Kevin McArdle has an interesting post on working remotely. He makes an interesting point: we have all the technology to make working remotely a reality but we still talk of it as something in the future. Why, he asks, aren’t more companies remote-first?
The benefits of remote work are both obvious and documented. Companies save money—lots of money, it turns out—as do employees. Employees don’t waste time commuting or sitting in mostly useless meetings and are therefore more productive. This, of course, is hugely beneficial to employers. Perhaps the biggest win for companies is that they have a vastly larger talent pool to recruit from.
McArdle’s own company, SureSwift Capital, has 80 team members, operates in 14 time zones, and has no real offices. His experience shows it can be done and that all the advantages can be realized. His post urges other companies to realize them too.
When I first got interested in remote work it really was a dream. Hardly anyone was doing it—mostly journalists and some developers—and we didn’t have nearly the infrastructure to support it that we do now. Now the infrastructure is there and except for those famous face-to-face meeting at the water cooler, there really aren’t many cogent reasons to keep doing what we’re doing.