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Working with remote employees, freelancers, or completely distributed companies as contractors (like us) has been written about many times. This article seeks to give you a bit of a new perspective on "remote workers"...

Whether you're a CEO, a VP, a Director, a Manager, or even a sole proprietor of a small business, you have absolutely benefited from "remote work". You're probably saying "I've never hired a remote contractor or let any of my employees work remotely" but you'd be wrong. You, yourself, have been a "remote worker"...

Ok, let's deconstruct this thought.

People are creative by nature and there are many "things" that impress greatly upon that creativity - both negatively and positively. Atmosphere is a huge one! Why do you think all these tech startups and other companies are concentrating so much on "culture" and creating these insane offices with doggie daycare, table tennis, craft beer, and all the other crazy/cool environments? That is just one example of companies recognizing that employee atmosphere is important but the "super fun office culture" is for another article...

So, with regards to atmosphere - these days, we all find ourselves "working" outside of our traditional office space, office hours, and office co-workers. How many times have you had that big breakthrough or huge idea for a new product or service while you were on a run, or driving in the car, or at the grocery store? Or better yet, while at the spa, laying on the beach, or during a long lunch...

Those big ideas and breakthroughs didn't come to you in an office environment, around all your "creative co-creators", in a strategy meeting. They came to you when you were in your space.

Sometimes the daily pressure of hair, makeup, pressed suit, office etiquette, and management over the shoulder can really put a damper on that creativity.

As a 100% distributed company, what we have experienced is that once we took the office away, every single person on our team started performing much better and productivity went through the roof. We used to do the dog-friendly "office culture" complete with air hockey, purple walls, free snacks and sodas, lax lunch times, and yep - free beers for everyone every Friday at 4pm. It was a cool office and everyone got along well, and we all put in 8+ hours a day, in the "cool office". Then. for a variety of reasons, we decided to ditch the office and let everyone work from home, with no specific hours or schedule. As long as you were getting your work done with quality, were responsive to communications, and meeting deadlines, you were free to work when and where you wanted.

This move worked way better than we could have anticipated! We were able to offer higher pay and pass the real estate savings on to our clients.

The takeaway we hope you get from this article is that although there are certainly some great things about having a team, together in a space, there is a lot to be said about how much creativity is born outside the office walls. So when you are considering agencies for your next PR, Digital, or Content project; keep all this in mind. Time is often "of the essence", especially in public relations/publicity so if the freedom and increased productivity from being remote and in their own comfortable environment allows us to deliver in 4 hours what might take 8 or more in an office setting, then that is a WIN!