Two years after the start of the pandemic, the shift to remote work seemed to be a done deal for many workers. Early results were positive, people reported more happiness at work, more productivity, and experienced a better work-life balance. Leaders seemed to be on board. However, in the last few months, there’s been a confusing shift.  

Many high-profile leaders are pushing for a return to the office, citing reasons such as productivity and culture. They argue that remote work is not sustainable in the long term. But a big part of the workforce disagrees with them. They have expressed their resistance to giving up the flexibility that remote work offers. Flexibility that’s given them a taste of life without long commutes, dress codes and cubicles. Flexibility that’s proven to support diversity in your business and is creating better workplaces for women. Why wouldn’t you want to support an environment that’s proven to make your employees more productive and engaged? 

As a rising number of organizations are imposing return to office policies, employees are threatening to resign rather than comply, while others have been fired for their refusal. There is a clash between many leaders’ idea of what work should entail – command and control – and what employees desire and frankly, how they perform best. 

So, as a company that has made it our mission to empower the remote workforce and now permanently offer a remote-first environment for our employees, we wanted to explore what’s behind this move and find out what this shift has meant to the experts – our teammates. We conducted an Alludo internal survey in October 2023. And here’s what our people said: 

Our employees’ work-life balance thrives with remote work 

As many leaders are pushing for a return to the office, they’re overlooking that offices are not necessarily the key to better workplaces. For many knowledge workers, remote work supports a better work-life balance, which contributes to a healthy culture and better job performance. 

One of the standout findings from our survey is the overwhelmingly positive impact of remote work on our employees’ work-life balance. 84% of Alludo employees reported that their work-life balance has improved since making the transition to remote work, in contrast to the traditional in-office setting. When we break down the data, we find that female employees (85%) and non-managers (86%) experienced an even higher level of improvement. 

Remote work not only enables our employees to work where they feel most inspired and productive, but it also allows them to make their job fit into their life – not the other way around. They can adjust their schedule to fit their personal and family needs, as well as their peak productivity hours. They can also pursue their hobbies, interests, and passions, without compromising their professional performance.  

Increased productivity: What should be the new normal for knowledge workers 

Not only do our staff see improvements in their work-life balance but an impressive 79% report boosts in productivity since transitioning to remote work, 19% said their productivity remained the same, and only 2% said they experienced a decline in productivity. Even more simply put, 98% of our teammates said remote work made them just as or more productive than before! 

It is our belief that this data likely reflects the reality of knowledge workers everywhere, not just at Alludo. Flexibility positively affects outcomes and success for both employees and companies as a whole. And one way of enabling flexibility is by empowering knowledge workers to work remotely, freeing them from the constraints of traditional office hours. 

Our team consists of diverse workers. Some are night owls, some are early birds, and some are neither! We believe in embracing these differences and empowering our employees to work at their peak performance during their preferred hours, rather than trying to fit them all into one and the same box. Remote work is the catalyst enabling that. 

The data speaks for itself: Alludo’s remote-first approach is working 

We are firmly committed to true flexibility at work and remain remote-first and the data backs us up. Our latest Alludo employee survey findings tell us that remote work is a positive and beneficial experience for our staff and offers productivity boosts for the majority of our people, contributing to our success as a company. 

Interested in working at Alludo? Discover how you can join us.