Our Work-from-Anywhere Future

Our Work-from-Anywhere Future
The pandemic has hastened a rise in remote working for knowledge-based organizations. This has notable benefits: Companies can save on real estate costs, hire and utilize talent globally, mitigate immigration issues, and experience productivity gains, while workers can enjoy geographic flexibility. At the same time, concerns include how to communicate across time zones, share knowledge that isn’t yet codified, socialize virtually and prevent professional isolation, protect client data, and avoid slacking. Research into work-from-anywhere (WFA) organizations and groups that include the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Tata Consultancy Services, and GitLab (the world’s largest all-remote company) highlights best practices and can help leaders decide whether remote work is right for their organizations.
Idea in Brief
The Shift
The Covid-19 lockdowns proved that it is not only possible but perhaps preferable for knowledge workers to do their jobs from anywhere. Will this mark a long-term shift into all-remote work?
Benefits and Challenges
Studies show that working from home yields numerous benefits for both individuals and their organizations, most notably in the form of enhanced productivity and engagement. But when all or most employees are remote, challenges arise for communication, knowledge sharing, socialization, performance evaluation, security, and more.
The Research
As more companies adopt work-from-anywhere policies, best practices are emerging. The experiences of GitLab, Tata Consultancy Services, Zapier, and others show how the risks associated with this type of work can be overcome.
Before 2020 a movement was brewing within knowledge-work organizations. Personal technology and digital connectivity had advanced so far and so fast that people had begun to ask, “Do we really need to be together, in an office, to do our work?” We got our answer during the pandemic lockdowns. We learned that a great many of us don’t in fact need to be colocated with colleagues on-site to do our jobs. Individuals, teams, entire workforces, can perform well while being entirely distributed—and they have. So now we face new questions: Are all-remote or majority-remote organizations the future of knowledge work? Is work from anywhere (WFA) here to stay?
How leaders can make the best of the hybrid workplace and thrive in our newest normal.
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Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury is the Lumry Family Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School. He was an assistant professor at Wharton prior to joining Harvard. His research is focused on studying the Future of Work, especially the changing Geography of Work. In particular, he studies the productivity effects of geographic mobility of workers, causes of geographic immobility and productivity effects of remote work practices such as “work from anywhere” and “all-remote.” He is the author of the recent HBR article titled “Our Work-from-Anywhere Future.”