The Benefits of Remote Work Beyond Avoiding the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Public health officials are advising people to working remotely, if they can, as one way to avoid contracting Coronavirus and #flattenthecurve. We hope those that can work remotely, do. Yet, for many, working from home is a novel experience.

Here at Sonatype we’ve enjoyed a work-from-home culture since day one. In fact, we consider it a competitive advantage. We’d like to share a bit about what we’ve learned doing it, and how you can benefit, too.

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As head of Sonatype’s product development, I wrote about the benefits of a remote organization in 2018:

It is also largely unappreciated (until you’ve experienced it) how many advantages offset the “limitation” of infrequent face to face interaction.  First, the communications pathways that form are very often driven by business necessity versus things like seating location, political motivations or after work interest etc.  Second, at least in a product development context with a bunch of technical people that just want to get stuff done, there is more focus on the work and the corresponding results than the political or social aspects of the workplace. 

Business Benefits of a Remote Work Model

It is still early days for the remote work model. Managers newly minted in remote work might fear that Covid-19’s “pandemic and chill” advice means that employees will be pushing “play” on the remote instead of punching the time clock. Not so fast.

I mention two common fallacies management must overcome: don’t people work best working face to face? Aren’t people just screwing around and not working when they’re at home? Both are unfounded.

Instead, I pointed to several advantages offered by remote work arrangements:

More Effective Communications

Remote work levels the communication playing field that emerges. As I wrote:

Another subtle but material advantage is that all communications endpoints (Read more...)