I was excited to find my friends at Muck Rack have launched this movement of companies pledging never to force employees into an office. So many terrific companies, big and small, have signed the pledge, including Automattic, Skift, Expensify, Zapier and more. I immediately signed the pledge on behalf of Digimentors, my social & digital consultancy and virtual-events production company. From the site: "A year of remote work has shown that people don’t have to be onsite to be productive. Businesses that have signed the Work Remotely Forever Pledge agree never to force their employees to report into an office. Instead, they’ll enable their teams to thrive from anywhere by investing the time, money and attention needed." I know there's a huge push to go back into the office and it's causing friction in unusual ways (Apple is Exhibit A). I also know that people of good faith can disagree on which way is better, and there isn't one way that's right for all companies. I am a big believer in in-person meetings and those "in-office collisions" that spark ideas and more. Holding occasionally IRL meetings, retreats, and more structured and planned virtual gatherings can make those ideas happen, too. For my team and others like it, working remotely gives them a chance to avoid long commutes, make time for their families and to TRY to achieve what leadership expert Jill Geisler calls "work-life harmony," not work-life balance. I encourage CEOs to sign the pledge if it makes sense for them and their teams. Congrats to @Gregory, @Semel, @Schneider_Says and everyone at Muck Rack on launching WRF!

As someone that has always worked for software companies, my opinion on remote work is probably biased. It is strictly for the software industry and I agree with Sree that there isn’t one way that's right for all companies. When I used to come to the office before the pandemic, I would almost exclusively communicate with everyone through slack even if it’s with someone sitting right next to me. So I would ask myself all the time, why am I here? I realized how offices were becoming smaller and quieter over the past ten years. Less people were coming to work yet productivity and team morale was higher than ever. The countless amount of productivity apps being launched every year literally eliminated the need for in person meetings and have in fact proven to be far more powerful and efficient. There are around 577 listed on product hunt alone. So I truly believe that remote work was proven to be more productive than on site way before the pandemic hit. I think what more than one year of shutdowns have done, was prove remote work could possibly go on forever. It forced managers and officers to question and rethink everything such as: -Do we really need an office ever again? -How much could we save on operating costs? -How much more benefits could we provide employees? -Do we need to hire local? Back in March of 2020, my partner and I were living in different cities so our plan was we both move to LA to start working on a new app. This was right before the shutdowns started rolling in world wide. We had a plan to rent a small office space and hire a few devs locally. We thought this would be the most efficient strategy to build a great product. This is what ended up happening when the necessity of location was eliminated: -We saved on many things such as moving and office expenses so a bigger budget for marketing, salaries, legal and licensing fees became possible -Finding talent became easier since more devs had more time working on side projects when forced to work from home. -We hired extremely talented people in Russia, India, UAE, Kenya, and Canada at a fraction of the cost than in the USA with the same level of experience -The timeline for our product and business roadmap shrank considerably -With people working from many different time zones, development was ongoing 24hrs a day. The biggest obstacle we faced was cross border payroll. Even with the current crypto wallets in the market, it was still challenging. It was enough of a pain that we pivoted from our original idea to try and solve this issue. I don’t think work will ever be the same specifically for post pandemic tech startups working on software projects. I haven’t met my partner in almost two years and we don’t plan to meet anytime soon. We simply can’t find a good reason! Pre-pandemic this would be unthinkable. Work benefits aside, we believe our standard of living has increased dramatically due to remote work as well. This is an ongoing experiment though, and if we are hopefully ever successful, I am very much curious to see how big our company can grow without the need for an office space. The pledge specifically asks for a commitment to never make employees return to the office again. So as someone who has reaped the benefits of remote work, I will with great passion make this pledge and I hope all product makers would do the same!

Work Remotely Forever

A movement promoting remote work launched by Muck Rack

A movement promoting remote work launched by Muck Rack

Work Remotely Forever

A movement promoting remote work launched by Muck Rack

A movement promoting remote work launched by Muck Rack

Do you use Work Remotely Forever?

Do you use Work Remotely Forever?

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