As we enter the 11th month of many of the COVID pandemic in the U.S., many of us are still working from home (WFH). Slowly but surely, we are all coming around to the realization that we can generally maintain a fairly high level of productivity despite our remote locations. Many employers, in order to compensate for a decentralized workforce, have encouraged employees to stick to working normal business hours. One way to maintain these hours is the various video calls employees join daily, sometimes taking up the entire workday. Trying to keep these hours while dealing with competeing requests (from children, spouses, a household, balancing health & wellness, etc.), begs the question: does it really make sense to stick to the normal 9-to-5? The answer seems to be no.
This past fall, Marco Minervini, Darren Murph, and Phanish Puranam of Harvard Business Review looked to the example of GitLab to explore this question. GitLab has been going strong for 6 years, with a 100% remote workforce, and they are a fascinating example of how to navigate the peaks and valleys of this model. With over 1,300 employees spread over 65 countries, GitLab uses tools that allow team members to work on ongoing projects in their own preferred times. This can (and has) increased aggregate productivity, but simultaneously provides coordination challenges across physical space and time zones.
As they say; “Working from home in an effective way goes beyond just giving employees a laptop and a Zoom account.” Check out their in-depth and fascinating article that details how GitLab has successfully run this model for over six years, and how other C-suite leaders and business owners can move away from the regular 9-5 grind.