remote jobs

Remote Work Will End the Business Travel Romance

/ Adam Smith / Leave a comment

DISCLAIMER: This article represents my personal views and not those of my employer or any affiliated organizations.

When is the last time you took a business travel trip?

If you’re fresh out of college, that answer may be never.

Business travel has been romanticized in popular culture since the inception of passenger airlines. How many movies have you seen where a suited figure in first class reclines, sipping on a cocktail while reading through a business newspaper? How about a group of industry colleagues rolling up in a private car to an extravagant hotel? If you’ve watched Mad Men, Don Draper sharing a glass of whiskey during a business pitch may have come to mind.

The virus crisis has changed business travel forever. Will business travel exist after the pandemic? Certainly. However, its absence during the crisis has shown numerous companies just how many resources they were expending on business travel.

Copyright © AMC Networks

Brief history of business travel

The first scheduled passenger plane flight departed on January 1st, 1914. Some of the longest standing airlines were KLM, Qantas and Avianca. Since the U.S. entered WWII later than European countries, they had more time to spend developing commercial aircraft. The U.S. industry since 1945 essentially set the standard for international air travel.

During the Golden Age of air travel, flying was a novelty experience defined by fine dining experiences and upscale services. The experience back then was probably similar to today’s first class section. The first “business class” was rolled out in December 1977 by Thai Airlines.

The decades leading up to the pandemic were filled withpractically unlimited expense accounts, luxury hotels, and exorbitant meals out. Business travel has not returned to its pre-virus levels. We’ll likely be videoconferencing for some time to come. I discuss this a bit in my recent article “We’re Never Going Back to the ‘Office‘”.

Business tourism? Yeah, that was a thing.

Pre-crisis, business travel would often be tauted as a perk. You would do the business trip at the end of the week, then stay the weekend to explore on your own time. Some individuals would even bring their spouse/partner who’d fly out separately.

My own dad still displays plaques for the company trips he won on the wall. The U.S. Virgin Islands. The Bahamas. Lake Tahoe. Vancouver, BC. He would take my mother along on each of these trips. In his own words, “I was in the top percentile of the entire country to win those trips.” He says they’re going to mean something, to somebody, and that I should “keep them in the family”. I’ll probably just put them in storage.

Environmental impacts of business travel

For service-based organisations, business travel and aviation are the biggest contributors to their total emissions, often above the collective carbon footprint of their offices. Air travel impacts the local environment through increased nitrogen pollutants, particulates and noise levels.

Companies across the spectrum discovered an unexpected benefit of grounding their employees during the pandemic: a lowering of carbon emissions from business travel.

Many businesses are announcing new promises to reduce (and offset) business travel emissions as a way to reach their sustainability goals. Only one in four organizations consider their “carbon footprint” to be a top priority.

Employee wellbeing

Environmental impact is not the only pitfall of business travel. A World Bank study showed that 75% of staff reported high or very high stress related to business travel. Americans took more than 500 Million business trips in 2016. (Harvard Business Review)

Stress, sleep interruption, unhealthy eating and drinking, and lack of exercise are all common factors of business travel burnout. The odds of being obese are 92% higher for those who traveled 21 or more nights per month, compared to those who traveled only one to six nights per month

Business travel could mean traveling to company HQ abroad

I recently wrote about my personal return to the office experience. With much of the knowledge workforce still remote, and business travel at an indefinite standstill, the show must go on. As such, large annual company offsite meetings may now turn into ONSITE meetings. This entails all of the domestic (or international) staff flying into the company headquarters to “reconnect”. If that would prove too difficult, employee visits to the headquarters could be staggered.

Take advantage of a geographically diverse team

Distributed teams have been the lifeblood of tech businesses since the dawn of the internet. The model was much harder to achieve before global telecommunications. So why is remote work such a hard concept to justify, when your engineering team is already in India, your HR team is in London, and your office is in New York City?

In many businesses, regions are divided up by time zones. For example, The Americas, EMEA and APAC.

What we forget, however, is that these also represent shared time zones. For instance, someone in Bogota, Columbia could work the same hours as a colleague in New York. The same with Lagos, Nigeria for London, or Tokyo for Sydney. Location bias doesn’t have to be a concept anymore.

