Is work from home bad for innovation?
We’re a remote organization, so we are fans of companies pushing the innovation envelope while having a WFH culture, but it’s essential that we not show bias in what we share. After all, we want this blog to be helpful to all tech teams. That’s why today we are opting to share a recent article posted by Inc.; “New Microsoft Study of 60,000 Employees: Remote Work Threatens Long-Term Innovation.”
The author, Jessica Stillman, did a fantastic job going through the lengthy “The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers” (link to pdf version) study/report published by Nature Human Behavior. From the findings, it looks like the key issue is communication. Communication appears to be either lacking or at least limited.
We’ve seen the studies show how productivity increases, but what’s productivity without innovation for tech companies?
We don’t have all the answers, but one resource that everyone looking at building a remote culture should be looking at is GitLab’s Handbook. It is an open document they freely share, but there’s a section in there that every company could benefit from; GitLab’s Guide to All-Remote.
GitLab has 1,300+ team members in 65+ countries… all remote. The fact that they so freely share this with the world is absolutely amazing.
*Image used from Inc. blog post linked in this post