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Remote work is making waves again?
Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, published a tweet that caused quite a commotion on Twitter.
It felt like everything about remote work has been said, yet it looks like the tide is changing. The narrative has definitely shifted from being excited about remote work to being very skeptical about it.
This tweet started a whole remote-work-calypse on Twitter:
Sahil Lavingia, the founder of Gumroad, quickly shared his belief that the desire to go back on-site to manage employees is a sign of poor leadership:
Many failed to believed that the desire to go back to the office is genuinely rooted in poor performance of the employees. Paul was quick to reply and clarify that he doesn’t believe that’s the case:
And then, there were the memes:
A few days later Sahil sent out another tweet with his position on remote work.
This is a very common sentiment that at early stages on-site can be more effective.
Let’s Look at Some Stats on Remote.
12.7% of full-time workers work from home in 2023, while 28.2% work hybrid hours, according to Forbes. In 2022, 26% worked remote and 24% worked hybrid.
Looks like many companies compromised on remote as a lot of surveys show that the majority of employees prefer remote or hybrid work models.
Even though most employees want to work remote, many report difficulties in showing peak performance. Be that mental health issues or children at home.
However it’s undeniable that the overwhelming majority of employees chose to work either hybrid or remote. A 2023 survey found that 48% chose to be fully remote while 44% want to go hybrid. On the flip side 51% of employers support the hybrid work model, while only 5% mention fully remote work as a possibility.
The gap between employees and managers is huge when it comes to remote work. Microsoft has coined a term for it - “productivity paranoia” to describe the fear managers have towards their employees underperforming.
Employees chose remote mostly for lifestyle reasons - no commuting, more time for caretaking and a better work-life balance.
Employers however see different benefits in this. The world is your oyster when it comes to hiring remote. You get easy access to stelar talent. And apart from that, it contributes to employee happiness, as most of them want to work remote or hybrid.
When Does Remote Work?
Early stage startup, just building out their product, communications, team culture - all the fundamentals? Remote might slow you down and build up a lot of frustration in employees when it comes to communication.
However, if you a well set up People Ops and streamlined processes, remote can be great for your team.
Before we wrap this up, what’s your preference?
Even though remote work has been a thing for 3 years now, there’s still no conclusive data on whether it’s better or worse than on-site.
It also seems like the arguments in the Twitter debate came from the pro-remote leaders while anti-remote folks mostly stayed silent.
Have a story to share? Leave a reply under this tweet. We’d love to hear from entrepreneurs who have stories to share on their experience with remote!
And to close, we’d like to share this brilliant headline with you that might be where the headlines about remote are going to go: