2023 Predictions of Remote Work
TLDR: Remote work is most definitely here to stay and it's affecting both businesses and individuals!
Companies are creating new strategies to adapt to the shift and employees are redefining what truly matters to them.
The remote work trend is pushing companies to rethink traditional work practices, such as meetings, hours, and job sharing.
Companies are also implementing more flexible scheduling tools and benefits for deskless and frontline workers who cannot work from home.
Individuals want to have the freedom of choice where and how they work. We want to design our lives and schedules instead of having them dictated to by a 9-5 office job that involves hours a week spent commuting.
Here are the 6 top trends in Remote First Work Organizations:
📝 Asynchronous work must be combined with at least 50% fewer meetings
Large organizations waste $100M per year on unproductive meetings!
In 2020, according to Asana, workers spent 158 hours in unnecessary meetings,
Companies are finally learning their people are burned out by days when they spend 50% or more of their time in synchronous meetings.
Day-to-work work will become more and more asynchronous, allowing teams to focus on their work with fewer distractions. Companies will actively discourage recurring group meetings (e.g. Shopify) unless those are needed for important collaboration and personal connections with the team.
Nearly 80% of teams will identify as hybrid or remote in 2023, and the world's leading remote first teams have known for years that to do remote work properly, asynchronous communication is a key to success.
🤝 Facilitation is the remote skill of the future.
Synchronous remote collaboration is broken. Harvard Business Review quotes collaboration as one of the top 3 reasons for employees to return to the office.
To succeed with synchronous remote collaboration, the sessions need to be actively facilitated. This means planning, structure and active facilitation during the session.
We believe the future is remote - and to break down the barriers of remote collaboration, facilitation will become a core skill for all leaders.
⏰ The term ‘Work from anywhere’ is becoming more common than 'Work Whenever’.
9-5 is no longer the ‘norm’! 94% of workers surveyed by Slack FutureForum said they want to scrap the 9-to-5 for more flexibility.
As demand for more flexibility grows, companies have a choice: get on board or potentially lose their best talent to competitors.
📖 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) will help make work, work.
Instead of adopting a one-size-fits-all rule, companies will standardize their operating procedures with a distributed place in mind. 71% of knowledge workers want a central place to understand and manage their work. The team's Operating System (OS) is exactly that. It's a collective, second brain for the team, which everyone can collectively update.
A great OS accelerates truly agile teams to become async-first, and find what they need without disturbing their team.
Moving to an economy of accountability, organisations will empower employees with clear guidelines to help them make the best decisions in both the company’s and their own interest, including the definition of schedules as well as equipment and resources.
🤖 AI will assist us more than ever and reduce repetitive work.
By 2023, AI is expected to have an enormous economic impact, with the global economy predicted to increase by over $15.7 trillion due to its extensive adoption.
AI will continue to revolutionize our lives and help us build better, faster, and more efficient routines. Chat GPT is just the beginning as we find new ways to remove repetitive and mundane tasks and allow more time to explore, create, and innovate.
🚑 Navigating the trade-offs between employee well-being and productivity.
Since the pandemic, 7 out of 10 people reported globally they are struggling (source: Gallup) with physical and mental health challenges. In 2023, employee well-being becomes a top priority and makes the difference in terms of higher productivity, customer engagement, lower turnover and ultimately, the bottom line.
Culture has always been important, but it’s now become a competitive advantage and the biggest lever that any company has to drive performance. Taking out ethical and personal preferences/considerations, it is 100% worth investing in team culture and wellbeing, strictly from a profitability point of view!
Difficult trade-offs are inevitable as the tech world is going through massive team and investment downsizing and increased pressure on productivity, as well as smaller, leaner, more efficient teams.
I can’t take the credit for this article- this was the work of @iwo Szapar at Remote-First Institute along with some other fantastic collaborators.
RFI is a not-for-profit organization supporting the shift in how we work and live. .
If you want to read more incredibly insightful remote work trends and predictions, check out the full article here and sign up to the community here.
And here are this week's remote jobs for you to check out 👇
Stay rebellious,
Michelle