The Future of Work is Remote

No need to monkey around a cube any longer; technological advancement and institutional encouragement forces a false choice to fade away.

If you have dreamed of sailing away to a faraway island where the cocktails flow freely and the seaside villas are cheaper than your fifth-floor walk-up, but hesitate because of how it will impact your career, you’re in luck. Corporate America is beginning to embrace remote workers, as the global workforce becomes more accessible through technological advancement. Even if you don’t wish to work from Tokyo or Australia, but simply from the comfort https://kdalive.com/australias-east-coast/of your own couch, you are part of an ever-growing workforce that no longer desires to be confined for the purpose of being productive. 

Of course, the only way for remote work opportunities to increase is if it’s accepted at an institutional level, and by that I mean by the people actually responsible for hiring employees. Thankfully, there are numerous benefits to increasing the remote proportion of a company’s workforce and many employers are seeing the light. 

Future generations envision a different workspace.

To start, companies which emphasize remote work are more likely to recruit and retain high-quality talent. As millennials become a larger proportion of the workforce, companies are going to have to adjust and adapt to their preferences. The number of reports and studies on millennials and their various preferences might outnumber the stars in our own galaxy, and all of them say relatively the same thing: they want work/life balance, and flexibility can help to achieve it. 

The future of work is dependent on the relationship between remote workers and employers, which is symbiotic in nature. The only reason that employees are allowed to work remotely is that employers allow (and hopefully encourage) it. However, in order for employees to remain remote, they need to show they can be as productive while working in a non-traditional work environment as they are in an office. Contrary to long-held beliefs, an overwhelming majority of employees consider themselves more productive while working remotely. Whether it’s because there are fewer distractions, fewer meetings, or a reduction in meaningless office politics, workers are enjoying working from home, and ultimately getting more done. 

Practical and Ethical

Beyond the practical implications and benefits of increasing the remote workforce, there are societal benefits. Not only can employers boost the productivity of their people, but they can be instrumental in repairing the world as well, by positioning their workforce to be more eco-friendly. Even though cars are becoming more fuel-efficient and electric cars more prominent, that isn’t enough to reduce our carbon footprint significantly. Burning even a single gallon of gasoline creates about 20 pounds of CO2, leading to an individual carbon footprint of six to nine tons of CO2 over the course of a year. With a reduction in traditional workplaces and an increase in a remote workforce with less commuting, employers will have a positive impact on our planet’s future. 

Remote as a foundation

The most progressive executives are no longer shifting their workforce to be remote, but rather they are creating remote-based companies. They are institutionalizing the concept of a remote workforce from their creation, and they have found it to be instrumental to their success. They don’t create quick fixes to culture and collaboration; they embed the need to be proactive in their company’s DNA. Zapier understands that culture is difficult to build within a remote team, and so they have become experts on building it. Gitlab, one of the largest companies that are exclusively remote, understands both the advantages and disadvantages of an entirely remote company, and so they too remain vigilant as they try to build the community and a culture of the future while very few employees even live in the same city. 

(Gitlab’s Secret to Managing 160 Employees in 160 Locations)

Choice over gimmicks

While Facebook and the rest of the early Silicon Valley corporations convinced aspiring entrepreneurs and executives that the key to employee recruitment and retention is in ping pong tables and free coffee bars, the enlightened ones have realized that the future of work is actually something much simpler: give control back to their employees. Allow your employees to decide where they want to live and where they want to work, and they will ultimately be more productive, and more importantly, happier.