Since our founding in 2017, the world of remote work has dramatically changed. Remote-friendly opportunities have grown exponentially due to the ongoing impact of a global pandemic. While this rapid shift reflects the innovation and resilience of all professionals involved, the processes developed in a moment of crisis will need thoughtful adaptation going forward. Emergency and transient remote work don’t develop the habits needed to make remote work sustainable and equitable in the long term.
Our commitment to companies and professionals throughout this transformation of remote work has not changed. However, our approach, areas of focus, and the way we talk about the future of work have evolved during 2020, throughout 2021, and into 2022. With that in mind, it was time for Workplaceless to update our mission and vision to better reflect our future focus.
Workplaceless Mission Statement
Build the capabilities to perform and grow at every stage of an organization’s remote work evolution.
Every company has its own goals for remote work and a unique path to achieve them. Some organizations are currently looking to balance in-office and remote employees via a hybrid setup, while some start-ups are looking to go fully remote from the moment of founding. Our mission at Workplaceless is to develop and serve these companies and professionals with the best-in-class remote work training that is catered to achieve each organization’s specific goals and vision. Our proven expertise in training for effective remote-first work at every level enables us to be the guide and support throughout the process.
Additionally, remote work isn’t stagnant. Technology and the eye-opening experiences of professionals will continue to shape the remote work experience. We aren’t just helping organizations succeed in the present, we are building their ability to adapt to a future that requires continuous innovation.
Workplaceless Vision
A workforce that thrives in a flexible and digital-first future.
We passionately believe that flexibility is critical to satisfaction and productivity. We envision an employee-company infrastructure where performance and growth are not constrained by location. Companies can tap into a powerful global workforce. Employees are not defined by their work, but rather can achieve success and high-performance as a component of a well-lived and fulfilling life.
Thinking with a digital-first and placeless mindset on behalf of individuals and companies is the key to unlocking a location-free future of work.
Within our mission and vision update, we foresee three powerful themes for the future of work:
Language of Work Is Unstable
Aligned language about workplace flexibility facilitates more efficient communication and action. While we create and update our Remote Work Dictionary to provide the foundations for communication about remote work, the words we use continue to evolve. Amid shifting language, conditions, and definitions regarding the future of work, there are passionate and varied views about word choice. For example, experts in the field continue to debate the use and meaning of “remote-first” vs. “remote-friendly” vs. “remote-equal.” “Remote work” in itself can feel polarizing to teams of hybrid employees. And terms such as “hybrid team” and “hybrid work” have an infinite number of meanings.
When everyone has their own interpretation of what words mean, conversations about the future of work become arguments about definitions instead of meaningful discussions and work toward a shared vision for the future. With more research and experience, we can truly align on the language of the future of work.
Workforce Demands Flexibility Yet Employers Remain Unequipped
As of the start of 2022, the data continues to support the theory of the “great resignation” or the “hidden resignation.” Employees learned their worth and the importance of balance during 2020 and 2021. Employees felt overwhelmed, overworked, and stranded by many employers during this period.
In many ways, companies continue to struggle with how they can sustainably support the workforce demand for flexibility as the working world continues to be in flux. “Return to office” plans continue to be delayed or are scrapped indefinitely. New remote work tools are tried and tested without formally aligned strategies. “No-meeting Fridays” are introduced as a Band-Aid fix for calendars overscheduled with virtual meetings. Companies have yet to create a remote work vision, and therefore are struggling to develop a plan to sustainably enable the flexibility workers demand. Until companies commit to investing in solutions, employees will continue to leave.
Async-First Is the Key to the Future of Work
Establishing a work culture that shifts towards asynchronous communication and work empowers trust, control, autonomy, and flexibility. At Workplaceless, we spend A LOT of time studying, learning, implementing, and sharing what we know about async communication because we know that teams benefit. Async communication saves time, increases productivity, reduces micromanagement, and prevents burnout.
Workplaceless continues our commitment to helping teams shift to async-first by making it a pillar of behaviors taught throughout our courses like Leadplaceless and Async at Work. You can also subscribe to Tammy Bjelland’s newsletter centered on async-first leadership.
