The Remote Work Weekly #1

Welcome to the first edition of “The Remote Work Weekly” newsletter!

Since it is the first edition, let me give you a brief introduction about me and why I created this newsletter.

I began working remotely in 2016 and have experienced a mix of remote, hybrid, and on-site work environments. I was a software developer at the time, then shifted into multiple creative roles soon after. I believe that more remote/hybrid work adoption will occur in the future despite the current back-to-office mandates mainly issued by major tech companies. Therefore, I decided to launch this weekly newsletter, which has been on my mind for quite some time.

The goal of this newsletter is to keep you updated on what's new in the world of remote work, including news, emerging trends, insights, studies, and more. I will also touch on related topics such as freelancing, coliving, coworking, digital nomad trends, and more.

In this week's edition, I cover the news of a setback by a major tech company for its remote employees, discuss WeWork’s situation and share my opinion about their business model, and feature a new AI tool that helps freelancers and small businesses analyze and detect weaknesses in their contracts.

Dell Excludes its Remote Workers from Promotions

Earlier this year, an insightful article published by the LA Times discussed studies concluding that remote workers aren't “actually productive.” The article challenged those conclusions, along with the predictions that more back-to-office calls will occur this year. Since the start of the year till now, it seemed that big tech companies are the ones issuing continuous back-to-office mandates while smaller companies are leaning towards more remote or hybrid work models. However, last week's mandate by Dell was one of its kind so far.

According to Business Insider, Dell informed its fully remote employees that they won't be eligible for promotions unless they work from the office at least three days per week. This comes as a surprise since Dell's founder and CEO, Michael Dell, has been a vocal advocate for remote work. With this indirect return to the office mandate, we can say that Dell has joined other big tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple in their stance against remote work.

WeWork, it is Time to Go

Apparently, there is more news about WeWork, as its founder and former CEO is trying to rebuy the company after filing for bankruptcy protection. This company was seen for years as a fast-growing company that was revolutionizing work and “changing the world,” at least from many tech media outlets’ point of view. In reality, it was just a company trying to upscale the common coworking business model at an unsustainable pace.

I don't know if I am the only one who saw WeWorks as a company that lacked innovation and character. Anyway, I will share my full opinion here.

Throughout the second half of my 20s and early 30s, I spent much time hopping between work-friendly cafes and coworking spaces. For me, coworking spaces were, and still are, those shared office venues for startups, small businesses & freelancers to reduce the feeling of isolation, build communities, and grow professional networks. At least they remained this way until WeWork tried to reinvent the wheel.

When I first heard about WeWork, all I saw was just another coworking business with some differences: most of their locations looked more like typical corporate offices, they presented coworking as if it was something revolutionary they came up with, they were expanding globally at a questionable pace, and most of their offices were in prime locations with much higher fees compared to the average coworking space in those locations.

Though the 2020 lockdowns seemed to be the major cause for the company's decline, they were struggling even before that. The most obvious sign was their failed IPO which led to a decrease in the company's valuation from $47 billion to $11 billion. Despite showing signs of recovery from the 2020 hit, their numbers still didn't add up. In June 2023, four months before filing for bankruptcy, the reported occupancy rates were 72%. At the time, WeWork had 777 locations across 39 countries with 906,000 workstations and 653,000 active memberships. Despite these high occupancy rates, the company still failed to survive.

In my humble opinion, the true evolution of coworking is coliving, not another amplified coworking space like WeWork. I think there will be more room for coliving in next week’s newsletter edition.

Tool of the Week

Since we are in the middle of an AI hype, the featured tool of this week –and maybe for weeks to come– is an “AI-powered” one.?

This week, I came across an AI-powered “contract negotiator” tool called SpeedLegal. Even if it is in the early development stages and it is hard to say how effective it is, what it offers so far seems promising.

It was the first time for me to find such a tool, so I decided to give it a shot. I was cautious in the beginning since it might be another ChatGPT wrapper, but after some digging, it seems like they train their models. I tested it, and this is what the analysis of one of their sample contracts looks like:

Their pricing doesn't seem out of reach for new freelancers trying to sign their first client, and it is reasonable for small businesses and established freelancers who can't afford professional legal advice yet.

Really?!

Have you stumbled upon a piece of content on a seemingly trustworthy source that seemed valuable at first but turned out to be clickbait content? Occasionally, I will try to highlight some of this type of content whenever I find any so you don't waste your time.

Here, I share an article that made it to my Google News feed. For some reason, a Forbes contributor decided to publish what looks like an unedited ChatGPT-generated article titled “15 Remote Freelance Jobs for Digital Nomads in 2024.”

I didn't know what to expect from this article, but I am always curious to see what people write when they mention digital nomads. Here is a glimpse of the content:

Do you want to test your patience trying to read it? You can find it here.

Wrap-Up

This wraps up the first edition of The Remote Work Weekly. I hope it was informative, insightful, and entertaining :). To receive notifications about each week's edition, feel free to subscribe.

If you'd like to share your thoughts or suggest a useful tool, your input is always appreciated. You can reach out to me directly here.

See you next week!

Amr