Hybrid Work: The Gateway to a Remote-first World

The future of where people work will be in giving them choice & flexibility.

90% never want to work in an office full-time again
80% want to work from home 3+ days every week
46% want to work from home most or all the time

What’s obvious, is that remote will play a massive part in work going forward.

HSBC announced a remote strategy led by a 40% reduction in office space. They will allow almost all their workers to work remotely, likely from home, for a significant period of the week. Many large companies will follow suit.

That is just the start.

It’s important to acknowledge that millions of people have only experienced remote work during the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Once we emerge from the global pandemic — where there are no lockdowns and parents aren’t homeschooling their children — the major benefits of remote work really become apparent.

The challenge that the office has is that everything you can do in an office can be done to greater or lesser degree remotely. The benefits of remote working can never be experience while working in an office.

It’s impossible to escape the daily commute. Impossible to be there for dinner with your family if your train doesn’t get you back from the city until after 7. Impossible to travel while working if you’re handcuffed to a desk. Impossible to leave the expensive city if you have to commute every day. Impossible to have a higher disposable income you have to live close enough to commute daily. Impossible to find time for friends and family. Impossible to access opportunity without relocating.

Many of the expectation of modern working are a tax on your quality of life. Seeing as we never evolved as technology proliferated, we work in much the same way today as factory workers did in the industrial revolution. Sure, a lot has changed, but the fixed workday catering to the collective in pursuit of higher manufacturing productivity has not.

Forcing a fixed workday on knowledge workers is insanity. Productivity gains this decade will come from mass personalization. Enabling every individual to do the best work they have ever done in…