“The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to reimagine work in ways few had previously considered,” said “Remote-First Organizations: Practices that Drive Talent, Trust, and Performance,” a recently published report by the Institute for Global Responsibility (i4cp) in its Introduction. “What began as an emergency response has since become a long-term operating model for many. Remote and flexible work models are no longer fringe benefits or stopgap solutions — they are strategic choices shaping the future of work.”
Work from home (WFH) has been around for decades. The share of people working from home three or more days per week was under 1% in 1980, growing modestly with the rise of the internet to around 4% in 2018. Then came Covid-19, forcing tens of millions around the world to work from home and triggering a mass workplace experiment that broke through the technological and cultural barriers that had prevented WFH adoption in the past.
Since May of 2020, economists Jose Maria Barrero (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México), Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University), and Stephen J. Davis (University of Chicago) have been conducting monthly surveys to track the evolution of WFH. I’ve been keeping up with the evolution of WFH by following their monthly surveys. One of their first surveys found that the percentage of paid full days worked from home once COVID hit in April of 2020 was 61.4%, a huge increase from their 4.8% WFH estimate just before COVID.
The percentage started to decline in subsequent months. One year later WFH was around 45%. About two years later, the June 2023 survey found that the percentage of paid full days worked from home was around 28%. For the past three years, the percentage of WFH days for all workers has fluctuated around 2.5 days. And, according to their latest survey, around 61% of all full-time employees were full-time onsite, 13% were fully remote; and 26% were in a hybrid arrangement.
A few technology companies have recently tightened their WFH policies. However, “even as several high-profile CEOs publicly call for employees to return to the office full-time, the reality for most is quite different: more than two-thirds of U.S. companies continue to offer location flexibility,” noted the Remot-First report. “And a significant share of companies have gone a step further, adopting remote-first or fully flexible approaches that treat distributed work as the default rather than the exception.
The Remote-First study is based on survey responses from 59 senior leaders and HR professionals, representing organizations of all sizes, — some employing fewer than 100 people and others over 100,000. “More than half the companies we surveyed consider remote-first their default mode of work, with the majority adopting this approach during or shortly after the pandemic.” Survey data was augmented with qualitative interviews with executives from a number of companies to illustrate how organizations are reimagining the employee experience within a remote-first context.
Let me summarize the report’s key findings.
Productivity holds firm at remote-first organizations — with little surveillance.
“For years, the debate about remote work versus return-to-office focused heavily on productivity. Executives who sought to make a case for returning to offices argued about supposed productivity gains in output and the scourge of the mythical remote work slacker. That argument is no longer a central point of contention for one key reason: productivity remains high at remote-first and flexible companies.”
Overall, the state of productivity appears to be far from a concern among remote-first organizations. 62% of survey respondents said that productivity at their companies is high, and 21% said that it’s very high. Survey respondents added that employee productivity should be measured not only by revenue growth, but also “by progress against individual employee objectives and goals (69%), followed closely by progress against organizational objectives and goals (66%).”
The report referenced an October, 2024 article by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that concluded that “there is little relationship between labor productivity and the ability of workers in an industry to work entirely remotely, suggesting remote work neither hindered nor helped raise aggregate productivity growth.” Their research identified small positive effects on individual employee productivity based on number of emails written and phone/video calls made, but it also found that employee productivity sometimes declined in the short run. They also found that “remote work led to lower job turnover as job satisfaction rose, which could substantially reduce firms’ hiring costs.”
The report referenced another study that found that “flexible companies grew revenues 1.7x faster than companies requiring employees to return to the office from 2019-2024.”
“Perhaps most surprising is that companies are using little to no surveillance technology to monitor remote productivity. Whereas some fully in-office companies might rely on attendance data to help gauge productivity, a majority (62%) of survey respondents said that their remote-first organization has not used technology to monitor the activity of remote workers.”
HR is the architect of strategic remote-first policies
“If the last five years have taught leaders anything, it’s that remote-first work is not just about where people work, it’s about how people work. Inherently, it’s a people issue, something this research found to be reflected in most remote-first companies’ structures.”