Distributed workforce could be opportunity for businesses to extend their reach

The other benefit of a distributed workforce is the ability to meet customers where they are, and *when* they are. The pre-crisis world had executives flying all over the world for “face time”. As a requirement of the role, this lifestyle was popular for some, but not for all. For instance, working parents were often strained to find child care or juggle their home life while on the road.

Instead of this, why not embrace decentralized command by briefing the representatives located closest to customers to meet them on their terms? This tactic has been used by regional sales teams for decades, and can be extended to any aspect of business.

To be an effective leader, regular check-ins and ensuring decentralized command is important

Remote work calls for a different kind of management style. Gone are the “hall monitor” management days of the “Bill Lumberg” character looking over the shoulders of staff. We live in an age with a broad amount of productivity platforms that can be accessed anywhere in the world.

Instead of a checklist, an idea for status meetings is to set milestones beyond “next steps”. It’s important to teach core concepts, set an agenda, and train “microleaders” to act as an extension of command. A robust project management tool can show visibility into tasks without constant Slack check-ins.

Mother remote working with son embracing Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

Temporary rental platforms are assigning importance to customers that are now permanently remote

You may have heard that “the office is not a place, it’s a concept”. This is more true than ever. We are at the point where opening a satellite office doesn’t require a multi-year lease. Even the most stalwart of commercial real estate companies are looking into an office-as-you-need model, mirroring companies like WeWork, Convene and Regus.

Finally, vacation rental platforms like AirBnB and VRBO realize the classic business model of working out of an expensive (or no-frills) hotel room isn’t that comfortable. Business travelers can book a vacation rental instead, and stay in a private house without neighbors who frequent the hotel bar keeping them up. Even better news? It’s cost-effective, too.

Traveling while working remotely is true freedom

With remote work, there’s no more “caboose trips” after a business conference. There’s no more sweating a flight delay because you have to be back in the office the next day. No more late nights figuring out your personal expenses vs. company expenses.

You can travel over a weekend, work or meet business contacts during the week, go to a different attraction each night, and fly out the next weekend. All on your own schedule. How cool is that?

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woman in black t shirt using macbook pro

Do You REALLY Miss Your Commute?

/ Adam Smith / 2 Comments

Before the crisis, I had a daily commute to Times Square. It was an improvement on previous years, when I’d travel from Brooklyn to “the city” proper. I was now living in the Financial District at the south end of Manhattan. My alarm would go off at 7 AM. I’d sometimes get a chance to go on a ultra-quick jog, before my shower (7:30). After showering, I’d throw on my clothes, scarf down a yogurt and a cup of coffee (8:00).

I’d then speed walk the 20 minutes to the subway train (8:20). Once on the train, I’d hopefully make it to my stop in 30 minutes (8:50). Some days, the train would be delayed for up to an hour. (9:50). Either way, I’d be speed-walking through the Times Square crowds, getting into the office out of breath with scrambled thoughts.

This would be similar for someone who commuted by car (which I once did). The difference is that they’d be worried about wrecking their vehicle in a fender bender, versus avoiding characters and bodily injury.

Do People Actually Want to Go Back to the Office?

There have been a lot of articles recently reminiscing about the commute. The status quo says “people miss the office environment”, but data often points to the opposite, that “workers prefer a hybrid office model”.

Research has also shown that workers are more productive when working remotely, with most managers agreeing to the same.

Many companies that flirted with the idea of long-term remote work are now calling employees back. Some have slated a return to office as early as this summer.

Another frequent nod, “With remote work, there is no separation between work and home life”. Why do we feel we need to be forced to commute, vs. making that time for ourselves?

Take a Break from your Devices

When you worked in the office, how long did you stare at your computer screen before taking a break? Probably 30 minutes. You walked over to a coworker to ask a question, or stopped by the kitchen to grab a snack.

Why is working at home any different?

An estimated 58% of people who work on computers experience “Computer Vision Syndrome”. The symptoms include eye strain, blurred vision, headaches, neck and back pain.

