📸 Instagrammable office spaces

Good Morning,

Now that we’re past the Black Friday / Cyber Monday madness (or lack thereof), it’s time for the normal “best product” lists to reappear for the holidays.

So when you’re thinking of gifts for your remote friends or family this month, check out remotesource.com/favorites to discover products that provide the best remote experience possible.

Remote Source Job Board

Featured companies:

Muck Rack: 12 remote jobs
AppFolio: 7 remote jobs
Billtrust: 27 remote jobs

🤝 Find Remote Jobs Here

Need to Know

📸 Will “Instagrammable” offices bring workers back?
Many companies want employees back in the office. Or at least, they don’t want them to completely hate the days they’re required come in. But often, the office atmosphere isn’t more desirable than the one found at home. So now for some companies, making the office bright and worthy of employees’ Instagram stories is their latest attempt at encouraging the return to office.

Will this “Envy Office” trend take over the previous open office, ping-pong-inspired spaces? Or will it go the way of so many neon-sign brunch restaurants that are fun for the first mimosa carafe, but later revealed to be another mediocre restaurant in flashy disguise? (New York Times)

💪 Tech executive and remote advocate shares her perspective
Annie Dean leads Atlassian’s “Team Anywhere” and has been outspoken when railing against return-to-office policies. Atlassian is one of the largest companies in the world with a remote-first policy.

She further commented on the rationale for return-to-office, which is particularly interesting since we don’t often hear about the conversations behind the scenes that prompt these policies. As a former Meta executive, she knows what she’s talking about.

While data is understandably difficult to come by, Dean says confidently that remote policies have not led to a decrease in worker productivity - and that revelation alone should be more than enough justification to accommodate remote work. (SFGate)

💰 Office employees would give up 8% of their salaries to be remote
According to Nick Bloom at Stanford, employees who work from an office 5 days per week would be willing, on average, to give up 8% of pay in exchange for the ability to work remotely for at least part of the week. Based on the median US salary of $57,200, that equates to $4,600 per year. (Yahoo! Finance)

💼 An HR poll further expands on employee office demands
According to the University of Chicago, about 3 in 4 human resources employees say that retaining employees who would prefer to work remotely is a problem.

The results indicated that once employees saw the benefits of WFH, they didn’t want to go back to the old ways of working. What would bring employees back then? (I’m guessing “Instagrammable office space” wasn’t included in the polling responses.)

The survey found that higher pay was the clear #1, but “commuter benefits, in-office childcare, free food and social gatherings“ would at least help employees consider going back into the office as well. (Fortune)

😲 Overemployed: Working multiple jobs while remote
We’ve shared this trend before, but Insider just published another deep dive into the modern world of “overemployed” tech workers, who work multiple remote jobs without telling their employers. When they pull this arrangement off successfully, it can result in total compensation in the mid- to high-6 figures per year.

The ethical considerations are sometimes expanded upon on in forums, notably the r/overemployed subreddit. Generally, people don’t feel bad working multiple jobs for a number of reasons: it provides employees with greater job security, it gives them negotiating power that employees historically have never had, and often jobs simply don’t require 40 hours of work every week. My next question: will AI accelerate this trend? (Insider)

🇺🇸 The Federal Goverment is struggling to bring employees back to the office
Government agencies have been encouraged to make better use of their office space in the last few months, but the results aren’t possible to measure accurately and likely wouldn’t reflect a successful return to office.

Individual agencies decide whether they release employee WFH/RTO data, but the Government Accountability Office was still able to find some examples of data to gain insight into agencies’ RTO trends. In the GAO’s sample finding, they estimated that agency office space was being fully utilized less than 25% of the time.

While remote work shouldn’t be controversial, it has always has been able to quickly stoke division. And with that in mind, it will be especially interesting to see if the push for return-to-office becomes a topical political issue in the upcoming election year. (Wall Street Journal)

Stuff We Like

The catch-all section for anything useful for remote workers.

• JobTest.org: Career Tests

  The last time I took a career matching test was in college, and the working world has changed drastically since then. And I have to imagine most adults never take these tests during their careers. So if you’re thinking about a career change, services from JobTest.org could be useful.

• Anthros Desk Chairs

  I stumbled upon this brand a few days ago. A group of medical professionals who designed wheelchair seating decided to bring their expertise to the millions of us sitting at desks for work every day. Their pricing is comparable to the Herman Millers of the office furniture space, but there’s an argument to be made that a high quality desk chair - where you spend hours every day - is one of the most important investments you can make.

• McKinsey Podcast Episode: What AI Means for Travel
  Whether you’ve been part of the “revenge travel” trend or not - and whether you use travel for workcations, work, or just leisure - this is an interesting episode (transcribed at the link provided) about how artificial intelligence will impact travel planning for consumers, operations for travel companies, and much more.

As you begin to think about your year in review, what are your remote work goals? Find a new remote job? Work from new cities? Upgrade your home office? Become a favorite customer at your local coffee shop? Reply to this email and let me know!

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.