64% of survey respondents said that HR is responsible for leading their company’s remote work strategy, underscoring how deeply workplace experience is intertwined with people strategy.
Talent attraction is the North Star for companies that adopt remote-first arrangements.
“Most companies see remote and flexible work options as real levers for attracting top talent and remaining competitive in the market. Seventy-two percent of respondents said expanding talent pools was the primary motivator in adopting remote-first work, followed closely by improving employee well-being (62%).”
The primary drivers for adopting a remote-first work policy are:
- attract talent from any location (72%),
- provide employees with greater work-life balance and well-being (62%),
- retain top talent (31%),
- drive greater business outcomes (31%),
- decrease overhead costs (28%), and
- response to employee sentiment (21%).
“Notably, employer brand improvement ranked low (14%), suggesting that companies see remote-first less as a public relations strategy and more as a workforce necessity.”
The best remote-first cultures are built on connection and clarity
83% of leaders agree or strongly agree that their development programs emphasize social connectedness in addition to technical skills in order to create opportunities for employees to build relationships. About 90% of leaders also agreed or strongly agreed that their colleagues act in one another’s best interests — a true marker of a high-performance organization, — and were far more likely to say that they trusted their remote workforces.
While flexibility is valued, ambiguity is not. “Remote-first organizations make a concerted effort to prioritize clarity in communication about their workplace policies, expectations, and norms. A combined 83% of respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed that communication about remote-work policies is clear.
Well-being remains a strategic lever in remote-first work
“Organizations that are committed to remote-first and flexible work aren’t just offering location flexibility —they’re bolstering it with benefits designed for the realities of distributed work. Leaders recognize that working in a distributed workplace can be both lonely and isolating, on top of the daily stressors of work. It is perhaps with this in mind that people leaders at remote-first organizations have made mental health benefits practically table stakes at their companies.”
The top benefits adopted specifically to support remote workers are:
- mental-health support (79%),
- flexible schedules (72%),
- internet and utility reimbursements (59%), and
- home office stipends (55%).
What Makes Remote-First Work?
“Among companies committed to making remote and flexible work thrive, four factors consistently emerged as the foundation of their effectiveness: trust, intentional gatherings, clarity in policies and expectations, and education.”
Trust — “When trust is high, employees are more willing to collaborate across boundaries, share knowledge openly, and take risks that fuel innovation.”
Dynamics of trust in the remote-first workplace:
- team members trust each other’s capabilities and competence (67% agree, 24% strongly agree),
- team members trust that their colleagues act with mutual interest in mind (52% agree, 38% strongly agree), and
- team members trust that other will deliver on their commitments (62% agree, 35% strongly).
Intentional gatherings — “Deliberate touchpoints help organizations strike a balance between the flexibility of a remote-first approach and the cohesion of shared experience.”
Purpose for which employees gather in person:
- Strategy and planning sessions (86%),
- Team-building events (76%),
- Social (72%), and
- Client meetings (72%).
Clarity in policies and expectations — “Employees in distributed settings need to know not only what is expected of them, but also how those expectations are communicated, reinforced, and applied consistently.”
- 83% of surveyed leaders reported that communication about remote work policies is clear across their organization.
Education and Modifying — “Policies written once are rarely sufficient; instead, leaders must consistently reinforce expectations, model desired behaviors, and refine approaches as feedback emerges.”
- 32% of respondents said that their organization has guidelines regarding when meetings should not be held (e.g., meeting-free Fridays).
- 29% of leaders said that they have team agreements that specify norms of working.
- 36% said that leaders at their organization model and enforce meeting practices that reduce unnecessary time consumption.
“Remote-first work is not an experiment — it is an evolution of workforce strategy and planning,” said the Remote-First Rerpot in conclusion. “The study that informed this report found that when done with intention, remote-first models can expand access to talent, sustain productivity, and strengthen culture.”
“The organizations succeeding in this model share a common truth: Remote-first is not about where people sit, but how they work together. By focusing on trust, connection, and clarity, leaders can build operating models that meet both workforce expectations and business imperatives.”