Lucky for you, there’s ways to mitigate this. Like me, you could purchase prescription (or non-prescription) blue light glasses. If you work on a Macbook Pro, there is a feature called Night Shift. It’s quite easy. You can also set when it turns on, “Sunset to Sunrise”, turn it on manually, and select the color temperature.

Just click on the Apple Icon > System Preferences > Displays > Night Shift

Time Management

With no commutes, there has been a time shift. Some people do not realize this.

If you’re working in a different time zone (Pacific, for example), you’re starting your work day 3 hours earlier than the East Coast.

Let’s say you start your work day at 8 AM PST, that’s 11 AM EST.

If you end your work day at 2 PM PST, that’s 5 PM EST.

However, you have only worked for 6 hours, not a full 8 hour day.

Instead of going to run errands, why not power it out and finish your day at 4 PM PST?

Car commute pollution by Pexels.com

Commutes are Bad for the Environment (Poor Health, Wasted Gas & Electricity, Pollution)

This may seem obvious, but commutes by vehicle or train are extremely harmful to the environment.

Studies show that the average drive to work adds 4.3 metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere a year, per car.

People with longer commutes tend to be less physically active. They also have higher rates of obesity and high blood pressure.

I was personally gobsmacked, when the MTA announced they’d be bleaching subway trains every night at the dawn of the virus.

How often was it cleaned before then? What kind of microscopic virii were floating around the subway car?

These are a few (of many) risks that workers will face in the return to the office.

Mother working from home Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

The Importance of Setting Boundaries at Home

If you co-habit with a family, significant other, or roommate, working from home can be a strain. It does not have to be, as long as you keep distance between yourself and your “boarding mates”.

Being a parent is a whole other ball game. However, balancing structure and play for your kids is a good idea. If you’re driving eachother nuts, go outside for a bit, or recommend they go outside to play.

Many people have a “home office” room where they lock themselves away, and yet their kids or dogs still find a way into their lap. What if you actually created your working space outside? During warmer months, you could work from the garage or even the garden shed if you wanted to.

If you work from a laptop, creating a mobile workspace is also an idea. Move around the house. I’ve used any variety of surfaces as a desk – The kitchen table, a recliner, the garden table, even wide window ledges (as a standing desk).

As the crisis comes to an end, it’s more likely that you’ll work out of a coffee shop or a co-working space within your own neighborhood.

 

Recommended for Remote Work:

 

Woman facing a speeding subway train commute Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Pexels.com

So do you see? It’s not so bad.

There will be a need for companies to subsidize remote working office setups. It pays for itself as those workers may not be using office resources (office equipment, printers, snacks, etc.). There are even companies dedicated to working from home, like WFH Zone UK.

Much of the workforce has now had a taste of remote working. The likelihood they’ll want to go back to an outdated, 20th century office is highly unlikely.

 

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Nomadland: Old Age and the American Dream

/ Adam Smith / Leave a comment
photo of a man in white long sleeved top on blue and white pop up camper
Photo by neil kelly on Pexels.com

The release timing of Nomadland could not be better. Here we are, in a national crisis that has put millions out of work. The employed and the unemployed are suddenly living remote lifestyles.

A few weeks ago, Nomadland started gaining major attention on Hulu, and I decided to watch it. The movie is liberating, realistic, and heartbreaking all at once.

Here is a large group of past-retirement adults. They roam around the United States working seasonal jobs for different reasons. Some do it for pleasure. However, many do it as a necessity. This is due to the lack of the social safety net that was seemingly certain when they were kids.

Great Recession and then COVID

The rallying cry after the Great Recession was “What about the Millennials?” The lopsided focus ignored the fact that many adult homeowners across the country had lost their homes and careers. This got to the point that some were delivering pizza to stay afloat.

Even in the midst of strong post-Recession economic growth, the economy of many U.S. counties was actually shrinking. The people in these areas were already relatively poor. The Recession made them even poorer. Six states, eight years after the Recession, showed outright contraction. (See map above)

“Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century”, the book version, was published in 2017 about a decade after the Recession. It clearly reflects that for many, the Recession never ended.

