Flexibility and choice is the future of work
Remote vs in office work is something I think about quite often. But a tweet recently prompted me give it some deeper thought.
At Appbot we have always had a mix of in office and remote work.
In the early days we started with work from home Thursdays. Then we threw in the option of work from home Tuesday, followed by Wednesdays.
I’ve worked remotely full time before and decided it’s not for me. Not full time anyway. I enjoy the company of others and face to face collaboration. Saying that, I appreciated the flexibility to attend appointments or let a tradesman in to my house (when they show up). But I think most of all the restriction of being expected to be in one place 8am to 5pm is a level of restriction I never enjoyed.
The remote option has allowed Appbot employees to do things like:
- attend their local gym during their lunch break
- working from home with an early start/finish allowed a partner to go back to uni after hours
- do school drop off and pickup
Even with the flexibility most people at Appbot don’t take up the full remote opportunity. We have people that have a rare work from home day, the majority do one day a week and one person who does 3 days a week remote.
On Fridays we take the team out for lunch to catch up outside of work. It’s really rare for someone to miss a Friday lunch. I’d like to think that’s because we have a great team that enjoy each other’s company. But it could just be the free lunch. Who doesn’t love a free lunch?
The flexibility to work how I want to work, and most importantly the way I find most productive, is what is important to me. I think this holds true for most people. For some people that’s working from an office, for others it’s full time remote and, I believe the best option for the majority of people, a mix of both.
As Appbot has moved to more and more remote work we have had to improve our systems for communication. We’ve introduced tools like Slack, Asana and Zoom as we have required them. Although these tools are good, I think there is a massive opportunity over the next few years to improve on tools that enable remote work. Companies will be investing heavily on tooling to improve collaboration.
Often I hear employers worry that their team will slack off at home and end up at the beach getting a suntan instead of working. If you don’t trust your team to do the right thing it’s more of a reflection on you than them. Good people are trustworthy and repay you for giving them the flexibility.
In my opinion enabling people to work how they feel most comfortable and productive is what we should all be aiming for. As employers it’s our job to enable this and provide the tools and programs that makes everyone feel inclusive and productive.
Flexibility and choice is the future of work.
