💻 Dell's mandate backfires

Good Morning,

Kicking off this week with remote work trends found among our neighbors up north.

While Remote Source was initially built to facilitate remote work in the US, everything we produce is easily applicable all across the world, and especially in Canada, given its location and similar culture.

So if you’re a Canadian, thanks for tuning in, and maybe see you at Stampede next month? 🤠

Remote Source Job Board

Featured companies:

Starburst: 18 remote jobs
CertiK: 19 remote jobs
EDB: 27 remote jobs

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Need to Know

🇨🇦 Canada favors hybrid work
The Flex Index, run by the hybrid-enabling software company Scoop, regularly reports on the state of remote work in the US, but they’ve just produced a report on remote and hybrid work in Canada.

The big finding: Canadian companies allow more hybrid work for their employees, but less fully remote work than in the United States.

If you strongly prefer fully remote work, chances of making that a reality are almost twice as great if you’re working in the US.

If your only criteria is that you go into the office less than 5 days a week, Canada is the slightly better place to be.

Why is Canada so hybrid? The answer is clear: everybody up there is so dang NICE, that employers and employees are both willing to compromise and accommodate the working arrangements that the other wants.

Okay… that’s not what the Flex Index said, but I spent a year working up there and I can validate that the “nice” stereotype is true, so I think my intuition is correct here. (Flex Index)

🤦🏻‍♂️ Dell’s return to office backfires
Seven weeks ago we wrote that Dell was mandating a hybrid return to office; any employees who opted to continue working remotely 5 days a week would be ineligible for promotion.

How’s that going so far? Not great for Dell. About half of remote employees have opted to continue working remotely and don’t see any upside to working from an office 3+ days a week.

Some quotes that Business Insider sourced from verified anonymous employees:

• “Every mom that I talk to at Dell says that they are looking for other jobs because they need the remote work.”

• “Before this whole fiasco, I wouldn't have considered going somewhere else. Being a second-class citizen doesn't leave you any career opportunities.”

• “I know a few people who probably would have been deterred from staying remote due to the threat of the possibility of promotion, but since there haven't been any opportunities, they saw it as a meaningless threat.”

• “The particular work I'm doing now means I don't really have a 'team,' and the people I work with most are at different sites.”

• “My meetings are now with people in different conference rooms across the country by themselves. The reality of this thing is dumb.”

Given Dell’s downsizing over the past year, this RTO policy was likely put in place to encourage people to quit instead of adding to layoff figures.

But if you’re going to fire thousands of people anyway, it seems shortsighted to make work conditions miserable for the employees you’d prefer to keep.

As the quotes above would imply, this policy has actively prompted talented employees — presumably valued more by Dell than those who’d been laid off — to actively seek employment elsewhere. It will be interesting to see if Dell learns from its mistake and tries to reverse course. (Business Insider)

📝 Use this line on your resume for WFH
The state of the job market hasn’t allowed for as much remote work as we’d like — so naturally there’s a fine line applicants need to walk when asking for remote work opportunities.

One former Nvidia and Google recruiter has the following suggestion for applicants who want to show they’re open to remote work:

• At the top of your resume, put your name, city, and state (no need for your street address).

• And then right below that line, put some version of the following statement, depending on your exact preferences:

  “Open to remote, hybrid, on-site, relocation”

Obviously, remove any work arrangements you don’t want, and only mention relocation if you’d actually be willing to move for the role.

It’s a straightforward way to ensure you’re addressing work location flexibility off the bat, and not wasting your time with an unrealistic opportunity. (CNBC)

🧮 Strong demand for AI candidates
IT jobs are one of the categories most likely to offer remote work. But importantly, more IT leaders have been looking for candidates with modern, advanced skills instead of those with traditionally desired IT skill sets.

For the first time since Indeed began tracking salary data in 2019, software developer salaries went down Y/Y as of February 2024, signaling that needs at tech companies are changing drastically.

Those advanced skills companies are looking for have a lot to do with AI.

So while fewer IT candidates are finding jobs, the obvious corollary here is: those who are able to develop AI competency are going to find themselves in higher demand in this market.

If you’re striking out in the market today, but want to learn more about AI, then “upskilling” and education platforms like Khan Academy, Udacity (if you subscribe, remember to use code REMOTESOURCE45), edX, and more may be the ticket to finding something with more long-term job security. (Wall Street Journal)

🎒 10 affordable solo travel destinations
Travel + Leisure put together a list of more affordable destinations to consider for solo travelers in particular (though I have to assume they’re affordable for families as well).

• Denver, Colorado

• Calgary, Canada

• Mexico City, Mexico

• San Juan, Puerto Rico

• Panama City, Panama

• Willemstad, Curacao

• Nassau, The Bahamas 👀

• Santiago, Chile

• Reykjavik, Iceland

• George Town, Cayman Islands

To come up with this list, they worked with Kayak to determine estimated prices for flights and a hotel in each city. For details on each city, check out the link. (Travel + Leisure)

Stuff We Like

🚀 Venture capital & private equity job board
If you’ve ever wanted to work for a company in hyper-growth mode, check this job board out. It has over 100,000 jobs, and you can filter by lots of criteria, including specific company stage.

And, of course, there’s a filter to find remote and hybrid options as well. (Venturesome Job Board)

🤝 How to make remote work inclusive
Deloitte and WSJ teamed up to produce this article full of advice for leaders of remote organizations. It’s important that leaders do the following:

• Empower managers to make decisions: ensure manager know they have the ability to make decisions regarding accommodations for any individuals, especially those from disadvantaged groups

• Address productivity concerns: don’t emphasize “productivity at all costs;” rather, define expectations and goals, and then allow the team to navigate the course to get there

• Provide tools for collaboration: more than just messaging, consider image recognition, translation, lip-reading tools, and more as necessary

• Consider the most productive use of video meetings: these are useful for verbal and non-verbal cues, but not all meetings need to be video-on

In today’s workplace, especially in remote environments, it’s important to ensure companies do everything they can to empower employees to do their best work. For the companies that actually pay attention to this, it’s a clear win-win. (Wall Street Journal)

💼 Part-time remote jobs
This article from Tech.co showcases six careers that offer part-time remote work, and even offers a few companies that are hiring for each role. The positions are:

• Virtual assistant

• Data entry clerk

• Translator

• Transcriber

• Customer service representative

• Online tutor

If you’re looking for part-time remote options, these careers and companies are worth a quick look. (Tech.co)

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