The American Dream is not Necessary

As many “Millennials” found, the American Dream is not necessary to actually being happy in America. It’s easy to see that we weave back and forth from “do it ourselves” mentality to wealth worship, ever more frequently. It took longer for Baby Boomers to realize this, but when they did, they ran with it.

Older workers’ paychecks are not only threatened during the virus crisis. Their very life is at risk when working people-facing jobs. Staying in a hyper-dense urban area could be fatal for them.

Becoming an “involuntary nomad” is a way out.

Frances McDormand’s character “Fern” is an outstanding case study. She’s a 60-something widow in a one-business gypsum mining town in Nevada. Fern lost both her house and job. She decides to pack her belongings into a van she comically nicknames “Van Halen”.

It’s notable that real people who were profiled in the book constitute most of Nomadland’s cast.

How real is the movie? Here’s a perspective video from a real nomad, Carolyn, who was an extra in the cast of Nomadland.

Ageism

As of 2019 U.S. census data models, 19.4% of the U.S. population were over age 65. 38.5% was over 50, including the previous segment. 19.1% of the previous set were between age 50 and 65, not yet retirement age, and “in the workforce”.

Non-retired Americans tend to experience difficulty finding work, even if they had been in a leadership role. And yet, the age 20-50 demographic (39.5%) ends up shouldering much of the work burden for the rest of the country. This is not sustainable.

In 2018, an AARP survey found that:

  • Nearly one in four workers (age 45 and older) have been subjected to negative comments about their age from supervisors.
  • About 3 in 5 older workers have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace.
  • 76% of these older workers see age discrimination as a hurdle to finding a new job. A report found that over half of these older workers are prematurely pushed out of longtime jobs. 90% of them never earn as much again.

The biting reality of ageism as a bias is this: We will all one day grow old.

Middle aged man contemplating in nature

Temporary Jobs / Lack of Work

In Nomadland, many of the nomads represent a transient workforce. The “campers” travel seasonally from worksite to worksite. They go where work takes them, since a conventional work environment would not “take” them.

While inherently different, this parallels the archetype of “migrant workers” as overwhelmingly Hispanic and working in agriculture. It underlines a need for a renewed focus on that. My mother worked for years as a teacher/home worker with United Migrant Opportunity Services and Head Start, and poverty is something that touches everyone. People face unique challenges, and the problem must be looked at from a birds’ eye view.

Somehow we all survive. Carolyn, mentioned above, relates her nomadic decision to “how they keep you in a job for 40 years and a mortgage for 30 years, so you’re shackled as workers for the powerful and rich elite”.

The nomads in the movie/novel aren’t completely detached from “the rich and powerful”, however. One of the standout scenes features Frances McDormand doing seasonal work at a corporate warehouse. The company actually hosts a jobs program specifically for nomads.

So there is a symbiotic relationship with gig labor that allows them to live their lifestyle. What does that say about the companies that host them? That’s at your discretion.

Beyond seasonal gigs, these nomads will also work as campground hosts, for low pay ($800 per month on the high end). This can sometimes be perilous, even if it fits the lifestyle well. On our recent trip to Death Valley, we had the pleasure of being greeted by one of these hosts, who had plenty of stories from the road. He seemed to genuinely enjoy hearing about our journey, and even gave us tips for the next leg.

Death Valley Abby Kihano on Pexels.com

What You Want vs. What You Need

Many of these nomads believe that they are living better and cheaper than they did when they actually had an apartment or house. Their vehicles are mostly set up to be self-sustaining. Some even have solar panels which can power everything they need, sans electricity bill. One can live the recreational vehicle lifestyle on $500 per month. Your consumption costs will go way down.

They also feel that they are using their “good years in a good way”. One nomad referenced Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”, “Why would you work all your life to have a little bit of freedom at the end of your life, when if you could live efficiently, you could adventure through life now?”

Bob Wells is the leader of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, a national gathering of the nomads in Quartzsite, AZ. His story is unique. He just finished a divorce, making payments to alimony and child support. Like many divorced fathers around the country, he had lost so much of his life. This was a turning point for him. He decided living in a van was actually a step up for him, hasn’t looked back, and has grown to lead the gathering each year.

