Remote work isn’t necessarily a new thing. Some companies – like Dribbble, Buffer, and many others – have operated under remote-first work cultures for years… well before the COVID19 pandemic. But the pandemic led to many other companies being thrust into remote-work whether they liked it or not.
Some companies liked it. Just yesterday, it was reported that Airbnb is allowing their employees to work from home (or wherever they’d like throughout the world) permanently. They can work from Airbnb’s office if they’d like. And there would still be regular in-person interactions planned throughout the year. But Co-Founder and CEO, Brain Chesky, said that it’s been Airbnb’s most productive 2-years ever since their remote-first experiment started.
Then again, others aren’t so ready to adopt that approach. Netflix’s Reed Hastings has been completely against the idea of anything but an in-the-office work environment. Apparently he did not see the same type of productivity boost that Chesky from Airbnb saw.
For most tech companies, it seems to fall somewhere in the middle. Most are still maintaining offices – but they’re leaving it up to employees as for whether they want to work in that dedicated workspace… or from home. And it seems like this type of choice may be important. After all, good talent is hard to come by (especially these days) – and recently, it was reported that almost ⅔ of employees would consider quitting their jobs before being forced to return to an all in-person work environment.
So what do you think? Have the past two years cemented a WFH preference over the return to the office? Or, do you miss the extemporaneous interactions and relationship building with co-workers that working alongside each other physically can sometimes bring? Or… is it somewhere down the middle? Give me a shout and let me know – I’m curious!
