The case for remote work, and in-office work. Can we please just be nice to each other?

I am disheartened by the backlash on remote work lately. For context, I founded BLVD in 2019 as a remote first company. Boulevard always meant working from home (since I lived on a BLVD) and on the road. I worked from 12 different cities across the US in my first several weeks launching it.

I am passionate about remote work, BUT, I understand it isn't for everybody! I talk with candidates and founders every week who are passionate about collaborating in-office. We each have our own personalities, strengths, preferences and dispositions. I think we should continue this conversation about how do we maximize the potential in everybody??

I support every founder who wants to build an in-office culture. I think there are major positives to it, and it will resonate with a population of candidates. My role in recruiting is to match make, to find candidates and companies that go well together.

What I’m discouraged by is by a growing concern that the move to remote work is conclusively shit, for everybody. For anyone that cares to read this I would like to share my experience supporting that remote work isn’t shit for all companies.

Some context:

I had the fortunate opportunity to manage teams across time zones. At Palantir the time zone stretched from me in Palo Alto to peeps in London. I worked just as much with DC and NYC.?

During my first months as a manager, I was intimidated by the prospect of managing people remotely. How would I build those relationships? How would I know if my London recruiters were doing well if they worked while I slept? I felt some assurance around our hiring bar, that the people I worked with were talented. But surely, I should have some kind of pulse on performance as their manager??

I valued in person time greatly. I would travel regularly to see my team. We would spend the whole week, side by side, together. We spent as much time talking about work as other things. I spent time with all of our stakeholders. I solicited feedback. I had some great times with our hiring managers! So many wonderful memories. Shout out to SJP!

So, while Palantir had an in-office culture the way we built teams very much required most people working in some capacity remotely. I think this worked well since we hired trustworthy people who worked diligently. We hired people that were passionate about their work. It’s hard to keep those kind of people from succeeding.

On the flip side, my career started in public accounting. (I know! Another story.) This was very much an in-office culture, when I started anyway. Between that and my recruiting jobs I spent 12 years working in office. Here are the flags from me.?

Feel free to reflect on these flags against office culture (for people like me):

1. Do my thoughts support your assumptions against remote work? Perhaps they persuade you to see differently? OR,?
2. Perhaps they will help you understand my psychology and filter OUT people that won’t be fits for your in-office team.?
3. Alternately, if my comments resonate for you personally, please join me in speaking about your experience so that our voices aren’t lost in this moment where tech culture is pivoting. There are countless leaders who surely believe in remote work, who will forge forward with me in protecting remote work for those who excel more remotely.

My case against office work, for people like me:

1. As someone who swings between introversion and extroversion, I found moments particularly in recruiting where I’d feel totally depleted. Recruiters must be persuasive to be good at their jobs. They must listen intently. They must interact actively. They must demonstrate conviction selling a company in a way that feels authentic dozens of times per week. It is not easy. Between that there is a huge amount of administrative work (emails, updating systems, reporting). For someone like me to fire on all cylinders on all aspects of my job requires breaks from it. I can’t count how many hours I spent sitting in office and staring out the window, aimlessly. Pretending to do something when someone walked by. Then logging in late nights from home to crank out administrative work after taking a break for dinner, to reset and build energy. It was totally depleting.
2. When people are driven by excellence you do not need to micromanage them. They will get the job done. They will do it well. I understand that not everyone is driven by excellence but please respect that no amount of office or remote work is going to stop someone who’s driven by excellence from succeeding.
3. When you have someone in bucket 2 that is crushing it for your company, AND in bucket 1 above where they experience incredible fatigue, you risk that in their fatigue, they won’t want to stay with your company. Why would we not offer individuals a way to work that supports their natural energy so they can operate more efficiently and positively?
4. Women benefit from remote work. Read this Fortune article Flexible Work is Feminist. Traditional office culture was built by men. We are finally making progress building tech to be more inclusive. Let's not lose steam towards gender equality in this moment.

If you are with me in forging forward remote work, here are my tips.

1. Travel to see each other. At BLVD we all stayed at a fancy hotel in downtown Austin for 2 nights with +1s. The whole team met up in New Orleans. Leads have worked from villas in Mexico twice. We’ve done many smaller trips with 2 or 3 people to work together in various cities (SF, NYC, Denver, Vegas, Charleston).
2. We are increasingly hiring in small clusters in cities so people can meet. For example, I have a standing work day from Pershing (social club here in Austin) with one of my recruiting leads.?
3. Slack huddle frequently. (THANK YOU, Slack !) Some people won’t be inclined to start it, so take initiative and hit that Slack huddle to drive collaboration. I LOVE how in Slack I can randomly hit huddle in a group channel and whoever happens to be free can pop in. We do this constantly, to problem solve, strategize and sometimes just to say hi, how was your weekend!
4. Build systems that tell you how the company is doing so you’re not left wondering. This is a best practice for ANY company, not just remote companies. People ask how do I know my recruiters are doing their jobs? One, they are making hires. Two, I see their sourcing activity. Three, I monitor recruiting process conversion rates and drive my recruiters to calibrate with hiring managers. Solicit feedback from your hiring partners. It's really not that hard!
5. Be clear in your expectations. Emphasize expectations verbally and in writing so there is no possibility of missed communication. Give ongoing feedback. Then be strict to exit employees who don’t consistently don’t meet expectations. Excellence in any environment requires holding performance metrics.?

I know that I am personally better as an employee when I work remotely. No matter where I work I will give my whole heart. I have more of my heart to give in remote work environments because I’m able to recharge more frequently.

I do understand that someone can speak just as passionately about their in-office preferences. I welcome your perspective if you’d like to share it. My only ask at this moment is let’s please be considerate that all companies and people are different.