I thought the future of work was a zero-sum game.
It’s not.
Most companies will downsize office footprint by 50% and let everyone work from home 3-4 days a week. This will help them become more capital efficient while expanding the talent pool they can hire from.
The physical office and a companies remote work policy will be complimentary.
The office will become a destination for events and be redesigned to increase the quality of human interaction, not a place where time is wasted. As offices have evolved to become more open-plan the quality of the environment has plummeted. They are a terrible place for any worker to do deep focussed work without constant distractions and interruptions.
Step Forward remote working
Remote work lets us go back to the future. Every worker is given back the private space they need to do deep focussed work. By redistributing office space to home we can exponentially increase productivity and quality of work while simultaneously increasing workers work-life balance, lowering their cost of living, and causing less pollution. It's a rare win-win for all.
The current situation has been awful. The one positive that can perhaps be taken from it is that we don't have to accept the status quo. Companies and teams have been forced to adapt and experience remote work. It's not perfect, many are juggling parental responsibility with trying to get their work done.
This is not remote working as usual
Yet, every senior leader I talk to has been blown away by how seamless the transition has been, how little the lack of 'face-to-face' time has affected business, and how much more efficient video meetings and remote work has been for their business.
The catalyst for change has been an unprecedented external factor. This has forced thousands of companies and millions of workers to try something they wouldn't have voluntarily embraced or weren't ready for. It's easy to ignore something where there is massive risk in trying it but when you experience such massive benefits it's impossible to go back to the way things were before.
It would be suicide to go back
Companies who refuse to learn the lessons of remote work right now will miss out on the benefits. The outcome for them will be catastrophic:
1. 👻 Lose your best people
Companies who refuse to permit their workers more flexible and remote working conditions will lose their best people to their fiercest competitors who do. This will happen rapidly.
Companies that go remote-first will attract their competitors best people immediately.
2. 😱 Unable to attract great talent
Companies who go back to the office will only be able to hire the best person they can afford in a 30-mile radius of their office. This disqualifies them from 99.9% of the world's talent.
Remote-first companies will hire the best person on the planet for every position.
3. 💸 Be economically uncompetitive
Every office space costs a company $12,000-$18,000 per year. For 1,000 person companies the saving for going remote total $16.8m a year in real estate savings alone. This will be the difference between survival and domination for companies.
Remote-first companies are more capital-efficient & will replace office-first competitors.
As companies come to terms with the new reality they will search for ways that make the transition easier. This will include better software tools for remote working, and things which help them establish far better remote working experiences, culture, and human connection.
Home Office Management for Remote Companies
We built an all-in-one provisioning platform that lets companies develop a remote work strategy instantly.
Firstbase is an all-in-one provisioning platform that handles all the physical equipment your remote teams need at home. It takes care of everything as a monthly subscription per worker, including delivery, upgrades, maintenance, repairs, and collections when a worker leaves.
Our waitlist has grown to 1,200 companies and we are moving rapidly to deploy solutions to some of the largest companies on the planet. If your company wants to offer the best remote work experience on the planet to your teams we'd love to give you a demo of our platform.
Sign up for a demo of our platform here
