Companies who adopted technology 10 years ago replaced every company that didn’t.
Companies that provide a great remote work experience will beat every company who doesn’t in 10 years.
The reason is incredibly simple: experience, culture and human connection.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and Google have dominated the last decade. Their products have provided a great experience to the end-user which ensures loyalty because they can guarantee they will receive the service they deserve. The same is true for remote work:
Everyone likes to feel valued by the company that employs them. A great onboarding experience leads to higher retention. This begins with their first interaction with the company through to the moment they are onboarded.
Companies can show how much they care by providing a great initial experience.
Remote work is still seen as a perk. This is wrong. Remote workers deserve to be as safe and comfortable at home as they would be in an office. Companies who don't care about this are neglecting their remote teams.
Companies that provide remote workers with the right tools and equipment empower them to do great work.
The right tools and equipment are table stakes for your remote teams to do great work. Many companies expect their workers to operate hunched over the kitchen table.
By giving your remote team the right tools and equipment to do great work you will increase their productivity.
What differentiates great companies is a culture that multiplies the ability for great people to do the best most meaningful work they have ever done. Allowing them to work remotely is a major piece of that puzzle. To achieve that remotely there are a few simple processes companies can adopt
Companies that replicate the office environment remotely will fail. The instantaneous gratification of adult kids club distraction factory offices make people feel busy without allowing them to be productive.
Asynchronous first lets workers do deep focussed work rather than dealing with the constant disruptions that synchronous-first brings
The only metric bad middle managers use to measure performance is time spent in the office.
Remote work is about how much work you get done focussing on productivity.
The main criticism of remote work left is the isolation of remote work and the loss of serendipity that arises from serendipitous collisions that happen at the water cooler. If your problems are being solved at the water cooler your business's processes are broken, while the office being the main place of social contact for people is a huge societal issue.
Your boss selecting the people you spend the most time with is a bad situation. It leads to shallow, superficial relationships that lack depth, breadth or meaning. That doesn't mean you don't make friends at work, but it means you typically make short relationships that only last the time of employment.
Remote work's allowed me to spend more time with friends and family and more time to do hobbies and make new friends with whom I have far more in common with.
For teams to work well I believe people need to meet in person. I don't believe it has to be every day. The cadence depends on the type of work but it typically works out at about once a quarter. Rather than those times being inane conversation to pad out the day, people come together and care deeply about catching up with their teammates.
Millennials grew up cultivating relationships on DM and improving them in real life, businesses can do the same.
First-movers have a huge advantage in this space. Companies that move quickly and focus on providing a great experience will have a key differentiation from their biggest competitors. Those who provide a great experience will be able to attract the most talented people who will share that with their friends who will want similar.
Firstbase is an all-in-one provision platform that lets companies supply and manage all the physical equipment remote workers need to do great work at home. We handle everything as a monthly subscription per worker, including delivery, upgrades, maintenance, repairs, and collections when a worker leaves.