A special interview this month
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We come back to writing about remote work periodically because it has been a core part of how we work from the start, and we want to help those considering it or following it to succeed. Our experience has been that remote work functions best when companies are all-in on it, which can sometimes be a tough sell for organizations that didn’t start with it.
That’s why we’ve chosen to interview David Tate this month, the author of my favorite book on remote work, Navigating Remote Work: a personal guide to successful remote work. I highly encourage anyone dealing, and especially those struggling, with remote work to pick it up.
David started writing about remote work waaaaaay back in 2011, and his blog post called “How to work from home without going insane” had a moment on Hacker News. It was a big inspiration for me to start thinking and writing about remote work as I mentioned in my first blog post for Balsamiq about working from home.
A lot of his book was written before COVID and the reason I reached out to David now is because I wanted to hear his thoughts on the state of remote work today — including COVID, the subsequent push for return to office (RTO) policies, and the new world of hybrid work.
Read on to the end for a special discount on his book, just for you, our inner circle of newsletter readers.
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How has remote work changed in the last ten years?
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Very slowly, then very quickly.
When I started working remotely years ago, you could manually keep a list of remote-friendly companies on an index card. Companies like Balsamiq were trailblazers. Most traditional companies thought remote work was terrible; the only growth of remote work came from small new companies. Remote work was growing from the bottom up as young workers graduated from college and were used to working from a laptop on group projects.
Then COVID sped up the adoption of remote work practices at the top. Those traditional companies that wouldn't have considered remote work had to tweak their entire IT operation to survive those few forced remote work months. Apart from conventional Silicon Valley venture-backed startups, most companies with a significant technology component are open to remote work. And most found out that they could trust their people more than expected and that their companies could still collaborate without physical whiteboards and red walls.
But I wonder if they will all stay that way.
With a recession looming and tech layoffs on the upswing, the natural reaction will be to pull back into traditional work methods. People default back to their habits when they are afraid.
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What are the future challenges for long-term remote work?
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In the past, remote work was for a specific type of worker: someone with higher-end compensation, in the technology space, experienced. There was a power dynamic in play: the people that could work at any company were demanding to work from any location, and they typically got what they wanted. Now there are many jobs like call center functions that are done remotely, and they work differently. Monitoring software is the norm: they monitor breaks, and webcams must stay on. Closely monitored at-home work is the worst of both worlds.
And even those roles that used to be remote, there is an increase in return-to-work policies. There was a sense of "we have to do this to survive or retain talent" shifting back into "we have to survive".
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What do you think about the increase in RTO (Return to Office) policies and hybrid remote work?
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Hybrid remote work does not work. Any company offering remote work only a few days a week doesn't offer remote work; they are offering a partial-commute job. This is an excellent employee perk, not a character of the company.
The only way for a company to truly figure out remote work is to do it all the time so they can figure out how to measure productivity and communicate remotely. If you still come into an office, you will lean back into old bad communication habits and create a dual-class system in which remote workers are either out of the loop or the loop itself.
There is value to face time, and many world-class remote companies run retreats for this reason. But they don't have things like in-office Tuesdays; this kills many of the advantages of remote work, such as both employee and employer needing to matchmake with each other within 20 miles. To work in this way, you have to cut the cord and figure out how to document things and coordinate from different buildings.
RTO policies are an attempt to shift power back to employers. For companies that haven't figured out how to manage remote work – perhaps because they haven't figured out how to measure who does what, or they simply don't trust their employees, or they have trouble communicating from afar – RTO is a way to shift back into what they think was working before. If the middle management layer of a large company doesn't "get" remote work, RTO is attempting to regain control.
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Why does remote work matter?
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The power dynamic hinted at above is why remote work is so powerful and dangerous. It shifts power from the employer to the employees. Having direct control over your environment and managing your time is a type of power.
Command-and-control leadership does not work in remote companies. Asynchronous communication and collaboration are how work is done on distributed teams. You can't yell at someone over Zoom as effectively in person. We have seen this dynamic at Twitter over the last few weeks; one of Musk's first moves was to kill remote work and force people into the office to show that they were doing work.
In creative fields, deep concentration and healthy collaboration always win. To create a company from nothing, maybe you need people to be in the office so you can encourage them to work around the clock, but if you are focused on results, then you don't. Plenty of companies have grown up natively remote, and the workers are more loyal and healthy than their counterparts.
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What is at stake with remote work and a potential shift back to the office?
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What matters to people matters to the world. As people change, there are complex and unexpected effects on the world.
If more people work remotely:
- A lot of people move to a different area or country
- They drive less if they don't move
- They value communities where you don't have to drive as much
- They work in front of their kids
- Because they stay in their communities, they care more about what happens in them
Remote work changes the world because it gives margin to workers: time, space, and emotional margin.
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Thank you, David!
To top it off, he has generously offered a 20% discount to readers of this newsletter with the discount code BALSAMIQ. Go to https://navigatingremotework.com/products/buy?promo=BALSAMIQ to buy the electronic copy for only $7.99. You can read a sample chapter or the see table of contents first for free if you like.
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Happy customer of the month
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Neither [Sketch or Figma] are good enough for me when starting a project from scratch. In that case, #Balsamiq is best.
For some clients, it might be weird to look at a wireframe full of strange shapes, but it's exactly what's needed to focus the attention on the content organisation and on the hints of what the interaction might be. . — Silvia Maggi
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Product news
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We did a nice release this month: we’re still in our “pruning” season, so we reworked the Trash view and moved the Edit Symbols command to the Edit menu.
Now we’re working on removing the Thumbnail Grid View, and changing how we show links in the app to make it both less intrusive and more useful at the same time. Stay tuned!
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Wireframing Academy news
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We’re approaching the end of the year and, as is now tradition, we took some time to reflect on past, present, and future projects. The book is coming out soon, so it was time to think and plan about the next big project for our Academy. We think you’ll be excited about it! 🥳
Speaking of the book, we wrote about How UX techniques helped us write it. Having no experience as authors, we turned to processes we know and are familiar with.
The most exciting news is that we're adding a new course to the Academy! It’s about how to redesign a website from start to finish. We’re releasing one video lesson a week, and so far we’ve published the first 3: Research and Competitive Analysis, User Personas, and Site Maps. Next are: Wireframes, User Journeys, Content-First Design, and The Final Design.
We added a new article on how to Accelerate Your B2B Software Spec and Wireframing Process. We’ve also been working on the last webinar of the year: It’s about how to ideate like a Designer and it’s targeted at Product Managers and Non-Designers in general. Register for free, and see you on Dec, 22!
Lastly, as we’re sending this newsletter, the Education team and the whole Balsamiq Marketing group are spending a few days together in Los Angeles for our first group retreat. Picture us having fun at the beach!
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The end of the calendar year is sneaking up on us already. It’s always a busy time for us, especially for our Company Care team. Spare a thought for them! 🫶
Oh, we’ve joined Mastodon! Find us at Balsamiq (@balsamiq@indieweb.social) if you’d like!
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That's it for this month!
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I hope you enjoyed David’s thoughts on remote work. Do you agree? Disagree? How is being remote working, or not working, for you? What does the future look like? Reply to this email and let us know!
See you next month, with more updates and ideas from your friends at Balsamiq!
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Leon for the Balsamiq Team |
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