Open freeway with rush hour traffic and hole in chainlink fence Kehn Hermano on Pexels.com

The Places We Left, the Places We’re Going

The towns that these nomads left will continue on without them, but may continue to shrink and dwindle. However, I pointed out something important in my recent articles, Why Are We Ignoring the Midwest? and 4 Reasons You Should Leave the City. The post-virus “Great Dispersal” could repopulate those areas with new infrastructure, regenerating economy and services around it.

In a completely apolitical sense, the “Buy American” act seems destined to pass through Congress. According to a White House press release, “The U.S government should, whenever possible, procure goods, products, materials and services from sources that will help American businesses compete in strategic industries and help America’s workers thrive.”

The electric vehicle (EV) sector is also in review in a White House supply chain order, and solar cell usage is heating up all around the country. These changes could be a replenishment to rural areas, in both the private and the public sectors. Most of these industries fall under manufacturing and union labor, a key driver for these “elder nomads”.

We are in the midst of a seismic change in America. If a rising tide lifts all boats, why not lift up our aging workers?

“Everything in life is security and comfort vs. freedom. You guys live in nice houses, you have all the comforts, you have very limited freedom.”

– Bob Wells, “Perspectives on Mobile Living” Documentary

Gray concrete road beside brown mountain during golden hour Pixabay on Pexels.com

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The Great Dispersal: 4 Reasons You Should Move Outside the City

/ Adam Smith / 2 Comments

DISCLAIMER: This article represents my personal views and not those of my employer or any affiliated organizations.

This year I’ll have driven east and west across the country twice. I’ll have visited over 23 states: California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

On a fateful night in March, immediately after returning from caring for my father (who was fresh out of the hospital) in Wisconsin, New York City was on the verge of a crisis. I narrowly made it back to New York for fear of a domestic flight ban, and here was NYC about to go into lockdown due to the virus crisis. So after just having been told nobody was going back to the office, we packed our bags, gathered as much as we could, and booked a flight to Palm Springs the next morning.

I’ve spent the last 8 months living on the road. It’s not something we’d expected to be doing this year, but it’s a pleasant surprise. I’ve been thinking about doing this for years, but kept waiting for the right chance to work remotely. The only limitation is that we can’t leave the country. So within these 4 borders, we’ve made the most of it.

Joshua Tree, California AirBnB
Yes, that’s me!

A decade of cost of living increases in major metropolitan areas has exhausted urban residents, and often priced out new transplants. Those would-be transplants have settled on more mid-size cities that weren’t so prohibitively expensive. During the crisis, San Francisco has witnessed an unprecedented 35% drop in rent. The most high profile shifts recently have been Elon Musk‘s and Oracle‘s announcements that they’ll relocate to Austin, Texas. Another benefactor has been Miami, whose Mayor Francis Suarez has recently courted VCs from Google, Andreessen Horowitz, and others – ending the week with a discussion on the popular Clubhouse app. As much spotlight as that city receives, however, there are plenty of other areas that are making waves.

A recent U-Haul study catalogued which states their consumer base were making one-way moves to.

The list came out as follows:

1. Tennessee

2. Texas

3. Florida

4. Ohio

5. Arizona

….Continued.

As you can see here, Americans aren’t moving to any one place, and they’re largely avoiding coastal states (sans Florida). Middle America is going to see a boom like it hasn’t seen since WWII. Read more about that in my article “Why Are We Ignoring the Midwest?“.

What Are the Perks?

  1. Cheaper Cost of Living

The pandemic has resulted in an unforeseen real estate boom. Shortly after prices dropped in March 2020, buyers snapped up homes at a rate unseen since before the Great Recession. Note that those were permanent home purchases, not rentals. Mortgage rates continue to drop to record lows, even as we enter the new year. Will those buyers sell their homes and move back to the city when the pandemic is over? Highly unlikely. For the areas that benefitted, they will receive a longterm influx of commerce and development.

The real estate market will always have peaks and troughs, and with the next dip in the market, we may see even more buyers getting in on growth opportunities in those scattered areas. Think of it like an investment in a small, lesser-known company. They’re getting in at the ground level with a lot of upside potential.

