The future of remote work
Remote work allows anyone in the world to have the career they want without making any compromises on who they are and where they live.
Stakha is a platform that offers people the career they want no matter where they live and who they are. Meaning candidates will have access to the same opportunities, regardless of their age, gender and location. Stakha itself is a remote-first company that believes in the benefits of remote working for all and is changing working habits for more inclusive work environments.
Founder Amaury de Thibault sat down to discuss remote work and how it is helping to create more diversified and inclusive work environments. Stakha believes it is unfair that people in ‘nicer’ cities such as Paris, London and New York have the best opportunities for workers even when this work can be done from anywhere in the world.
How will remote work play a part in shaping cities in the future?
“In a social-economic aspect, it will definitely be a better way to better distribute capital,”
Amazon and Microsoft carried out hiring days in Lagos, Nigeria, towards the end of last year. Those successfully hired were then later moved to cities such as Seattle and London. The hire-to-relocate programs prove lucrative for those at the start of their careers in Nigeria and other developing countries.
“So you’re taking the best people in the country and just say you’re doing great. Let’s leave your country and move you elsewhere,”
However, this is causing a ‘brain-drain’ of top talent, in geographic locations that could benefit from better retention of top talent to drive local economies, innovation and productivity.
“I feel like we did that already, in the past, but we’re not learning from a mistake [by bringing workers to France or Belgium]. For me, remote work can provide better wealth distribution because people won’t need to leave their family, their home or communities.
You can have $200K in Seattle, but what if you could have $100K in Lagos?”
We focus a lot on the challenges that would arise from remote work - from pricing out locals and gentrification to inflation and urban sprawl - but spend little time on the possible benefits such as these.
“There would be more money available to pay for school fees and more tax could be paid locally.”
What do we expect to see in the future of work?
The world is a more volatile place globally and being able to build a distributed and decentralised company will allow you to better face any impact in the world. There will be a gap between the companies that succeed in implementing remote work at scale and the ones that don’t know what to do.
“COVID globalised the market, especially for SaaS companies. French companies were previously focusing on the French market and with the pandemic everything was closed. So they had to work with any market. So if it happened in France, it can definitely happen anywhere in the world.”
By building remote and distributed teams, companies will be better able to get easier access to talent, products and services become easier to reach and this will strengthen the competitiveness of emerging markets. The largest tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, grew because they had the money to attract the best talent in the world. Today, without having the funding of Google, you can build stronger competition against bigger and better companies.
The biggest impact in the future of work is going to be salary. We have discovered that salary doesn't depend on where you live anymore.
“Of course, there are still companies that don’t really understand this but if you are the best candidate you can have the best salary no matter where you live.”
The second is that a lot of people have left or are leaving economic hubs such as London and Paris. People realised that they could do exactly the same the same work from other locations and enjoy a better quality of life and this is why the the the cost of an apartment in big cities is in decline.
Finally, remote work is giving people much better work-life balance or integration. More choice and flexibility, than what was expected pre-pandemic, is becoming non-negotiable and when provided it will continue to boost productivity, help retain top talent and reduce carbon emissions. But more importantly, it will give valuable time back to the workers.
“That’s why I’m so motivated by Stakha, if we succeed at the scale of a country, or the scale of a continent we can create more diversified and inclusive work environments.”
