The rise of public announcements has been rapid. Almost daily we see a large tech company or global organization share that going forward that will be a “remote” company. The reality is that their actions will speak far louder than words ever could.
Some companies are paying lip service to something new in hopes of being rewarded for the clout that inevitably comes with it. Others are following through on what they’ve announced.
This brings us to the most important point around this transition to remote.
Whatever the leadership of a company does sets the culture of the company.
Leaders all in office? You’re an office first-culture
Leaders all remote? You’re a remote-first culture
Over the last 3 years, we’ve spoken to 100+ of the leading remote-first companies on the planet
These are the 20 lessons they taught us about how to build a great remote team
1. ✍️ Documentation: documentation is the unspoken superpower of remote teams
The most successful remote companies write down and record knowledge rather than lose it if people leave
Knowledge grows and is improved over time as everyone contributes to a repository of intelligence
2. 🚨 Asynchronous: remote work is a bridge to async work
The best remote companies aim to avoid replication of the disruptions of…
From the moment I picked up Jason Fried’s book ReWork I was hooked. Much like reading Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper, I felt like I was peering into the future and immediately understood the possibilities of the revolution we are about to experience. I saw not just the potential for my own startup to embrace it as a means to hire world-class people we would otherwise have had no chance of attracting, but more generally as a chance for the future of work to be infinitely better than the soul-destroying, happiness-draining, time-consuming monster that office work has become.
Working in an…
I didn’t like my life.
I felt like something was wrong with me. For about 18 months I battled with that feeling, trying to escape it or find an explanation for why I felt that way.
This was what I had been led to believe a good life should be. School, university, good job, house, family. I’d ticked most of those boxes yet everything felt hollow.
What joy I felt came in fleeting moments I never had time to experience.
I left for work before my daughter woke up, increasingly arriving home after she went to bed, exhausted from a…
The media would have you believe it’s almost 50/50 whether people want to return to the office or continuing to work remotely after Covid-19.
The reality is far clearer
- 90% of people never want to work in an office again full-time
- 50% of people never want to work in an office ever again
The dissonance around this is huge
People who love offices love offices and think everyone else feels the same way as them. The problem is that clearly they don’t.
The office is broken and always has been.
It’s great if you belong to a very specific demographic. …
Companies who adopted technology 20 years ago replaced every company that didn’t.
Companies who adopt remote working will replace every company that doesn’t tomorrow.
The reason is incredibly simple: cost & talent.
Cost
Office-first companies won’t be able to compete with remote-first companies in terms of efficiency, both economic and operationally. Not only will remote-first companies increase their average level of talent with each hire, they will be far more cost-efficient. City living is subsidized by companies, leading to a lower disposable and quality of life.
💰Real Estate Cost
Office-first companies spend $18,400 on average, per workplace, per person
The best remote setup on…
‘I’m not against remote work’ they say
- ‘But what about the people who can’t work from home’
- ‘Not everyone can afford an extra room for an office’
- ‘There are people who miss the human interaction’
Variants of the same argument are currently being blasted on social media. It’s never the person writing that suffers these things, but they’re trying to look out for other people.
The office is a critical element of living it seems in the minds of many. A second-family. The quality of face-to-face interaction is so much higher than it is virtually. The risk to the business if you can’t mistakenly solve problems informally…
The 2020s are the Remote Work decade.
A few predictions of what is likely to emerge:
- 🤖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 - ⚽️ Hobbie 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 issolation - 🚜 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…
The 2020s are the Remote Work decade.
Remote work has the potential to be the biggest quality of life upgrade in work history. A few predictions of what is likely to emerge:
1. 🤖 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
2. 🚀 UI-Less Tech:
Friction while working remotely is one of the biggest communication problems for remote
Instant communication which isn’t distracting, disrupting or about surveillance will be super important
3. 💀 Death of HQ:
The office is dead but offices will persist. …
The Office is Dead.
The rise of a global pandemic accelerated certain trends by over 10 years. Remote work, in particular, has been forced upon millions of workers who have now experienced the tremendous benefits first-hand.
Fortunately for people whose companies would never have considered remote working prior to COVID, they now know the pro’s massively outweigh the cons. This practice will be far more efficient in the long run and mean we’ll never return to office-first working in the future.
I had the good fortune of being a remote worker prior to COVID. I evangelized the benefits widely due to the massive quality…
Chris Herd
CEO / Founder / Coach @FirstbaseHQ Empowering people to work in their lives not live at work ✌️✌
