Why employees love remote work arrangements

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to design digital workplaces or “offices in the cloud.” These environments enable companies to allow flexible and remote working for their teams. I also teach the digital literacy, fluency, communication and collaboration skills needed to work in these modern technology-rich workplaces.

For the past 3 years I have been tracking dozens of companies that allow for flexible/remote working. Looking at how these teams operate and what makes them successful at “anywhere work.” (Auth0 is one of those companies, they are a team of almost 500 employees.)

Why you ask – because this is one of mega trends impacting the future of work.

By way of summary – the three main areas all of them do really well are:

1. They use the right technology for their teams (ie they have well designed digital workplaces that makes anywhere work feel as natural as being in a physical office)
2. They have the right culture which is actively shaped especially by the leadership teams who have for example, adopted ROWE principles (Results Only Work Environments) and embrace the concept of digitally working out loud.
3. The employees have the right skills, namely they possess the virtual work skills to be able to work efficiently in digital environments from anywhere.

The list of benefits to businesses is pretty dramatic. Despite the obvious things like reducing the need for office space, long-term leases, being able to scale up (or down) without space headaches and being able to hire talent anywhere in the world, I think one of the biggest benefits that shines through is how much happier and productive people are who work in these modern work environments.

Do yourself a favour check out what these Auth0 employees have to say about why they enjoy the remote work culture Auth0 has designed. It makes for enlightening reading! (It also explains the employee reviews on Glassdoor)

There is no question that those smart companies that are able to make the transition are gaining considerable competitive advantage! Wouldn’t it be prudent to ask yourself what flexible/remote working could do for your business? By what factor could you increase your productivity? How much happier will your people be? What impact will it have on your bottom line?