Remote work isn't broken, but your version of it is.

Why all the remote work hate isn't very smart.

May 31, 2023

* Criiiinge *

Every time I see one of these “going-back-to-the-office-to-hussle-harder” tweets, I cringe, a lot.

Let me start by getting a few things out of the way. When you say you tried remote and it sucked, I believe you! I’m sure remote sucked for you. I also know that you’re definitely doing it wrong and this is why it sucks more than usual.

Your version of remote vs. back to the office: the office wins.
Back to the office vs. remote work done right: remote wins, or at the very least goes head to head.

Now before I go on explaining why I believe that to be true, let’s just stop acting like there are no real examples of successful remote companies. Why do people keep conveniently ignoring companies like Gitlab? $5.6 billion market cap, $500+ million ARR, 2,300+ remote employees. I would also like to humbly use Hotjar as an example, with high 8 digits of ARR and 400 remote employees. Clearly some people know how to make it work.

Now onto the reasons why your remote experience sucked.

1. Lack of transparency & documentation

“There is no serendipity in remote work” - Alex Jost my colleague at Hotjar 2 weeks after I started.

Said another way, nothing happens by chance in remote work. Information doesn’t travel organically, so you need to have high intentionality about how you design and engineer communication flows.

This means you need to get into the habit of (a) writing and documentation, (b) having a high degree of transparency and access to everyone in the company. This means anyone can easily find and consume any information they need, with little to no red-tape, thus significantly reducing the need for information to travel through informal channels such as water cooler or kitchen conversations.

2. Invest in building relationships in real life

People think of remote workers as these anon avatars on reddit, trying to get some real work together, hiding behind their keyboards without ever meeting or building meaningful relationships with each other. Real remote companies invest time, energy, and money into making real relationships happen not only online, but also offline.

At Hotjar we do this in 3 different ways:

Every year we fly every member of Hotjar to a 1 week company retreat, where we align on strategy, have fun together, and more importantly build shared memories.

#The epic team meetup at Campus La Mola—June 2022.

Every Hotjar team member has an annual “work together” budget of €2,000. This is a budget our team members can use to go work in any city where another team member lives. Our team members have done work togethers in amazing places such as Costa Rica, Cape Town, and Buenos Aires.

Team offsites are also organized regularly. This means that team are encouraged to meet in person to get things done and collaborate in real life on business challenges.

3. Invest in your team’s working conditions

When people are working in an office, companies have dedicated people to improving the workplace conditions of the team. From comfortable chairs, desks and any equipment the teams needs, to catered lunches, infinite snacks, and Friday beers. However when the team is working remotely, the working conditions of the team are often an afterthought. Companies don’t provide budgets for home office setup or equipment, they don’t provide budgets for beverages, high-speed home internet, or any other forms of comfort necessary for the team to do their best work.

If it’s painful to work from home, it is unlikely your team would be willing to put in the hours to get meaningful outcomes.

I can keep going and point more differences of how remote work differs from one company to the other, but I think you get the idea.

If you’re interested in remote work and want to learn more from our experience at Hotjar, get in touch with me and I’d happily answer any questions.