🗳 Dropbox's enviable 90/10 remote rule

Good Morning,

And Happy Mole Day to those who celebrate.

We made a small update to the newsletter this week. You’ll now see three sections:

• Job Board: featured companies, plus an easy link to the job board

• Need to Know: for the most impactful recent news and studies

• Stuff We Like: a catch-all for anything remote workers might like and benefit from

And another housekeeping note: we’ve rarely worked with sponsors, but that may change in the near future. We’re fortunate to have been approached by some brand sponsors but have mostly turned them down without an ideal fit. By strictly vetting partners for relevance and quality, we’ll continue to ensure this is the best possible newsletter for remote workers in the US.

Onward!

Remote Source Job Board

Featured Companies:

Squarespace: 26 remote jobs
BioRender: 27 remote jobs
ID.me: 43 remote jobs

🤝 Find Remote Jobs Here

Need to Know

🎥 Atlassian acquired Loom for $975 million in a “bet on remote work.”
Loom is a video-messaging tech company that lets users record videos and share them with co-workers or company partners. Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said coordinating work among employees on different schedules or in different times zones “is a bigger and bigger deal all the time.” (Bloomberg)

🪦 “Lots and lots of data” says the 5-day office week is dead.
Nick Bloom, a Stanford professor and prominent WFH researcher, is confident we will never return to 5-day office weeks. Data from office trackers, company leaders, and employee preferences all point to a future with more remote work.

The death knell appears to be the widespread adoption of hybrid policies. Employers have learned that talented employees may accept occasional office requirements, but will quit if required to return 5 days a week. That said, the prevalence of remote work is only expected to increase, so those hybrid policies may require less and less office time in the years to come. (New York Times)

💾 Dropbox stays remote-first with a 90/10 rule.
Executives would be wise to emulate Drew Houston at Dropbox. 90/10 means 90% of the time employees work remotely, and 10% of the time they are together at company off-site meetings.

Further, Dropbox has found that limiting meeting times to between noon and 4:00pm ET works best for their distributed company, and they ensure all meetings have one of three goals: “discussion, debate, or decision-making.” (Fortune)

✈️ “Work From Airport” is becoming more common.
Private airport lounges have long been ideal for taking work calls, but between their skyrocketing popularity and the remote work boon, there’s now higher demand for quiet workspaces in airports. Some companies tackling this are Minute Suites, Jabbrrbox, Beehive, JustCo, and Spaces. (The Hustle)

☕️ “Coffee-badging” allows employees to get around office requirements.
It essentially means employees show up to the company office, grab a coffee and maybe chat for a bit, then leave to complete their workday elsewhere. By checking into the office, they get their “badge” for the day. Unsurprisingly, in various surveys, this is a practice that hybrid workers have lots of enthusiasm for. (Insider)

🚀 Land a 6-figure job with a startup.
Experts share how to stand out to recruiters when aiming for a role at one of the many startups hiring today. Among other tips: list specific skills used within previous jobs, and include phrases in your resume or profile that indicate a growth mindset, or what one company calls “entrepreneurial DNA.” (CNBC)

🔊 Another argument for WFH: noise makes us less productive.
Several studies show that various types of noise make it more difficult for us to process information and solve problems than it would be without noise. While this may seem obvious, it’s always helpful to have data like this to share with bosses who insist on returning to the office. (Inc.)

🏝 Travelers who do workcations right share their advice.
The Wall Street Journal interviewed experienced professionals who live in the US but have enjoyed international getaways while still working.

• Try to stay near your home time zone. Working from 4pm to midnight in Europe isn’t as easy as some might think.

• If traveling as a couple, book a place with wall-separated workspaces if either of you will be on calls.

• Commit in advance to logging off after a set amount of work, and be sure you actually enjoy the scenery. I’ve fallen victim to this and it’s not a fun regret to have.

And their final bit of advice is probably the best: don’t substitute “workcations” for true vacations. Plenty of studies show that disconnecting for extended periods of time is essential to combat burnout and ultimately do your best work. (Wall Street Journal)

Stuff We Like

New this week: the catch-all section for anything we find that could be useful for remote workers. Think products, job search services, management advice, reader feedback, and more.

• The Best Ring Lights from NYT Wirecutter

  Hopefully by now you have a well-lit setup if you’re ever on video calls at home. If not, check out these ring lights ASAP - they work wonders.
  
  

  

  
  

• Wait But Why: The Tail End

  This popular article breaks down, visually, how much time you have left with the people you love, doing the things you want to do. Included here because remote work isn’t about work, it’s about enabling you to have a better life.

  
  

• Fortune Term Sheet Newsletter

  I’ve subscribed to the Term Sheet for about a decade now. If you’re looking for a job, one great way to find companies hiring is to identify the ones who have recently raised funding. This daily newsletter lists companies who have announced private equity and venture capital activity - a likely sign they want to hire more employees.

Remote work is really bothering Elon Musk, again 😢

In a recent Tesla earnings call - in which Tesla reported underwhelming results - Musk said “this is, like, some real Marie Antoinette vibes from people who say, ‘Why is there no work from home?’ Like, what about all the people that have to come to the factory and fill the cars, or all [the] people that have to go to the restaurant and make your food and deliver your food? What are you talking about? I mean, how detached from reality does the work-from-home crowd have to be? While they take advantage of all those…who cannot work from home.”

Unhinged and illogical. And, yes, we added this rant to the Clown Show 🤡

Cheers,
Grant

*Denotes a sponsored or affiliate link. Any paid sponsorships, products, or services are thoroughly vetted by us before we make recommendations to readers.