2. Shifting Demographics

Any way you look at it, the country is more divided politically and culturally than in recent memory. A historic exodus of urban workers has rewritten the political landscape. This includes largely “blue” liberal urbanites moving to smaller “red” cities and states, as well as “red” conservative rural dwellers moving to mid-size cities with newfound opportunities. 2021 may look a lot more “purple” than any of us realize. And with that will come cultural shifts. We may find that mid-size cities feel a lot more like metropolitan centers, and that metropolitan centers become more focused on suburbs, much like how workers in San Francisco and Seattle have commuted to the outer reaches of their cities for work.

Digital Nomads in Remote Living

3. Decentralized Urban Areas & More Space

The “city center” is going to matter less, and we may see more compartmentalized “cities within a city” as the pandemic tapers out. Recent research has found that many companies realize the loss in time productivity and overhead they experience keeping an office, and mandating workers to take 1 hour-each-way office commutes. I recently wrote an article on the subject, “What Will Happen to Cities?“

With many post-pandemic return to office plans seeking to have no more than 50% of their workforce on-site at one time, that other half of the workforce needs to go somewhere. They’ll spend that time in their home communities, and hopefully will have everything in 15 minutes of where they live — Groceries, schools, shops, healthcare and more. Having a co-working space close to home can provide an in-person meeting space for much more intensive meetings. This can create the physical closeness with clients and colleagues we had before COVID, while providing socially distanced safety precautions.

Joshua Tree, California AirBnB

4. “Work Anywhere” and Live on the Road

Services like AirBnB, Vrbo, HomeAway and other companies were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic. However, they’ve seen a surge in rural bookings. AirBnB’s remote area listings earned $200 Million in June 2020, a 25% increase from the previous year. One of their new slogans is even “Go Near”, emphasizing local travel. On our journey, we’ve stayed in these types of rentals the entire time.

While many have opted for mortgages outside the city, for apartment renters, the practicality of being tied down to a lease is just not there. Why have a set lease for a year, when you can live anywhere you want within the country for months at a time?

Conclusion

Being in a big city isn’t for everyone. Some love it, and will continue to. The biggest development of the past year is that now you have a CHOICE.

• Do you want to live in a big metro like New York or L.A.?

• Do you want to live in a mid-size city with more space to breathe, or for your kids to play?

• Do you want to take a “gap year” and travel without even having to quit your job?

Any of these options are yours. It’s 2021 and the year just started.

What are YOU waiting for?

The Great Dispersal: We’re Never Going Back to the “Office”

/ Adam Smith / 5 Comments

DISCLAIMER: This article represents my personal views and not those of my employer or any affiliated organizations.

If few like the traditional office environment, why would we go back to it?

What even is an office? You go to an office every day. Where are the roots of office culture?

At its most basic parts: “An office is that part of business enterprise which is devoted to the direction and co-ordination of its various activities.” No part of that definition which mentions it needs to be conducted in a physical space.

What’s the future of the office?

Office Culture Through the Ages

The word office stems from the Latin word “officium“. Interestingly, an officium was not a place, but rather an often mobile ‘bureau’, in the sense of a human staff.

Offices began in classical antiquity as part of a large palace or temple. The “chancery” rose in the Middle Ages as a place where most governmental letters and laws were written. In the 18th century, large conglomerate companies first came about, requiring many offices for clerks. Flat-top desks actually began around this time, as a way for managers to easily see activities of employees. By the 1950’s, it became clear that privacy had to come along with discretion, and we got the cubicle.

Workplace culture in the 1950’s was much more hierarchical, and soon cubicles started to be denigrated by workers as “little boxes”, while upper management received the corner offices. That brought us to the “open office” layout, now the de facto standard for major companies around the world.

Pre-Pandemic Office Culture in the 1950's

And yet, “the office” has both positive and negative connotations.

For many people, the office is a separate environment from home, where they can relieve themselves from the pressures of home life and focus on work. Many modern companies also have a fully stocked kitchen with snacks and drinks on-the-house. Some even regularly get catering at no charge to the employee.

