Jon Leslie

Does Nothing care nothing about their employees? Nothing. The London-based smartphone company just mandated a full five-day-a-week return to the office. One of the reasons stated by Nothing’s CEO:“Remote work is not compatible with a high ambition level plus high speed.”While that statement is pure conjecture, here’s some math:Average London one-way commute time = 60 minutes Commute time per work day = 120 minutes Average number of UK work days per year = 250Commute time per year per employee = 120 minutes X 250 = 30,000 minutes That’s approximately 500 hours of unpaid, unproductive commute time per year for each employee. Compare that to approximately zero hours of commute time per year for remote work. Multiply 500 hours by 450 Nothing employees (not all UK-based). I don’t know about “high ambition”, but losing 225,000 hours of potential productivity per year […]

Even remote companies are having a tough time moving past the concept of an office. The idea of needing to see you to know you’re working persists, even virtually.Enter the rise of browser-based and VR virtual offices, complete with features like:🗄️ Virtual cubicles 🗣️ Virtual taps on the shoulder🏓 Virtual ping pong & foosball tables🧑‍💼 Managers can “walk the floor” virtually💧 Virtual watercoolers for unexpected face time with execsVirtual overtime and crunch, anyone?And a VR office… who could stomach wearing a headset eight hours a day?We’re perpetuating all the dysfunctions and distractions of the office virtually.Let the office go.As the fully remote 37Signals (makers of Basecamp) put it:“Don’t emulate the office.Work remotely, not locally apart. Don’t just have the same meetings on Zoom, have fewer meetings. Rather than discussing everything in real-time, communicate asynchronously instead. Rather than feel the need […]

The way work should be. It’s tough to beat the coast of Maine, especially in the summer. And pretty much the only reason I get to live here?You guessed it…Remote work. Maine’s motto is “The way life should be.” The ability to work from anywhere while helping customers around the world is “the way work should be.” -> No office required-> Almost zero flights required The ability to work remote:🦞 Supports the local economy = Maine’s not just lobsters and tourism anymore 👴 Allows you to live near to and care for relatives = right down the street instead of getting on a plane👩‍❤️‍👨 Removes partner career prioritization = wife runs a nonprofit community thrift store✈️ Eliminates commutes and minimizes work travel for more time with family = no more 100,000+ miles of travel per yearI 💙 remote work.And if […]

Remote Work + Agile = Bliss 🤩 Remote and agile do not have to be compared on a one-dimensional sliding scale, where you sacrifice some of one to have more of the other.Remote <——————————————> AgileThe opposite is true. They should be considered two complementary dimensions, where more of one enables more of the other.If you look at the four quadrants below (bottom-up and left to right):1️⃣ Not Remote & Not Agile - How traditional organizations think. Everyone micromanaged in the same location 👎2️⃣ Not Remote & Agile - How traditional Agilists think. We need to have co-located teams for maximum agility.3️⃣ Remote & Not Agile - How traditional companies tried to do remote. It doesn’t work. Now enforcing RTO.4️⃣ Remote & Agile - How high-performing teams work best. Bliss ⭐️Remote enables Agile & Agile enables Remote. ⭐️ Remote and distributed […]