Remote: Office Not Required

I only recently became aware of Jason Fried's writing and his company 37Signals.com, but instantly fell in love with his clear, concise, no-bull, crystal-clear communication style. After reading some of his articles in Inc. magazine, I found the 37Signals blog and instantly bought the book REWORK and felt invigorated by it. Finally, here is someone who understands that securing venture capital funding is not necessarily the key to success nor to a happy, fulfilling life. He simply makes products (the online software Basecamp, Highrise, etc.) that are amazingly simple to use, and therefore valuable and in demand because they save people time and money. The previous book, REWORK basically throws everything you were taught about business out the door and gets back to basics focused on what will work today, in today's world that changes daily. Ridiculous concepts such as five-year business plans are ridiculed and dismissed, and Jason restores sanity to business ideas and concepts. With REMOTE, he applies the real-world experience of running a distributed company and explains the biggest advantages to hiring remote teams. My two favorite facts about remote working that the book explains: Reason #1: Hiring remote employees allows companies to hire the best talent in the world instead of being handcuffed to only the best talent living in a tiny geographical area. Reason #2: Offices are what the authors call "interruption factories" in which anyone can walk into your cubicle or office uninvited and interrupt your work many times throughout the day. Working remotely allows you to get into the zone and focus on the things that make you productive without the productivity-killing environments of the interruption factories. REMOTE lists the most common excuses that bosses often use to dismiss the idea of remote work, and then the authors proceed to blow every one of those excuses right out of the water with common-sense-filled nuclear missiles. The book refutes those common misperceptions about remote work humorously sometimes, but with factual, common-sense reasons why visionary leaders will actually choose to embrace remote work in the very near future if they want to keep up with their more innovative competitors who keep hiring the most talented people in the world right out from under their noses. The remote revolution has already begun. The visionaries were the first to jump on board. This book will sway anyone on the fence toward the huge benefits of remote teams, and those who refuse to read this book will simply get left behind in the dust of their smarter competitors. If you've never worked remotely and have been trapped commuting to an office, this book will set you free. Also, if you have not already read Scott Berkun's book The Year Without Pants, you should read that too. It's a perfect companion piece to REMOTE, and tells the story of Scott's year working as a member of a distributed team at Automattic, the distributed company behind Wordpress.com.

The office was a response to a need.To get work done we needed groups of people in the same place at the same time. To be at work at the same time, 8:30 to 4:30, people needed to live close to their workplaces. Towns grew into cities and housing grew upward. Those who could not or would not live close to their workplaces spend more time in traffic.This book raises the issues of whether we all need offices. Why don’t we work from the place most convenient to us that day, at a time most convenient to us that day. The issue of remote and asynchonomous work could not be realistically raised ten years ago, but can certainly be today. We now have all the enabling technology to allow many types of work to be performed remotely. This includes the obvious call centre staff, but also the specialist repairman who can perform his work from afar.“Office not required,” the subtitle of this book, is not the future, the authors argue, it is the present.Why would anyone want to work remotely? There a many compelling reasons not least the wasted time spent on your daily commute. Stop and calculate the number of hours each week you spend getting to work. You could also add in the time it takes to get to clients for meetings. Then ask yourself what you would do with the time saved by not travelling.So, why do we not work remotely? Some types of office work cannot be done remotely, and that is not at issue. The issue is that much work can be done remotely.Before I pursue the argument for remote work further, let me answer the question of why large, thoughtful companies, are not doing it. The answer is they are. IBM, for example, has had their staff telecommuting since 1995 with a saving on office space of 7.2 million square metres.The authors offer various reasons for the resistance to remote work.A common argument is that innovation only happens through the magic of face to face contact. Let us presume for a moment that it is true and that creativity requires a group of people to be in the same place at the same time. How much time is spent creativity solving big problems? Very little, most of our time at work is spent executing the “big problems” and that can be done in so many cases, remotely.Even if there is a need for people to be together to work on issues, only a few moments on Skype or FaceTime is enough to establish who is present. Thereafter most of the work will be conducted on a shared computer screen where designs, text, or numbers are formulated and manipulated. These modes of collaboration are relatively low tech and inexpensive to use.Many are afraid that people cannot be trusted to be productive at home. The fact is that people can come to work and not be productive either. The real difference between coming to work and staying at home to work is little more than whether you wear a T-shirt or a dress shirt.As the authors point out: “If you can’t let your employees work from home out of fear they’ll slack off without your supervision, you’re a babysitter, not a manager. Remote work is very likely the least of your problems.”An argument against remote work is the effect it would have on the company culture which would wither away. Remote work is not an “all or nothing” type choice. Staff can be brought together a few times a week or a month to connect and preserve the culture. It is also worth noting that “culture” is not embodied in the company events, but in the manner in which the company works. It manifests in the behaviour of staff to one another, in the manner of treating customers, in the quality of work accepted, and so on. None of these culture building blocks are absent if people work remotely.The real question any discussion on remote work would need to address is why bother with the question of staff working remotely at all?I have already mentioned the time wasted on your daily commute to the office, but there also many work related issues.Where do you go when you want to do serious work? Very few people answer to the office without the qualification – very early in the morning, before anyone gets in, or after everyone leaves, or on weekends.Offices have become “interruption factories,” observe the authors. When a colleague is only a step away why not ask for information or an opinion or a document, now. If you were working remotely, would you send an email or a sms, or if it is really urgent, make phone for the same request.Of course, there are interruptions at home or in a coffee shop, but these are interruptions you can control more easily than a manager or colleague.Remote work allows, in many cases, for better quality work. “Squeezing slightly more words per hour out of a copywriter is not going to make anyone rich. Writing the best ad just very well might,” the authors note.Not having to live in Johannesburg to work for a firm in Johannesburg could be a huge incentive for someone who enjoys the more gentle life in the Paarl. For the firm it allows the search for talent to extend much wider than the immediate surroundings of the office. There is talent scattered all around the country and the world.Provided the type of work you do does not require you to be present at the office, there is no longer any compelling reason for being there all the time. The most difficult challenge many only be the mental shift – you are still working even if you don’t have an office.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- LowIan Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

I read this book in 2024 after approx years of remote work (4 years fully remoted and 3 hybrid)However, I found a lot of wisdom and practical tips that I wished I've read them earlier in my career.The authors and their company 37signals are very inspiring to me. Their writings are always practical and to the pointThank you both for writing this book on remote work in 2013, which is still helpful in 2024 after COVID gave a great boost to remote work.