The media continues to get the rise of remote work wrong

Every employee knows the stories by CEO's of big companies + landlords who own offices are false

I've spoken to 2,000+ remote workers in the last 12 months

A few predictions on what's going to happen

[ a thread ] 💻🏠🌍
🏢 HQ’s are finished: companies will cut their commercial office space by 50-70%

The will allow every worker to work from home 2-4 days a week, and come into the office 1-2 days a week
🌍 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
💰 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
📈 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
✈️ 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
💃 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
🤕 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
🌐 Universal problems: doesn't matter the size of the organization, every company is dealing with the same thing

We spoke to early-stage companies, publicly listed tech companies, through to legacy incumbents with hundreds of thousands of employees

All will be more remote
🏭 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
👻 Remote fear: most companies aren't scared about the quality of work that will be produced

They are scared about intangible things they can't measure 'quality of communication' && 'collaboration in person' && 'water cooler chat'

Many have realized these were excuses
🚀 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
👨‍💼 Flattened orgs: middle management is in trouble, an unnecessary bottlenecks which 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

30 Jul
Over the last two weeks I’ve spoken to 10 x Billion $ companies cancelling return to the office due to the delta variant

A few predictions on what most companies are about to do

[ a thread ] 💻 🏠 🌍
☠️ Office Death: leases are expiring and not being renewed

By the time people can return to the office a lot of companies will no longer have space to return to
🏃‍♂️City Flight: workers will continue to leave the cities their offices are located in

Many will end up quitting their jobs if their companies try to force them back to the office
Read 19 tweets
23 Jul
I've spoken to 2,000+ companies over the last 12 months about their plans for remote work going forward

Here are a few things I've learned

[ a thread ] 💻🏠🌍
🏢 HQ’s are finished: companies will cut their commercial office space by 50-70%

The will allow every worker to work from home 2-4 days a week, and come into the office 1-2 days a week
🌍 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 23 tweets
16 Jul
The 2020s are the Remote Work decade

A few more predictions of what is likely to emerge

[ a thread ] 💻🏠🌍
🤖 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
💀 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
Read 25 tweets
9 Jul
On March 12th 2020 the world changed

In the 15 months since remote work has accelerated 15 years into the future

Where prior to the pandemic only 3% of the US workforce worked remotely full-time, after the pandemic 10X that number will

[ a thread] 💻🏠🌍
The numbers 📊

3–4M full-time workers operated remotely full-time in 2018

By 2030 that number looks set to grow to at least 80M workers

I expect that number to increase dramatically as millions of workers experience normal, healthy remote working for the first time
Pandemic Remote🦠

What people have worked through in the last 15 months has been the worst possible version of remote work

Lockdowns, homeschooling, unable to travel, can’t see friends, little freedom to do the things that make us happiest
Read 31 tweets
6 Jul
Remote work changed my life

I missed my daughter walk, laugh, and talk for the first time due to working in an office

I was told this is normal: “just what happens when you have to put a roof over your families head”

Turns out the need to be in an office to work was a lie
I dream of a future of where you live not determining your access to opportunity

- I’m from a small city in Scotland
- never stepped foot in Silicon Valley

At no other point in history could I still live in this city and have raised $15M to build a global tech company
Offices have been great for some people and terrible for others

The data of women falling out of the workplace during covid id a horrific example of this

Remote work should lead to the most diverse, inclusive and accessible companies in history

But will it?
Read 6 tweets
2 Jul
I've spoken to 10 of the biggest organizations in the world about their plans for remote work

Here’s what you need to know:
🏢 HQ’s are finished: companies will cut their commercial office space by atleast 50-70%

The will allow every worker to work from home 2-4 days a week, and come into the office 1-2 days a week
🌍 Fully distributed: 30-50% of companies will get rid of the office entirely and go remote-first

Companies doing this have seen their workers decentralize rapidly, leaving expensive cities to be closer to family
Read 19 tweets

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