The Most Important Employee Perk (Remote Work Ep #7)

Описание: In this episode of the Rise of Remote Work series, we discuss how the option to work remotely is one of the most important perks a company can offer as well as how it has network-effect like characteristics.

Read more: https://friday.app/rise-remote-work

Full Transcript:

Another tailwind that is contributing to the growth of remote work is that remote work as a benefit has characteristics that resemble a network effect.

For those of you who don't know what a network effect is, it's the idea that a product, service, or idea becomes stronger as each person is added. For example, the value of Facebook grows as more people use it. If you were the only person using Facebook, it wouldn't be that valuable.

A similar idea exists at work when it comes to remote work as a perk. Unlike other work benefits that many people do not take advantage of, remote work is a hugely popular perk. In fact, a recent Dice survey outlined that remote work was THE top perk a company could offer.

Here's how this network effect of remote work works in practice - I've seen this happen over and over again.

Typically, an organization won't make the switch to allowing remote work in on fell swoop. Instead, it will creep into the organization, typically through an engineering team who may be running into issues hiring or retaining key talent.

The engineering team doesn't want to miss out on hiring or keeping a great employee, so they bend the rules...just a little bit. Maybe they start off by letting some employees work from home a couple days a week. The team leaders will monitor output and make sure that work is still being accomplished. The world doesn't end, so they feel more comfortable with the idea.

At this point, you have a few key employees who have flexibility, and the snowball starts to build. Other people in the team will see the option to work remotely and will start asking if they can do the same thing. After all, another teammate is doing it.

The engineering leader gives in and opens up the idea of working from home for their team. Perhaps they build some loose guidelines around it.

Here's where it gets fun. As other teams and departments see this, they experience a fear of missing out. They want the same flexibility that the engineering team has!

This possibility of remote work continues to spread, until at some point, the executive team is forced to create a policy around remote work. Maybe they shut down remote work completely, but if they do that, they may lose key employees.

In many scenarios, executives or HR doesn't have a choice. If they take away a hugely popular perk, there may be a mutiny at work. People may look for another job. Now that the snowball is rolling, it's very difficult to stop it. If you do stop it, you will need to expend a ton of energy and there will be backlash.

I hope this episode outlines how the idea of remote work becomes stronger as more and more people jump onboard.

If you are a co-located company that has a few employees working remotely, watch and see what happens. The snowball is being built and growing. It's just a matter of time until your company will need to make a decision around your remote work policy.