Why working from home is good for business | The Way We Work, a TED series

As the popularity of remote working continues to spread, workers today can collaborate across cities, countries and even multiple time zones. How does this change office dynamics? And how can we make sure that all employees, both at headquarters and at home, feel connected? Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of Wordpress and CEO of Automattic (which has a 100 percent distributed workforce), shares his secrets.

The Way We Work is a TED original video series where leaders and thinkers offer practical wisdom and insight into how we can adapt and thrive amid changing workplace conventions.

[SeanTheDon]

“Talent and intelligence are equally distributed throughout the world, but Opportunity is not” This is an amazing insight, if more companies adopted this mindset, they would find much more fulfilled employees.

[Virru]

Could listen to this guy all day... Great voice, message and character

[Altaria_]

Working at home haves a lot of benefits.
And he gave a lot of good points, not olny to manage your time and create your own schedule, create an ideal space where you feel comfortable and you can be productive. This gives many opportunities to people who live far from the company as well.

[zumbadancesandy]

I love when you mentioned that you dont use the word 'remote worker' and about documentations. In our company we are switching from Skype to TEAMs for example. Also you are showing empathy to others.

[maskman]

With such an environment, no need to quit your job to travel around the world. You are able to do your job and travel at the same time!

[aminozuur]

Matt Mullenweg is the best. I've been following his writings and thoughts for 10 years. He's an original thinker.

[spencerjentzsch]

I work for a remote company that helps connect other remote workers so you aren't dealing with some of the problems people discuss here like being in isolation or loneliness. Traveling with the Hacker Paradise group is the only way I've been able to survive three years on the road without going crazy. The big benefit for me of doing this as opposed to just socializing with your coworkers in an office is that you get more power to choose who you want to be with and they generally align more with my interests.

[Linfamy]

One downside to working without an office is the isolation. In an office you have coworkers to interact with. Sure there are ways to mitigate this, like video conferencing, but it's not the same. There's no "hey let's go grab a drink after work" with your coworkers.

[gabrielareyna]

This a great idea now that we are under this pandemic we need to innovate. I have
been working from home for over 6 months and I can say I really would like to continue like this. My students enjoyed this video a lot

[adnansz]

Covid 19 makes my office forced to wfh and wfo. 5 days work (3 days in office and 2 days in work from home except you theres a urgent or must meet a client).I will say that please even when covid 19 end, i hope my office keep this schedule. It feels like more productive.

[stayfree]

This is the lifestyle that I wanted, the freedom to live anywhere in the world. I love my current job but I'm stuck living at home because I'm in the tech hardware service field (field technician). I need to be physically at locations to fix things when somethings are not working. With all the free time I have I wish I can pick up and move but I can't go far in case I'm needed.

[rajoak]

I am starting my own company for STEM toys and these series seem to be a perfect guideline to manage my team!

[saurabhpandit]

I think ideally both choices should be available... Sometimes u need to physically collaborate with you team to get stuff done other time you can work alone at home....

[m.t-thoughts]

A plus is your projects will be worked on 24/7. But no one needs to do over work. 👌🏼

[GMRTranscriptionServicesInc]

Remote working opportunities are great for a work-life balance. As rightly pointed out in this video, not just the employees but also the employers are benefited at large. By stretching geographically, employers can hire the best quality resources from a vastly spread out talent pool.

[ad-bkbo]

I work from home and it is a great experience. I'm willing to forgo better opportunities, just to stay here. I live in the country, but have 30mbs (somehow) wifi. One thing I have learned though is that it is nice to have colleagues in the office. For easy questions. Leave emails for business... text or skype chat (whatever) for other things. Use the web camera!

[topaznora]

Lol overly outgoing people are already complaining about not being able to socialize.
Not everyone enjoys or even wants to socialize after work. No! I don't want to grab a beer... I just spend the whole day with you people, the last thing I want to do is spend my non paid free time with you. Working from home all the time would honestly be a dream!
To the outgoing people complaining... Honestly, you can go play in traffic. 🙂🙂

[zeph]

Great video. If most people would work from home instead, it would be so much easier on the environment, besides all of the other advantages you mention..

[juancho]

I think this videos is sooo helpful because is giving us some tips of how we can do a really good work from home specially right now that almost 70% of works are doing or using the work from home, at least here in my country no many companies have this option but right now a lot are using it so everyone needs to share this video 🙂

[celeste]

everyone can work from home and I agree that we must believe in the talent and intelligence of each person, because it is something very important that can unite us all and do a great job.