The Cost of Staying Home

Revisiting Remote Work, 5 Years Later.

Going to the office has a cost. And staying home does, too.

A few years ago you couldn’t open LinkedIn without seeing a post that praised the remote work revolution. Not just normal praise. But universal, zero downside, if-you-didn’t-agree-you-were-an-out-of-touch dinosaur-praise.

But in the back of our minds, we knew that wasn’t true. Learning isn’t the same in a remote setting. And learning is–call me crazy–really damn important. For both an individual’s career trajectory *and* a company’s success.

(If you’re new here, I need to point out that I myself am pro remote. I work from home 3-4 days a week, and our company is remote first / office optional. Bear with me.)

But it’s not just training. It’s business maturity. You can’t learn social skills trapped in a dungeon. How to Make Friends and Influence People isn’t just for customer facing types. Literally anyone who has coworkers and acts as part of a team needs to get good at the whole ‘listening then talking’ thing. So, you.

This is not exactly new information. Every sales leader I talked to in the pandemic worried about how they would training BDRs, and how BDRs would develop to become AEs, etc.

But 5 years ago, that was a problem for another day. Like, today.

Side note: a common ah-ha moment was when everyone realized their 40 hour a week job was actually doable in far less time when you weren’t subject to the Distraction Factory. Accomplishing outcomes in less time (let’s say 30 hours a week, which is only true for the self-motivated, by the way) led to the 4 day a week work craze.

But perhaps an alternate take: that additional 10 hours wasn’t “wasted time.” It was learning both hard skills and the aforementioned social navigation by the water cooler.

This often gets lost because the biggest Team Remote advocates are self-motivated, experienced workers who have already learned all these skills. (Or delusional people who think they are.) It just doesn’t apply to everyone.

Now let’s talk money. Our team recently observed they had been talking to more and more people who were willing to take pay cuts to stay remote. When this mentality takes hold across a worker population, doesn’t that mean companies are paying more to bring companies back onsite?

I’ll admit, my reasoning seemed a bit simplistic and flimsy. Until Cameo announced they were paying companies $10k more to return to the office! (Have I mentioned I love being proven right? Here.)

That also includes paid parking and free lunch. Which is notable because there have been studies done that people pay a quarter of their salary, just to commute and buy lunch every day. (Here.)

Getting to the point. Two things are simultaneously true:

👉 Not everyone is capable of working from home. (Or should)

👉 It will cost more money for employers to get people back into the office. (Whether they realize it or not.)

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.