What are leaders saying about remote work?

Attracting and retaining talent 

“One [advantage] is access to a wider talent pool. . . The advantage is not just on the recruiting side—it’s also on the retention side. A bunch of the people who leave the company, who are good people who we would want to keep—the reason that they leave is because they want to move somewhere that we don’t support. So remote work will help us retain those key folks, which in a lot of ways is better than having to recruit a new person. So on both sides, it will help us access more talent.” –Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta 

 Increasing diversity 

“I can’t tell you the number of CEOs I talked to who are thinking, ‘I have to solve the diversity challenge in my business, and remote work is one of the key tools… We have to let go of this very office-centric culture and incorporate people who are in a lot of geographies.” —Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork 

Improving mental and physical health 

“I think we all know that being on Zoom calls all day can be challenging, so I try to build in breaks throughout the day—even just 30 minutes—where I can step away from my computer. I’ve been able to squeeze in a quick workout during those breaks, too, which helps break up the day and improve both my physical and mental health.” –James Park, CEO of Fitbit 

Respecting a schedule 

“Have a disciplined schedule. Working from home makes it much harder to delineate work time from personal time. I encourage all of our employees to have a disciplined schedule for when you will work, and when you will not, and to stick to that schedule.” –Dan Springer, CEO of Docusign 

Addressing the disconnect between managers and employees 

“We have to get past what we describe as ‘productivity paranoia,’ because all of the data we have that shows that 80%-plus of the individual people feel they’re very productive—except their management thinks that they’re not productive. That means there is a real disconnect in terms of the expectations and what they feel.” –Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft 

Check back next week, when we will tell the other side of the story—what are employees saying about remote work? 

Need help improving morale, assessing your talent pool, or retaining employees? InVista can help!