🎥 Best Zoom background

In partnership with

Good Morning,

From a young age, we’re taught that if we disagree with someone, we should use our words. Simple concept, right?

Well, for the Amazon AWS CEO, it’s a little more complicated.

In defense of Amazon’s full return-to-office, he recently said, “I don't know if you guys have tried to disagree via a Chime call. It's very hard."

And my personal response to the CEO: “I disagree.”

See? Not that difficult.

Apparently “nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support the new policy.” And if I wanted to keep my job at a company actively trying to reduce headcount, I would have lied to his face too.

It sounds like he knows people are less likely to disagree with him in person.

Send your AWS friends some love this week! And maybe the link to our job board, too.

Remote Source Job Board

Featured companies:

Redis Labs: 58 remote jobs
Webflow: 52 remote jobs
Cresta: 15 remote jobs

🤝 Find Remote Jobs Here

Need to Know

📱 CEO of Twilio proclaims they’ll stay remote
In a LinkedIn post, the CEO of Twilio, Khozema Shipchandler, shares that as long as he’s CEO, they will stay remote. They’ve developed a policy called “Open Work,” a set of principles that guide their remote workforce.

The tech company, which creates tools for customer engagement, has been remote for a long time and serves as a great example of success while intentionally focusing on employee satisfaction. (LinkedIn)

🤠 Tulsa Remote study: reduce brain drain
You may be familiar with the Tulsa Remote program: remote workers were paid $10,000 to relocate to Tulsa for at least a year. It has generally been viewed as successful, showing substantial return on investment for the city and surrounding areas.

Harvard and other organizations released research this month that solidified those claims.

This new research found that, on average, workers in the Tulsa Remote program saved $25,000 on housing costs vs. those who were selected for the program but chose not to join. And Tulsa benefits as well, gaining about $15 million in income tax revenue from these remote workers every year.

The notion of brain drain is a big economic concern for many small-to-mid-size cities, often losing professional talent to larger metropolitan areas. If more of these cities can offer short-term incentives for remote workers to relocate, they could reap benefits similar to what Tulsa has been able to achieve. (New York Times)

🌟 President of Atlassian shares remote success
There are 12,000 people at Atlassian, making it one of the largest remote-first companies in the world. Amid the cries for return to office, they’ve defiantly stuck with a sensible remote policy that continues to attract the best talent.

Atlassian’s president, Anu Bharadwaj, shares that focusing on deliberate documentation has helped asynchronous work flourish in her time at Atlassian.

And she challenges the notion of watercooler talk: it can be nice for a few people to discuss new ideas in person, but these conversations inherently exclude many others, which slows down the flow of communication vs. a virtual environment.

The “over reliance on manual information-sharing and a lack of documentation” is one of the drawbacks of an office-based company — likely leading to slower projects and less innovation. (Fortune)

🧐 What’s behind the RTO push?
Analyzing European data, this author questions why managers continue to want employees back in the office.

While acknowledging there will continue to be long-term debate on the issue, he says the employees clearly benefit although they haven’t won the debate; half of civil servants in Stockholm County are working 4 days in-office per week.

The data will often continue to favor remote work. People lose 30% of cognitive ability in the ever-distracting open-office arrangements. But creative work and social engagement are undeniably better in person, and that’s likely to be something managers — who typically want more office days — will continue to use as their rationale for RTO. (ComputerWorld)

🤡 Dimon wants federal employees in office
Repeat clown Jamie Dimon continued his hate speech against remote work at a recent conference in DC hosted by The Atlantic, lamenting that federal workers even have the ability to occasionally work remotely.

As with much of the finance industry, JPMorgan wants a strong return to office push — after all, if offices lost a lot of their value, it wouldn’t be good for banks’ commercial real estate lending. (Fortune)

Stuff We Like

🎥 Best Zoom background?
It turns out the Zoom background that’s most appealing to people you meet with isn’t the blurred background that’s become so common. It’s a “natural background,” like a background with mountains, a forest, a beach, or something similar. These give meeting attendees less distractions while still presenting something that’s generally stress-free and pleasing to everyone. (Inc.)

💪 A “professional organizer” on home office productivity
Some ideas from a professional organizer to help you work as productively as possible and prove to your managers that you really are better when remote!

• Prioritize natural light

• Declutter, especially at the end of the day

• Get a standing desk to fight fatigue

• Use visual tools to set daily priorities

If you’re spending several hours a day in the same space, it’s worth maintaining the quality of that space over time. Some of the tips here can help build great habits so you’re always able to work at the top of your game. (Business Insider)

⛱️ Best US city for nomads: LA
I almost wrote this article off because it claims “affordability” is one of the factors that makes LA great for digital nomads.

They have a better argument once you get away from the coast by a few miles.

The beach, “affordability,” and access to a ton of co-working and remote-friendly environments are the biggest reasons LA came in at #1.

Dallas Jacksonville, NYC, and San Antonio round out the top 5 in this ranking. (Travel + Leisure)