Competitive advantage

Rani Molla notes in Vox that while larger tech companies are pushing RTO plans, many smaller tech (and non-tech) orgs are looking to remote cultures as a competitive advantage. This has, I’ll argue, long been the case—that smaller companies could compete with the recruiting behemoths of the big companies by letting people work anywhere they wanted. It’s heated up now because so many more people have had a chance at remote work and don’t care to go back. And despite a lot of orgs claims to the contrary, Molla points out that “arbitrarily calling people back to the office might actually hurt workers’ productivity and innovation by driving fatigue and burnout.” The good news is that people who can’t or won’t make regular trips to the office now have more opportunities in the form of many a small company placing their priorities elsewhere.