I spoke to 1,000+ companies over the last 6 months about their plans for remote work going forward

Here are a few things I've learned

[ a thread ] πŸ’»πŸ πŸŒ
🏒 HQ's are finished: companies will cut their commercial office space by 40-70%

The will allow every worker to work from home 2-4 days a week, and come into the office 1-2 days a week

ft.com/content/e4f4e5…
🎑 home-office setup: Companies who cut their office spend will use that money to provide world-class setups for their teams at home

Companies who don't will lose people to companies who do
🌍 Fully distributed: ~30% of the companies we talk to are getting rid of the office entirely and going remote-first

Companies doing this have seen their workers decentralize rapidly, leaving expensive cities to be closer to family
⭐️ Access talent: The first reason they are going remote-first is simple – it lets them hire more talented people

Rather than hiring the best person in a 30-mile radius of the office, they can hire the best person in the world for every role
πŸ’° Cut costs: The second reason they are going remote-first is because it lets them be far more cost-efficient

Rather than spending $20,000 / worker / year on office space they can provide the best remote setup on the planet for $2,000 / worker / year
πŸ“ˆ Remote burnout: The productivity inside the companies we've spoken to has gone through the roof

Their biggest concern is that workers burnout because they are working too hard

They are actively exploring ways to combat this
πŸ– Set time-off: To combat burnout companies are looking at policies which dictate workers should take X number of days off every 13 weeks

Expect this number to begin at 2 days every 13 weeks and grow closer to 5 days every 13 weeks
✈️ Remote onsites: 60%+ of companies we talk to are already thinking about ways to use time together physically to improve culture

The most popular we hear is flying the team into remote locations for ~week. Portugal, Spain, Puerto Rico seem to be the most popular
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
🚨 Async by default: is the thing that organizations are struggling with most

The majority of companies have replicated the office remotely and it is causing strains that are beginning to show
πŸ€• Personal injury: These are exploding. Companies haven't moved quickly enough to prevent them and back, neck and repetitive strain injuries are becoming a huge problem

Expect this to remedy this quickly by providing better, ergonomic equipment to workers
🏭 Pollution reduction: many companies we've spoken to care massively about the environmental impact that eradicating the office – and the commute – will have

108 million tons of Co2 less every year
❀️ Quality of life: even more importantly companies are realizing that they don't need to expect workers to waste 2 hours a day commuting to sit in an office chair for 8 hour

Almost every company we talk to believes that their workers will be happier as a result of remote work
😨 Remote pressure: a few companies we've spoken to have decided to be more remote than they initially intended because their competitors already did it

There is a fear inside companies that if they don't go remote they will lose their best people to their competitors
⚑️ Personalized tooling: Companies are realizing that forcing individuals to use the same tools is stupid

Increasingly individuals will be given the power to choose the software tools they want to use to do their job

Work designed for the individual rather than the collective
πŸš€ Output over time: the measure of performance in the office is how much time you spend sat in your seat

The measure of performance while working remotely has to become output. Tools that enable this to be tracked more accurately are something we are asked for a lot
✍ 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
πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’Ό Flattened orgs: middle management is in trouble, an unnecessary bottlenecks that serve no tangible purpose inside async organizations

Companies need coaching and facilitators to maximize organizational effectiveness
Interested in why these companies are talking to us?

FirstbaseHQ.com

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More from @chris_herd

1 Jan
I spoke to 1,700+ people about remote work in 2020

A few predictions of what will happen in 2021

[ a thread ] πŸ’»πŸ πŸŒ
🎟 Remote competition: @FrancisSuarez is the first person to wield the power of Twitter to attract remote talent

Almost every region that has something which would attract people to move there will do the same thing

Incentives for remote talent to move will grow quickly
⏰ Async-first: People now see offices are instantaneous gratification adult kids clubs where sync work makes it impossible to get stuff done

Tools that enable async work are the most important thing globally remote teams need. A lot of startups will try to tackle this
Read 22 tweets
11 Dec 20
I've spoken to 1,500+ companies about their plans for remote work Post-Covid

Here are the things I heard will happen in 2021

[ a thread ] πŸ’»πŸ πŸŒ
🏒HQ's are finished: companies of all sizes will cut their commercial office space by at least 40-60%

The will give their team the choice to work from home 2-4 days a week, and come into the office 1-2 days a week
🌍Fully distributed: ~30% of the companies we talk to are getting rid of the office entirely and going remote-first

Companies doing this have seen their workers decentralize rapidly, leaving expensive cities to be closer to family
Read 22 tweets
4 Dec 20
I've spoken to 1,500+ people about remote work in the last 9 months

A few predictions of what is likely to emerge before 2030

[ a thread ] πŸ’»πŸ πŸŒ
🚜 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
Read 23 tweets
1 Dec 20
The office was an assembly line of conformity. One-size-fits-all where everyone worked the same hours, used the same tools, did the same things

Remote will let us:

Choose the tools we want
Select the schedule we need
Control everything related to the quality of work produced
We're about to live through the age of personalization

Individuals will have the freedom to choose the tools, modes of communication, consumption, services, and platform that suit what they want and how they do things

This will apply especially to work and education
The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by mass production. Copy and paste products and services

Factories
Schools
Offices

It was too expensive to personalize atoms for individuals
Read 4 tweets
20 Nov 20
The media would have you believe it’s 50/50 whether people want to return to the office or continuing to work remotely after Covid-19

The reality is far clearer

[ a thread ] πŸ’»πŸ πŸŒ
90% of never want to work in an office again full-time
50% of 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, most don’t
The office is broken & always has been

It’s great if you're in a specific demographic. It discriminates/disqualifies a huge number of people who find it impossible to work from there

- single parents
- those caring for family
- people with health conditions/impairments
Read 25 tweets
22 Oct 20
6,500 companies β€” with 11m+ aggregate employees – signed up to our waitlist in the last 6 months

The biggest opportunites this decade will be in the future of work and living space

Here’s why me and @ShaneMac are launching a rolling fund today

[ a thread ] πŸ’»πŸ πŸŒ
🌍Market size: there are 255m desk jobs globally today. After Covid passes around 30m of them will be done remotely full-time, rising to 70m+ by 2030

A majority of these jobs will be done remotely 3 days+ a week

There will be massive 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order effects as a result
πŸ‘€Our focus: remote is at the same stage mobile computing was prior to the iPhone

The infrastructure and rails that enable remote work and living to rise globally still have to be built

Our focus is on finding, supporting, and investing in these startups
Read 25 tweets

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