How Remote-First Mindsets Sell More Office Space

Chris Herd, Founder & CEO of Firstbase, joins Bold Founder, Caleb Parker, to discuss remote first mentality and the future of office work.

You may know Chris from his consistent social media posts, but in this episode you’ll get to understand Chris’s vision for the #FutureOfWork - where he expects more people will be empowered to do better work than ever before - and why so many office customers (including BILLION DOLLAR global corporations) have chosen his company to help them evolve into a remote first or hybrid work model.

Coming off a $13M dollar Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, we learn how Firstbase is building an "AWS for the physical world", what superpowers knowledge based workers need, the risks to going remote and tips to getting it right. 

Caleb asks Chris whether he expects companies to go back to the office full-time, and gets a surprise answer.

Connect with Chris Herd on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisherd/ 

Connect with Caleb Parker on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebparker/ 

If you have any questions or feedback on this episode, email [email protected]

 

Value Bombs

Almost everyone will spend some time in the office – Chris Herd  The data coming out is saying that 90 plus percent of people want to work remotely at least one or two days a week – Chris Herd  I'm a big believer in the benefits of remote work and remote being a tool in the platform of work – Caleb Parker There are always going to be certain things where being in-person, whether it's quality of communication, quality of collaboration for certain things, is going to be better – Chris Herd In the past, work had been designed for the collective. Looking forward, the future of work is really about choice – Chris Herd As leaders, we have to listen first and understand and empathize with people, so we can create the culture that works – Caleb Parker  The reality is a lot of habits and behaviours have calcified super deeply and many people see that they've had a massive quality of life upgrade – Chris Herd Remote for some has been a saviour – Caleb Parker As millions of people get exposed to normal remote working, instead of pandemic remote working, many of them will realise that they want a lot more remote work than they may necessarily have expected – Chris Herd You're giving superpowers to companies who want to make sure that their teams are successful working remotely – Caleb Parker The reality is there is going to be this combination approach, which is focused on choice for the individual, but spread across multiple different locations – Chris Herd To attract and retain the best talent to grow faster, if you don't embrace flexible working, workplace choice, remote then you're going to lose opportunities to attract that talent – Caleb Parker What companies require are really easy and efficient ways to set up support on scale remote teams globally – Chris Herd Remote first organizations should be the most inclusive, diverse and accessible in history – Chris Herd

 

Resources

Chris’ Linkedin 

www.linkedin.com/in/chrisherd 

Chris’ Twitter 

@chris_herd
https://twitter.com/chris_herd

Firstbase website 

www.firstbasehq.com 

 

About Chris Herd

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisherd/

Chris Herd is the founder and CEO of Firstbase, an all-in-one provisioning platform that lets companies provide all the practical equipment remote workers need at the touch of a button. He believes that replicating office working styles remotely rather than leveraging the advantages of remote will lead to bad outcomes. The synchronous-first instantaneous gratification that adult kids club offices encourage destroys productivity, while remote empowers workers to do deep focused work without distraction. The latter is what he passionately believes needs to emerge for remote to deliver on its promise.

Previously Chris founded a remote-first FinTech startup and installed physical equipment in the most remote environments on the planet. He regularly shares his thoughts on remote through twitter, his blog, and speaking engagements.

 

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For full episode transcript please visit https://workbold.co.uk/podcast/