This Medium post ‘The Five Levels of Remote Work — and why you’re probably at Level 2‘ mentions how Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic (managing amongst other products the WordPress platform) defines 5 levels of remote work.
Those 5 levels are (summarized with my interpretation):
- level 1: majority office-based with some remote work
- level 2: recreating the office online (fixed hours, large meetings, office-type rituals)
- level 3: adapting to the remote working medium by changing rituals, minimizing meetings and maximizing asynchronous written information
- level 4: fully asynchronous work, with no requirement for time coordination. This has also the benefit to avoid interruptions and allow longer focus times
- level 5: nirvana. Not so clear for me. “Mullenweg equates this level with having more emphasis on ‘environment design’, insofar as the organisation’s culture, and the physical environment people work in is concerned“
The post mentions that “Companies that truly practice asynchronous communication have stepped out of the industrial revolution, and no longer conflate presence with productivity, or hours with output, as one might on the factory floor.” This is probably more like the Collaborative Age will look like.
Also it is worth mentioning that it is recommended to organise physical team bonding events on a periodic basis to support a majority of remote work time.
It is true that most of my corporate clients are stuck on level 2. What remote work level have you achieved so far?
