The “Big Idea”
WFA: The new talent strategy
If you or your company have adopted a work arrangement where workers are required to be in the office several days every week, then you have not unlocked the biggest prize that remote work can offer: Work-from-anywhere (WFA).
What is WFA?
It is a work arrangement that allows individual workers to decide where to live, regardless of where their employer offices are located.
Why is it important?
WFA can unlock great benefits for workers and companies. It allows individuals to have a better quality of life and it enables companies to hire and retain diverse talent from anywhere.
Praise For The World Is Your Office
About The Author
Raj has dedicated years of research and experience as a management professor at Wharton and HBS to developing top talent practices, with a focus on the evolving geography of work. Before academia, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, and IBM. Long before the pandemic, he advocated for embracing WFA (work-from-anywhere). His research spans multiple continents, industries, and both established companies and startups.
What is the business case for WFA?
- Not only can a business position itself to better compete for talent if, but by removing geographic limits, businesses can expand their hiring pool to capture a more diverse set of talent worldwide. The result is an entirely new talent strategy into untapped markets.
- For workers seeking flexibility in work-location, they may now relocate to a place that enhances their quality of life. Relocating to cheaper towns and receiving a boost to real income may be a draw for workers, particularly at companies that do not adjust salary by geographic location.
- WFA policies are associated with superior hiring outcomes, and can result in higher worker productivity, lower employee turnover, and significant cost savings. The USPTO saw a 4.4% increase in individual worker productivity along with higher retention when implementing WFA. Executives at GitLab also cite its WFA model as one of the driving incentives for employee retention.
- Workers appreciate the flexibility and balance that WFA affords them. They are likely to be more, not less, productive than counterparts who do not enjoy geographic flexibility.
- WFA policies may also have positive societal effects, reversing brain drain and creating spillover benefits to workers’ local communities.
- Fixed costs associated with maintaining a physical office space, including real estate, utilities, and equipment costs, could be reduced under a WFA model.
- For workers seeking flexibility in work-location, they may now relocate to a place that enhances their quality of life. Relocating to cheaper towns and receiving a boost to real income may be a draw for workers, particularly at companies that do not adjust salary by geographic location.
How can we implement WFA?
- Implementing WFA successfully boils down to effective management practices and leadership.
- The most effective WFA companies adopt new ways of working, most importantly asynchronous communication, real-time documentation, adopting the offsite in-person mindset, and structured virtual learning and socialization opportunities.
- There are three main obstacles to focus on: communication, knowledge-sharing, and isolation.
- Communication: We need to ensure that workers can communicate effectively when they cannot do it face to face. Asynchronous communication is one remedy involving memos, text messages, chats, or anything where two or more participants aren’t expected to speak and respond in real time.
- Knowledge-sharing: Workers will need to learn everything required to do their jobs without having in-person conversations. We also need to ensure that this information is updated. Knowledge codification is a solution. This entails turning “tacit but codifiable” information into a codified—and importantly, searchable— resource. This will include documentation for every policy, process, and potential questions that workers can reference as needed. It will also require a whole-team approach where all employees engage in and add to documentation, or one special team that is tasked with solely collecting and updated these documents.
- Isolation: we need to make sure workers don’t feel social and professional isolation in WFA settings, so managers will need to help workers feel connected to teams and the broader company. Virtual water coolers and short-term visits (company offsites) can help to remedy this.
Prof. Choudhury’s new book, The World is Your Office, is required reading for any leader or policy-maker grappling with the impacts of remote work. I tap Raj’s seminal research and case studies on a regular basis with Fortune 500 executives. His book doesn’t just bring evidence to the benefits of workplace flexibility for firms, it also shows the societal benefits. More importantly, The World is Your Office also contains practical advice for frequent challenges, like collaborating across time zones and building connections that persist in distributed teams. He also delves into the implications for frontline worker flexibility of new technologies and techniques like digital twins. Highly recommended reading for anyone looking to improve organizational performance or build thriving communities.
– Brian Elliott, Founder of Future Forum