You have to live in close proximity to the metropolitan area your office is in. You lose maybe 2, even 3 hours of commuting time on the way to and from work. You have to attend events and office gatherings as well, which you’re not formally compensated for. In doing this, you lose time to see your significant other or kids.

COVID-19 heralds a new era. It represents all kinds of other risks and precautions to be taken. As workers return to offices in 2021, you may see temperature checks, one-way walking paths, assigned seating during meetings, and plexiglass shields everywhere. Simply riding the elevator presents a whole other kind of conundrum.

Offices just don’t make sense anymore.

What Does the Future of the Office Look Like?

Shows like the Jetsons imagined a future where George Jetson went to work in a flying car that fit into a suitcase, to an office where a boss remotely checked in on him via telescreens. While we may not be driving flying cars, they were not too far off with remote working. Unlike the TV show, there’s no reason to micromanage someone OR force them to come into an office. Post-pandemic, it seems common sense that eliminating large office spaces and not forcing commutes creates huge savings in both overhead costs and productivity.

Okay. So What are Some Solutions?

  1. The Home is the New Office: Here’s an obvious one. Many companies are subsidizing office equipment for employees’ homes. Of course, there are certain things or equipment that couldn’t be included there.
  2. Co-Working Space: Companies could keep a shared space for those who wanted to come in. This space could house equipment or services employees couldn’t use at home. Spaces like Convene can be rented out on short notice. There are also reports that furnished apartments are growing in use by remote workers visiting cities.
  3. “Hot Desks”: An expansion on the co-working space idea, hot desking allows employees to use the same space at different times of the day. This could be an even bigger cost savings for smaller companies, in cities where real estate costs are high. Read more on how cities are changing here.
  4. “3-2-2” Work Weeks: Following the themes above, many have advocated for 3 days in the office, 2 days working remote, and 2 days off. In-office staff’s calendars could be staggered to meet office capacity limitations.
  5. Quarterly Conferences (Virtual or In-Person): With “Zoom fatigue” setting in, in-person interactions are still valuable. Every quarter, companies could hold in-person conferences where staff drive in, or fly in, to convene one-on-one about the events of the next quarter. In early stages, the seats could be spaced out and the majority of the time would be spent in breakout rooms. I just attended my first virtual conference, which included group activities, breakout sessions, and more.

 

Regional Segmentation Will Matter Less

When a workforce is spread across the globe, it is important to break it into manageable regions. That is here to stay. However, remote working opens up bandwidth. Workers in North America will share time zones with their South American counterparts. European times are adjacent to African/Middle Eastern times. And Asian times largely overlap with India and Australia. For example: If someone from your New York office takes an extended trip to Bogota, Colombia, they will be on a relatively unchanged time schedule. In a recent article, I laid out the common sense reasons and cost savings to move to the Midwest.

Flexible Hiring & Time Off

Flexible vacation is a growing benefit of many companies. While it’s not truly “unlimited”, as long as you have your manager’s approval, you can take the time off. There’s stats upon stats about how working mothers should not have to end their career because of a pregnancy, but have the best of both worlds: driving their career and parenting from home.

An uptick in temporary maternity and paternity leave policies has also meant a continually shifting workforce. This opens up space to bring on freelancers, or allow colleagues to try new disciplines while those workers are away. It could also open up regional opportunities for, say, someone in Santiago, Chile or Buenos Aires, Argentina to work with a team in New York. There would also be less limitations on hiring outside the major world commerce hubs, for example, in oft-overlooked regions like “Middle America”, “The North of England”, or in Pacific island countries for Asia-Pacific.

Not Everyone Will Want to Work Remotely

There are certain people who will want to come into an office – Parents who need a separate working environment, as well as those who have a small dwelling and need extra space to work, free of distractions. Some people find working remotely to be isolating or disorienting. At the same time, companies are seeing the need to deliver increased autonomy and trust to workers to fit their lifestyle.

Conclusion

Sprawling cubicles of yesteryear are left to “Dilbert” and the dustbin of history. The overhead costs of keeping an office open, and the pain of a commute and daycare for working parents makes ditching the office an obvious choice. In the 21st century, professionals are remote-ready and in-person interactions should be on their time.

The workplace evolved over centuries of history, why should it stop now?

 

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