This fear is holding you back from adopting 100% remote work

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Your employees want remote work to be permanent, but you’re scared to commit. Let’s explore why.

Employees want remote work to be permanent.

I use Reddit to keep tabs on industry-wide employee trends. It is crystal clear that employees want remote work to be a permanent option for firms of the future.

Your employees (or future employees) see remote work as providing numerous benefits.

Money:?no commute expenses, reduced wear and tear on a car, reduced lunch costs, wardrobe savings, reduced child care costs.

Time:?mid-day work breaks allow for knocking errands off the list, no commute time = time for family/kids, easier to eat lunch with friends/family.

Lifestyle:?autonomy allows employees to work from anywhere, travel the globe and still produce results with a strong wifi connection, work when they have the most energy (which may not be between the hours of 8am-5pm).

Why should you care?

Great organizations are built around great people. And great knowledge workers are demanding remote environments.

This will force companies to adopt “100% remote” policies in order to remain competitive in this already tight labor market.

We’ve seen massive companies such as PwC, FaceBook, Apple all make announcements about remote work being made permanent.

They are feeling the crush, and you should move now to get ahead of the curve.

A certain fear is holding you back.

I consult with CPA and Law firm owners across the U.S. and I’ve heard all sorts of excuses as to why they are clinging on to the office:

• My team likes to see each other in person
• My clients like to meet me in person
• Remote workers are less productive
• The work we do can’t be done on Zoom

My team and clients like the in-person interaction.?It’s true that humans need social interaction… so schedule social interaction with your team and clients. You can hold team outings or client lunches/masterminds. Make the social aspect more intentional than forcing everyone to come into the office.

I’m confident your team and clients will prefer meeting over Zoom as has been my experience. They get their commute time back and are able to work from the comfort of their homes.

Remote workers are less productive.?No, they aren’t (study ,?another study ).

The work can’t be done on Zoom.?I’ve heard this from leaders who are big on the “apprenticeship” model where a core part of training and growth is shadowing a successful employee at the firm. The belief is that the only way this works is if the shadowing can be done in an office. This is simply bias on full display.

We’ve successfully run the apprenticeship model with 5 tax advisors who each produce ~$300-$400k in revenue for us each year.

Their training consists of 2 months of sitting on Zoom calls with other advisors observing how they talk and handle clients and a 3rd month of leading the calls with more experienced advisors observing and providing feedback.

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The real reason leaders are scared to adopt a 100% work-from-home policy?

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They don’t know how to measure results.

No longer can you see someone in the office and assume they are being productive.

No longer can you review timesheets with confidence.

No longer can you let your favorites continue to skate by.

When you can’t physically see someone being productive, the only way to know if they’ve contributed any value is to measure the results they produce.

And knowing what results actually matter to the business is a major challenge for leaders.

When you adopt 100% remote work, you will find that many of the results you previously placed a high value on don’t actually matter for your business.

My favorite aspect of this is that bad workers can no longer hide.

They either produce results or they don’t.

And it will be abundantly clear who your top performers are.

Results don’t lie.