Chris Herd Profile picture
Oct 8, 2021 23 tweets 4 min read Read on X
What I've learnt talking to 2,500+ companies about remote work

[ 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
🎟️ Company Resorts: Several companies are thinking about creating resort like compounds where work happens in person

Expect these to be built in incredible locations and focussed on providing the best on-site experience possible
👩‍⚖️ Remote Laws: Many companies are beginning to operate under the assumption that the choice to work remotely will become a legal right

This will give workers the option to choose where they work, and many companies are acting before they are forced
🛑 Meeting Death: Wasting 2 hours traveling to a meeting will end. The benefits of in-person are eroded by the benefits of not traveling

Conferences and quarterly networking events will become more important for cultivating in-person relationships
🎳 Internal community: Team cohesion and company culture isn’t impossible remotely – but it’s very different

In the same way companies are finally realizing the power of community externally – internal community may become even more important to a companies success
Why do these companies talk to me?

FirstbaseHQ.com

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More from @chris_herd

Jul 11, 2023
The phrase “Remote work” has been hijacked to mean Work from Home

Remote work does not mean WFH, it means Work from Anywhere (WFA)

Here are a few other things it means:
🤑Remote work means not being handcuffed to an expensive city with a high cost of living and little disposable income left over
🔑Remote work means access to the best opportunities from where you live your best life
Read 22 tweets
Jan 27, 2023
In the last 2 years, I've spoken to more companies than anyone else in the world about the future of work

Here are the 21 most important things I've learned:
🏢 Office Death: companies are letting leases expire and planning to cut office space by 50-70%

No company intends to have enough space for 100% occupancy. They will expect every worker to operate remotely 2-4 days a week
🌍 Distributed Companies: ~30% of companies I speak to are getting rid of the office entirely

They are doing this because they have seen productivity increase and workers demand it
Read 22 tweets
Jan 25, 2023
Over the last 2 years, I’ve spoken to thousands of companies & workers about remote work

I’ve shared those insights – often provocatively – to drive conversation on two things:

1. Workers deserve a better future of work
2. A better future of work = a higher quality of life
A better future of work is one that works for everyone.

From single parents to people with health conditions and impairments that make working in an office impossible.

Making what you can do more important than where you live – is a starting point in a much longer journey.
I spend every day obsessively trying to accelerate the world toward that future.

Because of that, I’m honored to be named as a leading voice in the Future of Work Space by Onalytica

onalytica.com/blog/posts/who…
Read 8 tweets
Dec 29, 2022
I've spoken to 2,000+ companies about the future of work in the last 12 months 

A few predictions of what will happen in 2023

[ a thread ] 🌍
☠️ Office Death: leases are expiring and not being renewed, companies will try to cut their office footprint by 50-70%

Nearly 0 companies will have enough space for 100% of their employee base to go back to the office full-time
⏰ Goodbye 9-5: The war for geographic independence is been won: workers can access great opportunity from anywhere

The next war is for time independence

Not needing to be online for an arbitrary “workday” which forces people to work when they’re not at their most productive
Read 23 tweets
Oct 7, 2022
IT leaders are the hidden superstars of remote work. They handle the hardest problems with no tools to help them do it

If you're a modern IT leader who wants to dominate the rise of remote work you should check this out 👇

brighttalk.com/webcast/19698/…
The more companies I talk to the more I hear modern IT leaders expressing the need to completely shift how end-user computing equipment is managed, due to remote work

There are a variety of reasons why
Managing end-user or desktop computing equipment was always the most manual, least rewarding, hardest to staff, and lowest ROI activity IT engaged in

There’s no reason to be nostalgic or protective about this set of tasks
Read 15 tweets
Sep 30, 2022
I’ve spoken to 2,000+ Companies worth a combined $500B+ about remote work

Here are a few things I've learned

[ a thread ] 💻🏠🌍
☠️ Office Death: If you go to the offices of big tech companies, out of thousands of seats only 2-3% are used on a daily basis

Workers want the flexibility to choose when or if they come

leases are expiring and not being renewed — Companies won’t have space to ever return
🏃City Flight: workers aren’t returning to the cities their offices are in

Many will end up quitting their jobs if their companies try to force them back to the office
Read 20 tweets

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