☕️ Starbucks gives CEO remote privilege

Good Morning,

There’s one downside to having the job board link out to company career pages:

I can’t tell when candidates get hired from the Remote Source job board!

So I have a request:

If you or anyone you know has landed a job from this job board, would you mind replying to this email to let me know?

(For those who have already shared they did — no need to respond to this 😊)

Bonus if you could let me know how the job has been going! I’m proud of the selection of quality companies and want to ensure we’re putting the best ones on this platform for the world to see.

Remote Source Job Board

Featured companies:

Modern Health: 14 remote jobs
Blackbaud: 17 remote jobs
Kaplan: 35 remote jobs

🤝 Find Remote Jobs Here

Need to Know

🤦🏻‍♂️ Google cofounder baselessly blames WFH
Eric Schmidt, a cofounder, ex-CEO, and former executive chairman at Google, spoke to a class at Stanford recently where his remarks were recorded and uploaded online.

Like many out-of-touch executives who need a scapegoat for bad management decisions, Schmidt decided that remote work is to blame for Google’s lack of dominance in the AI space.

After the uproar that other companies dominating AI (namely, Nvidia) have even higher levels of remote work, and that remote work has never been shown to negatively impact productivity, the video was taken down — per Schmidt’s request!

Has he learned his lesson? Probably not. But he has certainly earned himself admission to The Clown Show. (Wall Street Journal)

☕️ Starbucks’ remote CEO causes a stir
Starbucks announced they’re hiring the former Chipotle CEO to helm their company, and as part of the announcement filing, it was revealed they would set up an office in his town, Newport Beach, so he can work there remotely.

This caused a lot of uproar among Starbucks’ corporate employees, who have already fought against last year’s mandate, which requires them to go into the office three days a week, and therefore, live near the office.

Starbucks’ press team has responded quickly, sharing that the new CEO’s “primary office” will be at headquarters in Seattle, though it remains to be seen if he spends much time there. As noted, “Being allowed to work remotely is becoming more common for CEOs and was part of the package Starbucks used to recruit Niccol to the struggling restaurant chain.” (Yahoo! Finance)

🥊 Responding to executive objections to WFH
Speaking of executives and remote work, the Flex Index published this guide last year to overcoming common objections to WFH requests.

The one I’ve heard most commonly is that executives think there’s a lack of innovation when employees are remote. While it’s very true that spontaneous conversations don’t happen the way they used to, innovative conversations can still occur.

This article suggests setting up intentional brainstorm sessions and virtual ideation spaces; this allows for a more collaborative environment and flow of ideas outside the more strict guidelines of a person’s job.

There are several more objections listed — like lack of culture development or inability to lead — along with clever responses, so this article may be worth bookmarking for those future impactful conversations. (Flex Index)

🇺🇸 Federal agencies advised to consider flexible work
The Office of Personnel Management suggests that federal agencies should have flexible remote work policies, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. They’re leaving the decision up to agencies themselves to work in whatever way is best for the agency and its workers.

One interesting bit of advice they gave is to consider encouraging or requiring higher rates of in-person work for senior leaders and early-career employees. That’s because leaders are critical for agency culture and other employees benefit from in-person conversations with them. And as we’ve written before, early-career employees do benefit more than other employees from in-person time as they’re learning to navigate professional life. (Federal News Network)

🇭🇺 Living and working remotely in Hungary
This digital nomad first moved to Hungary to be a teacher, but was let go during covid. So she went back to a field she’d always wanted to work in: marketing.

She’s found success in ways she doesn’t expect she would have if she’d been working in the US. And even though Hungary’s visas are changing and she may not be able to stay much longer, she’s in a stable position financially and would like to live in some other international locations given her work flexibility. (CNBC)

Stuff We Like

🇭🇷 Most beautiful cities in Europe
I like to think Architectural Digest has some credibility ranking European cities. That’s Dubrovnik, Croatia, below. (Architectural Digest)

📥 Weekly newsletter for managers: MGMT Playbook

🤫 “Hushed hybrid” defined
In short, the latest phrase constructed to help people work from home really just describes the scenario in which a manager helps their employees work remotely more often than the company has mandated. They sound like smart managers who want to retain talented employees! (Business Insider)