It’s great to see Yelp buck the RTO trend. It seems they believe what’s best for their employees is also benefit to the company. I wish others would do the same.
Much as I hate Yelp as a product, I gotta give huge props for this decision. So much so that I’d consider jumping to them if my current employer ever forced RTO on me.
I’m glad to see a company speaking out the other way (even though I don’t really care about Yelp).
The writing is on the wall in my view. A company not being remote-first is a company bogged down by middle management, real estate obligations, and an oblivious c-suite.
It seems like such a no brainer. When you’re in-office you’re regionally limited in the talent you can hire. Full remote means you can get anyone from anywhere, often times for cheaper than if you are forced to hire in a metropolitan area. You also have workers who aren’t arriving to work tired and frustrated from a commute and that are generally able to be more well rested. I honestly find there to be fewer distractions (though typically more compelling distractions) than in the office, and I get to save money on gas, insurance, food (while eating healthier), and have less risk of getting sick and missing work.
As always to state the obvious:
The commute time is time spent for work, but having no productivity. A one hour commute on a 40 hour week means 20% of time wasted unproductively. The employee needs to calculate the commute in his salary options, even if the company isn’t directly paying for it.
So a rational company would only reject remote work, if the on site productivity is so much higher than the remote productivity, that it offsets the commute loss. For the shop floor that is a no brainer. For office work it is indicative of terrible management.
I recently heard a department head from my work word it well “in today’s workforce you’re silly to not embrace remote work. If you require entirely in office work you’re limiting your talent pool only to those willing to live in your local area”
My work literally has more employees at the main office than desks thanks to remote work, saving on an expensive building expansion or buying/leasing a new building. Remote work options are great for everyone!
