Remember Covid? It was a nightmare from a health perspective, taking away lives, taking away jobs, impacting our health in many ways we still struggle to understand..
Yet one of its blessings was that it made remote work possible. Evolution occurs in nature out of the simple need to survive, and our best advances come out of sheer necessity (and often due to luck/serendipity/day-dreaming).
Rapid advances/improvements happened in work technology, making online meetings of much higher quality, file sharing much simpler, and overall an acceptance that we can get work done from anywhere at anytime. This gave rise to new types of employers who can employ capable employees anywhere in the world, and new types of businesses who can take advantage of this borderless world. Work life balance/integration became possible in new ways, where we could spend quality time at home and at work, parents and care-givers could take care of their young/old ones while still giving 100% at work, and introverts/ambiverts found their space to focus and get work done away from the noisy chatter at the office.
Yet now it seems like a case of one step forward and two steps back...back to office mandates have become ubiquitous worldwide, work-from-home has become a privilege, and most of us are all back to polluting the world going back-and-forth to the work place.
What happened?
My personal experiences
Personally, soon after Covid, I transitioned from an insurance role (where I had been mostly working remotely for 2 years), into an InsurTech role which was permanently remote. And about a year+ after that move, I started my own consulting company where by design I get work from various clients and work from anywhere (meeting the clients face-to-face now and then, but then again for some clients it's fully remote).
My first junior hire has been working remotely from another state in Malaysia for the past 5 months, and that has been going really well too. We get work done, and I don't question or track what she's doing with her time or when she's doing the work. Of course it's healthy to meet up in person now and then, but even when we do that it's for the camaraderie & team spirit, not a means for higher productivity.
There are a few key elements that make it work for me.
Work with trust-worthy & self-starter team members
This is extremely important for me. Trust-worthiness or integrity is a key trait I look for when I hire my team members, and this is not something that can be trained - either someone has it or doesn't.
When I trust my team, then everything else becomes much easier. I trust that they will get the work done, I trust that they will do their best at work.
The team member also needs to be a self-starter, i.e. being pro-active about understanding the background about the project, task, outcomes and deadlines. When the team member takes ownership of the work, then my role is to help facilitate the outcome, and help the team member with training, explanations, guidance etc to help the individual deliver & grow.
Outcome-oriented NOT Time-oriented
My clients hire me to get work done (though admittedly some projects are on an hours committed basis temporarily, but still the premise is to get work done). I also consciously pitch my projects on an outcome/milestone basis rather than a time commitment basis.
Why? Hours spent at work doesn't necessarily equate to better productivity. Sometimes we get a rush of insight all of a sudden, and get to complete a major project in a matter of days or weeks. Sometimes we need to spend a lot more time cogitating on a project perhaps because the subject matter is new to us.
For the client, the outcome is what matters. Due to my expertise & experience, if I can deliver high value to my client with work done in 30 minutes, I should be paid based on the value of the work done, not my 30 minutes. If I require 2 weeks to learn up a topic to do work that can typically be done in 2 days, my client should not be paying me for my learning time either.
Of course salaries for team members are paid monthly and not on a milestone basis. But practically, I apply the same approach to my team members. Getting the work done is what matters. If they get it done in an hour, they are free to do whatever they want with the rest of the day, no questions asked.
The Benefits
Personally, I can't imagine anything other that the flexible working environment I have now. It allows me to be with my parents when they get their health treatments, while getting work done; allows me to get work done when my energy levels are highest (typically not during the hot afternoon); allows me to spend time on my daily practices and hobbies (though admittedly I have been neglecting my hobbies & leisure travel for some time...). From a work perspective, I get to clearly partition my time to get work done (quietly at home/at a cafe/at a co-working space), and time for camaraderie with my clients and team members.
So I work best with team members who value this lifestyle as well.
Honestly when it comes to actuarial employers, I am a hawker shop (I love to say this..for some reason it makes me happy). I may not be able to pay my team members the highest rates in the market, but strangely this flexibility has become so rare that work-from-anywhere has become a benefit I can shout out about (along with the wide learning potential across domains & geographies).
From what I've gathered, it seems that back-to-office mandates are often delivered top-down from board members who are from a very different generation (typically boomers/older Gen-Xers) - I really respect their wisdom, but the worldviews on some topics at least can be very different by generation. This is also coupled with a general lack of trust/faith in people, that people will take advantage of us in order for their own benefit.
My perspective - I've built my business on remote work, and it works for me - I get work done and I bring in revenue. So why can't others?
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