💻 REMOTE WORK

Remote is inevitable, here’s why, and how we can make it better!

A new paper from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research has found that despite all the RTO talk, remote work isn’t going anywhere, it’s actually just getting started.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t have some drawbacks. In particular, the research highlights remote workers…

• ⏰ Can be less productive, and work longer hours

• 🙉 Receive less feedback & have to spend more time coordinating

• 🎓 Lack mentorship & less opportunity to learn on the job

Despite these negatives, the research suggests remote work will continue to grow, after a small plateau…

According to the authors of the paper, the share of people working remotely has doubled every 15 years since 1980!

By 2019, about 5% of workdays of US employees were remote, however, that figure surged to 60% by 2020 (thanks to COVID) and has now plateaued at ~25%.

In other words, the COVID pandemic fast-forwarded the remote work revolution by 35 years!

The paper also goes on to predict that we can expect the level of remote work to slowly decline over the next couple of years before accelerating again for the next 20 years.

Here’s why:

• 👴 Old-school managers & CEOs will continue to force a RTO, but will soon exit workforce

• 👾 During this time, new tech, fueled by pandemic remote work, will mature and negate the drawbacks of remote work (ex: VR/AR meeting software)

• 🏝️ Millennial & Gen Z workers demand more flexibility, and as they come to dominate the workforce companies will have to oblige

What can we learn from this?

Managers & CEOs fighting against remote work may be wasting energy, and trying to swim upstream.

Instead, the authors of the paper suggest using this time to analyze the drawbacks and find ways to neutralize them, instead of using them as examples of why remote work won’t work.

INSIDER TAKE: Other variables that can’t be left out of this equation are AI and the fractionalization of work.

Over the next 20 years, we may very well see a rise in the percentage of workers who choose a more “unstructured” career and work as fractional accountants, developers, or designers that work (part-time) for a handful of companies.

Aided by AI these fractional employees will be able to produce the same output as a full-time employee today.

In these fractional work situations, remote (or digital-first) is the common sense option, with some in-person time sprinkled in once or twice a year.

🚨 WORD ON THE WEB

• 📈 Remote companies are outgrowing office ones. In step with our main article, separate research by Flex Index has found that remote companies are growing faster than office ones thanks to easier hiring.

• 😴 Are “lazy girl jobs” a losing game? LGJs are defined as jobs that take minimum effort while covering a person’s expenses, but while this may be a great setup for now, these jobs are target #1 for AI

• 🌎 Happy Planet Index: Currently, we measure a country’s success solely by GDP, but what if we instead measured success by happiness & resource use?

• 🌅 It’s an “early bird” world. Thanks to flexible work, workers have more control over their schedules & are choosing to do things earlier in the day, and businesses are following suit.

📆 UPCOMING EVENTS:

July 15-29: Nomad City Festival 2023 [📍Gran Canaria] - the original nomadic unconference presented by Repeople. Get inspired, learn, & make connections at the biggest nomad event in the Canary Islands.

Dec 7-13: Nomad Island Fest [📍 Madeira, Portugal] - Learn from world-class industry experts on topics like mindset, marketing, tech, wealth & health

More events coming soon!

🌍 WFA JOBS:

Looking for a job that’s not just remote, but that you can work from anywhere in the world? We’ve done the heavy lifting for you. Check out these awesome WFA positions 👇

⭐️ Frontend Engineer @ Adblock

⭐️ Product Designer @ Toggl

⭐️ Database Reliability Engineer @ Toggl

⭐️ HR Leader @ RapidSeedbox

⭐️ Operations Lead @ MightyDigits