What I Learned Talking to 1,000 Companies About Remote Work

I've spoken to around 1,000 companies over the last 6 months about their plans for remote work going forward. Here are a few things I've learned:

1. 🏢 HQ's are finished: companies will cut their commercial office space by 40-60%

The will allow every worker to work from home 2-4 days a week, and come into the office 1-2 days a week

2. 🌍 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

3. ⭐️ 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

4. 💰 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

5. 📈 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

6. ✈️ 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

7. 💃 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

8. 🚨 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

9. 🤕 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

10. 🌐 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

11. 🏭 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

12. ❤️ 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

13. 😨 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

14. 👻 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

15. 🚀 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

16. ✍️ 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

17. 👨‍💼 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 why 6,000+ companies signed up to talk to us?

Firstbase is an all-in-one platform that lets companies supply, finance and manage all the physical equipment remote workers need to do great work at home. 

We handle everything as a single monthly subscription; from IT installation, deployment of goods, maintenance, ongoing culture and perks, collections when a worker leaves through to upgrades at the end of the product lifecycle. 

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