If you were part of the workforce in the early 2020s, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise nightmarish time was encapsulated in two words: remote work. 

Many of us recall the first few days of setting our own schedules, tentatively interpreting “business casual” as “a collared shirt and sweatpants,” and otherwise exploring the feeling that work-life balance could be more nuanced than we were led to believe. It was exciting and seemed to suggest a shift in how culture views work.

If you’ve kept your finger on the cultural pulse, however, you likely know that the post-pandemic climate has swung very far in the opposite direction. Every few days, there are corporately sponsored think pieces about why RTO (return to office) is necessary for the sanctity of American work culture. Likewise, in the political sphere, remote work vs. RTO has become a partisan topic, pitting “laziness” against “commitment.” 

At Amenable, our team is fully remote, so we’re (obviously) big believers that you don’t need an office to be effective. That said, everything comes with a tradeoff, and in the spirit of fairness, we thought we’d present three tensions—things we love about remote work, as well as some challenges or critiques.

The most obvious benefit of remote work is a no-brainer—you can do it anywhere. You don’t need to worry about overhead costs in renting office space, and it’s easy to find an environment that fits your needs. That said, the work culture can feel a little bit disconnected when it’s mediated via screens.

We’ll be honest—sometimes it would be simpler for everybody to be in the same room for a given project. Certain kinds of conversations just feel easier when they are face-to-face without the visible barrier of a screen. But the issue is a little more complex—every workplace has communication barriers, but they might just be less visible.

For us, then, the limitations of the model are an invitation to intentionality. When you’re speaking to someone, you don’t necessarily anticipate all the room for misinterpretation. In digital communication, every email, Slack message, or Zoom meeting demands that you preemptively address possible misunderstandings because you don’t always have the luxury of immediate clarification.

Remote work has a certain pick-up-and-play flexibility that makes it immediately appealing. It just feels right to roll out of your bedsheets and into your spreadsheets in 30 seconds flat. Likewise, it’s a great option for people who aren’t served well by a traditional 9-to-5 schedule. For example, many of our team members are young parents who wanted to find a way to do work they’re passionate about while also being very present with their kids. 

Conversely, one of the oft-cited critiques of remote work is that it encourages dishonesty or apathy—the image of someone absentmindedly shaking their mouse while they watch Netflix in loungewear. To this, I have a simple counterpoint: 

If your employees aren’t working, either you’re the problem or the apathy will be so obvious that there’s no need to monitor it. If you have a vision that excites employees, they will want to participate in it. Similarly, if projects are falling by the wayside, it’s not an employer’s responsibility to make someone work—it’s their role to find someone who wants to work.

It’s no secret that perspective is everything. If you see the same four walls every day, you may find yourself in a rut. People tend to psychologically map onto their environment, and sometimes the best ideas come from exploring a—literal—new space. Think about when you’ve taken a long walk and returned refreshed—you know the feeling. For us as a creative agency, remote work is one of our greatest assets. By removing any sort of physical confinement, we’ve found that we’re able to constantly be open to new ideas.

At the same time, we find that some clients struggle with us being a remote team for a few reasons—first, there are the communicative hurdles noted earlier, but second, it means that we have to be far more proactive about establishing our credibility.

I recall a particularly prickly prospective client (the alliteration!) who spent the entirety of our conversation trying to discredit our work, simply because we don’t have a brick-and-mortar agency somewhere. Physical scale is a quantifiable—if simplistic—mark of success, and without it, some of our onboarding conversations have to circle more around trust-building than they otherwise would. Ultimately, this can be a productive—if frustrating—part of our work, and one that causes us to be more sensitive to the anxieties that prospective clients may have.

Remote work is a sensitive topic for a reason—it upends much of what work culture has canonized as sacrosanct. Regardless of where you or your team fall on the spectrum of how much remote work is appropriate, we encourage you to consider why it’s appealing and look for ways to integrate those values into your work culture. As always, if you are interested in discussing ways to improve your work culture, we would love to connect!