🇪🇸 Madrid ranks highest for remote workers

Good Morning,

It’s hilarious (and annoying) to me that CEOs are still trying to blame poor company performance on remote work.

It’s a played-out, unmeasurable claim that only seems to come from leaders who have to find someone or something to blame other than themselves for negative results.

Nike CEO John Donahoe joins the CEOs before him who have used this excuse, blaming remote work for his company’s lack of innovation in recent years.

And you can probably guess where this is going: he’s the newest member of The Clown Show.

Fortunately, more and more people are catching on to the empty nature of this scapegoat tactic, so I don’t expect we’ll continue to hear this trite excuse too much longer.

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Need to Know

🗳️ Dropbox CEO Drew Houston encourages remote work
The subtitle of this article says “Leaders can’t keep mashing the ‘go back to 2019 button,’” which is an incredible opener. And the article is an abridged transcript of a full podcast episode, worth listening to if you have about an hour to listen to Houston’s takes on AI, remote work, and more.

There are at least a dozen quotes in there I could have pulled for this newsletter, given Dropbox’s policies and the CEO’s stance on the future of work.

One of the interesting takes he had in this interview is that hybrid didn’t seem appealing. When they were making big policy decisions in late 2020, they opted to shift to about 90% remote, to a “Virtual First” environment.

It’s maybe one of the best case studies for remote work and its potential, especially because Dropbox had been primarily in-person before Covid. (The Verge)

🇪🇸 Madrid ranked #1 city for nomads
Low taxes, lots of visa options, and a robust set of cafes and coworking spaces all contribute to this ranking, which places Madrid at the top of the list of desirable digital nomad destinations. (CNBC)

💍 WFH = fewer burglaries
Home burglaries have declined for 12 years straight, but the remote work phenomenon appears to have further impacted the drop in burglary rates.

Criminals are now less likely to target primary residences, and are more likely to engage in cybercrime or to shift their focus to places of business instead of residences.

Clearly, more people staying home mid-day has reduced residential criminal burglary activity. And hopefully the trend continues! (Bloomberg)

👩‍❤️‍👨 Rise of the remote husband
It’s a dynamic that wasn’t nearly as common in past years as it is today: plenty of couples consist of women who commute to an office regularly and men who work from home.

Even though it’s slightly more common for men, vs. women, to be able to work from wherever they want (according to a McKinsey study), women have seen the highest labor workforce participation rates when remote work was more prevalent. If that doesn’t convince hiring managers that more remote talent is readily available, what will?

“The geographical liberation of either partner makes it possible for the other to ascend the corporate ladder.” (The Economist)

✈️ How remote work is changing corporate travel
Corporate travel looks far different than it did in 2019. As someone who’s been with multiple companies since 2019 - in roles that often require travel to potential customers - I can absolutely vouch for this. It’s far more common for employees to travel to meet internally with colleagues today than it was before the pandemic.

And that makes sense. People want to meet in-person and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’d argue it makes the employment experience far better.

But some of the biggest questions companies face when constructing new travel policies are highlighted below. The percentages reflect the companies in a Global Business Travel Association survey that are currently tackling these questions:

• Which types of meetings are allowed for travel? (40%)

• How often can the employee travel to an office? (32%)

• What types of transportation are reimbursable? (26%)

• How much is allowed for per diems (22%) and accommodation? (20%)

Further, one policy area that’s still murky is “bleisure” travel (business + leisure). Anecdotally, I think companies have figured out how to manage this for the most part. But companies may want to be aware of a big trend: over 40% of corporate travelers said they have added personal days onto their business trips. (Guilty! 🙋🏻‍♂️)

Does it matter? Hopefully not - as long as the work gets done, it shouldn’t matter if it’s done from an office space, a home office, or a couch. (The Skift)

Stuff We Like

🌆 Remote work city ranker
Use sliding scales for criteria like Quality of Life, Internet, Attractiveness, and more to determine which cities you’d most prefer to work remotely from. (Remote.com)

🖥️ Ultimate home office setup
Paul Antill at Tom’s Guide broke down the products that contribute to his “dream” office setup, including his standing desk, docking station, and 49” Samsung monitor. (Tom’s Guide)

💼 Job board with purpose
This job board is built to help people find jobs at companies that specifically align with their values. There’s a remote filter on the job board as well, which we link to here. (Purpose.Jobs)

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