The benefits of in-person are eroded by the benefits you get of not travelling. Conferences and quarterly networking events will becomes more important for cultivating in-person relationships

πŸ’ƒ Personal choice: the smartest people I know personally are all planning to work remotely this decade.The most exciting companies I know personally all plan to hire remotely this decade. 90% of the workforces we’ve spoken to never want to be in an office again full-time

✍️ Written over spoken: documentation is the unspoken superpower of remote teams. The most successful team members remotely will be great writers. Companies are searching for ways to do this more effectively. Tools that enable others to write better will explode

Need help with remote work?

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Chris Herd

CEO / Founder / Coach @FirstbaseHQ Empowering people to work in their lives not live at work ✌️✌