Remote: Office Not Required Hardcover – October 29, 2013

I downloaded the Kindle version of "Remote" before getting on a Honolulu-to-Houston redeye and finished it en route. When I landed, I ordered a copy to be shipped to my boss."Remote" is not like many traditional "business books," in that it doesn't tell lots of stories from employers and employees who have made remote working work, nor does it include step-by-step plans for how to become a remote worker or how to convince your boss to let you give it a try. It's important to remember, though, that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the authors of "Remote," are not business "coaches" or people who have invented a theory in order to sell books. They are entrepreneurs who, through their company 37Signals, are making remote working work every day. The lessons they share and the arguments they present are ones they've lived and proven themselves. That gave this book a lot more real-world value for me than any "how to transform work"-type book I've yet read."Remote" addresses remote working on intellectual and philosophical as well as practical levels, explaining why the practice benefits employees and companies alike. "The office during the day has become the last place people want to be when they really want to get work done," they write. Allowing people to go to the places where they are the most productive, and to work during the times they're most productive, can only improve a company's bottom line and make for happier employees. So long as the work gets done, "how our employees distribute those hours across the clock and days just isn't important."As those excerpts might suggest, Fried and Heinemeier Hansson are not making the common, if slightly defensive, argument that businesses won't collapse if bosses let people "work from home" sometimes. Instead, they advocate -- even evangelize -- remote work as objectively superior, and the inevitable evolutionary successor, to work processes tied to an industrial-revolution model of all employees laboring together under one roof or performance measured by elapsed butts-in-seats time. Not only will younger workers no longer accept that old model ("The future, quite literally, belongs to those who get it. Do you think today's teenagers, raised on Facebook and texting, will be sentimental about the old days of all-hands-on-deck, Monday morning meetings? Ha!") but neither will those of us oldsters who have tasted the alternative ("The new luxury is the luxury of freedom and time. Once you've had a taste of that life, no corner office or fancy chef will be able to drag you back."). For changing thinking -- as well as proving why thinking needs to change, *is* changing, and *should* change -- "Remote" has an awful lot to recommend it.[edited March 2014 to reword the final paragraph slightly]

The office was a response to a need.To get work done we needed groups of people in the same place at the same time. To be at work at the same time, 8:30 to 4:30, people needed to live close to their workplaces. Towns grew into cities and housing grew upward. Those who could not or would not live close to their workplaces spend more time in traffic.This book raises the issues of whether we all need offices. Why don’t we work from the place most convenient to us that day, at a time most convenient to us that day. The issue of remote and asynchonomous work could not be realistically raised ten years ago, but can certainly be today. We now have all the enabling technology to allow many types of work to be performed remotely. This includes the obvious call centre staff, but also the specialist repairman who can perform his work from afar.“Office not required,” the subtitle of this book, is not the future, the authors argue, it is the present.Why would anyone want to work remotely? There a many compelling reasons not least the wasted time spent on your daily commute. Stop and calculate the number of hours each week you spend getting to work. You could also add in the time it takes to get to clients for meetings. Then ask yourself what you would do with the time saved by not travelling.So, why do we not work remotely? Some types of office work cannot be done remotely, and that is not at issue. The issue is that much work can be done remotely.Before I pursue the argument for remote work further, let me answer the question of why large, thoughtful companies, are not doing it. The answer is they are. IBM, for example, has had their staff telecommuting since 1995 with a saving on office space of 7.2 million square metres.The authors offer various reasons for the resistance to remote work.A common argument is that innovation only happens through the magic of face to face contact. Let us presume for a moment that it is true and that creativity requires a group of people to be in the same place at the same time. How much time is spent creativity solving big problems? Very little, most of our time at work is spent executing the “big problems” and that can be done in so many cases, remotely.Even if there is a need for people to be together to work on issues, only a few moments on Skype or FaceTime is enough to establish who is present. Thereafter most of the work will be conducted on a shared computer screen where designs, text, or numbers are formulated and manipulated. These modes of collaboration are relatively low tech and inexpensive to use.Many are afraid that people cannot be trusted to be productive at home. The fact is that people can come to work and not be productive either. The real difference between coming to work and staying at home to work is little more than whether you wear a T-shirt or a dress shirt.As the authors point out: “If you can’t let your employees work from home out of fear they’ll slack off without your supervision, you’re a babysitter, not a manager. Remote work is very likely the least of your problems.”An argument against remote work is the effect it would have on the company culture which would wither away. Remote work is not an “all or nothing” type choice. Staff can be brought together a few times a week or a month to connect and preserve the culture. It is also worth noting that “culture” is not embodied in the company events, but in the manner in which the company works. It manifests in the behaviour of staff to one another, in the manner of treating customers, in the quality of work accepted, and so on. None of these culture building blocks are absent if people work remotely.The real question any discussion on remote work would need to address is why bother with the question of staff working remotely at all?I have already mentioned the time wasted on your daily commute to the office, but there also many work related issues.Where do you go when you want to do serious work? Very few people answer to the office without the qualification – very early in the morning, before anyone gets in, or after everyone leaves, or on weekends.Offices have become “interruption factories,” observe the authors. When a colleague is only a step away why not ask for information or an opinion or a document, now. If you were working remotely, would you send an email or a sms, or if it is really urgent, make phone for the same request.Of course, there are interruptions at home or in a coffee shop, but these are interruptions you can control more easily than a manager or colleague.Remote work allows, in many cases, for better quality work. “Squeezing slightly more words per hour out of a copywriter is not going to make anyone rich. Writing the best ad just very well might,” the authors note.Not having to live in Johannesburg to work for a firm in Johannesburg could be a huge incentive for someone who enjoys the more gentle life in the Paarl. For the firm it allows the search for talent to extend much wider than the immediate surroundings of the office. There is talent scattered all around the country and the world.Provided the type of work you do does not require you to be present at the office, there is no longer any compelling reason for being there all the time. The most difficult challenge many only be the mental shift – you are still working even if you don’t have an office.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- LowIan Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy