Face time vs. Online: Is it really possible to work without any offices – at all?

[Note: Six months ago I joined InVision, a fast-growing software company building the operating system for digital product design. InVision is a fully remote company with over 600 employees: we have no offices, so we meet coworkers only over Zoom and chat with them over Slack. Before InVision, I had always worked from an office, so I wanted to share how remote work has changed my perspective on not having a 'physical headquarters']

Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen a flurry of articles with titles like “Study finds work-from-home employees more productive than office workers” and “Seven reasons why working remotely is the future.” Sure, those flashy headlines sound great, but to most people, working for a company without any offices sounds totally implausible. Of course most global companies already have video conferences linking employees in different locations, and most people can dial-in to a meeting while on the road. But what I’m talking about is a 100% remote company: no headquarters, and no office in any city, state, or even country.

No wonder most people don’t get the concept! FlexJobs reports that there are only 170 fully-remote companies in the U.S., meaning that only a tiny fraction of workers can be found outside a traditional office.

Just as in the old days, in the time of horse-drawn carriages, people had many reasons for believing that automobiles were a ‘passing fad’ - calling them impractical and too expensive

So it’s easy to understand how few can imagine what it’s like to work in fully-remote firm.

Of course, early automobiles had no safety equipment, and back then there were few paved roads or traffic laws. So too, there was a time when remote work suffered from poor infrastructure: the internet was slow and online collaboration tools were sub-par. Now, all of this has changed. Developed countries have the technology to make it work, and companies are building excellent tools that make it easy to communicate without traveling.

It also makes good business sense to be remote today. Having a workforce in many different areas helps bake in a global perspective. Just as we look back at horse-drawn carriages as a slow and inefficient mode of transport, the same will be said for doing work in centralized offices. And just as cars opened our access to new opportunities, having a fully remote workforce will bring new vitality to companies. Today, it’s a competitive advantage; in a couple years, it’ll be the norm.

Of course, better infrastructure and globalization doesn’t mean that we can all close up offices and tell everyone to work from home in PJ’s

Just as the invention of cars required a new set of traffic laws and rules, to be successful working remotely, policies and procedures will also be needed to make it effective. So there will be challenges!

There are the different time zones, for one. Not just West to East coast: we have InVisioners in 20+ countries! Practically speaking, most of us tend to work 10am - 6pm East coast hours. Of course that means early mornings for those of us out West, and sometimes meetings run late for our Euro Zone colleagues. But usually we can meet during overlapping times, so we don’t cut into family time too much.

I have also heard people wonder about missing out on the “chance interactions” with colleagues over the water cooler or coffee machine. There are many ways we handle this at InVision. Some groups always begin their video meetings five minutes early, to give each other a chance to chat and catch up. There’s also a bot in Slack that can match each team member to chat with a new colleague every two weeks. In my team’s Slack channel, we pose a new set of “get to know your teammates” questions every week, which always teaches me something new about them. Of course, many teams do meet in person every so often, and periodically we have a full-company offsite. In-person meetings are still important, but they aren’t needed very often.

Of course, more of us are probably already working remotely without realizing. My colleague Joseph put it best:

It will take a while before most businesses do become completely remote. But for those of you still wary of making the leap, there are some cool tools out there to reduce time spent traveling to the office. For instance, this commute calculator from LinkedIn is worth looking at.

Being remote is a competitive advantage for InVision, and was one of the factors that attracted me to the company. I am also excited that, in the future, there will be a growing range of amazing companies to work for that are fully remote. Remote work will make it easier for more people to live where people want to, not just where they have to. Most of all, a remote workforce can enhance products and increase workforce diversity.

--

P.S. We're hiring!! Check out open jobs here https://www.invisionapp.com/company