Preparing For The Future Of Work: Job van der Voort Of Remote On The Top Five Trends To Watch In The Future Of Work

Expanded trust in employees. This trend really connects every other trend we are seeing for the future of work. Trust underpins an entire organization, and since the boom of remote work, employers have had to show more and more trust in employees in order to operate. There are a lot of benefits to trust beyond remote work: increases in efficiency, greater employee satisfaction, and faster company growth; all very important to the bottom line of a company.

There have been major disruptions in recent years that promise to change the very nature of work. From the ongoing shifts caused by the COVID19 pandemic, the impacts caused by automation, and other possible disruptions to the status quo, many wonder what the future holds in terms of employment. For example, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute that estimated automation will eliminate 73 million jobs by 2030.

To address this open question, we reached out to successful leaders in business, government, and labor, as well as thought leaders about the future of work to glean their insights and predictions on the future of work and the workplace.

As a part of this interview series called “Preparing For The Future Of Work”, we had the pleasure to interview Job van der Voort.

Job is the CEO and co-founder of Remote. Job previously worked as a neuroscientist before leaving academia to become the VP of Product at GitLab, the world’s largest all-remote company, where he hired talent in 67 different countries. Job is a sought-after presenter, speaking on topics related to scaling a remote-first startup, remote culture, and the future of work. Job has two kids and five hundred hobbies.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers like to get an idea of who you are and where you came from. Can you tell us a bit about your background? Where do you come from? What are the life experiences that most shaped your current self?

I was born and raised in the Netherlands, and when I was younger, I really wanted to be a journalist. It didn’t last forever. I ended up studying and becoming a neuroscientist before I realized I wanted to be creating and discovering things even faster. So, that’s when I decided I wanted to work in tech.

I co-founded a startup with my colleague Marcelo Lebre and after three months, it was out of money and I was looking for a new job. That’s when I met Sid Sijbrandij and joined GitLab, where I worked for five years and helped build the company from a team of five to over 450 people across 67 countries. That’s where I learned that you can build an effective, fully remote business. It was really groundbreaking. I learned there are so many advantages to remote work: efficiency, freedom for people, and the power of hiring the best people for the job, no matter where they are.

That really inspired me to create a company that would help organizations remove the barriers surrounding international teambuilding and create belonging. Marcelo and I kept working together on side projects over those five years and eventually, in 2019, it was the right time for us to start Remote.

What do you expect to be the major disruptions for employers in the next 10–15 years? How should employers pivot to adapt to these disruptions?

We have already seen over the past few years — especially since the pandemic — the shift towards fully remote work. What we are starting to see more and more is companies taking the next step in globalizing their remote workforces and not only creating, but stabilizing and solidifying work-from-anywhere models.

In 10 years time, what I truly hope to see is a workforce that has removed geographical barriers for all workers. Where you are born shouldn’t determine what opportunities you have access to. With the technology we already have at our disposal, the only barrier is the traditional working models society has been built around.

The main thing a company can do, that will be consistent across all changes, is to build a strong company culture and a place where people belong. There are so many approaches for how to do this, but it primarily comes down to showing teams they are valued through communication, benefits, and access to opportunities. Small to large businesses with good culture will be able to attract top talent in any market and ultimately, that is the best line of defense against any disruptions.

The choice as to whether or not a young person should pursue a college degree was once a “no-brainer”. But with the existence of many high profile millionaires (and billionaires) who did not earn degrees, as well as the fact that many graduates are saddled with crushing student loan debt and unable to find jobs it has become a much more complex question. What advice would you give to young adults considering whether or not to go to college?

A degree isn’t the be-all and end-all of a successful career, but it is a door opener. Many people make lifelong connections at university that create opportunities for the rest of their career. And from a global perspective, a degree is a passport for opportunity. Most work visas require a bachelor’s degree, so for those wanting to build international careers, going to university will remove some of the biggest barriers, especially in the early days of your career.

For many graduates, struggling to find a job and managing student debt are very real struggles, but taking education out of the picture is not the solution. The debt disappears, but the competitive job market remains, and now this person is unfortunately considered less qualified than the other applicants and has to work twice as hard to stand out. The issue isn’t whether or not a degree is worth the investment, it is what can be done to increase accessibility to education for those who can’t afford it.

Despite the doom and gloom predictions, there are, and likely still will be, jobs available. How do you see job seekers having to change their approaches to finding not only employment, but employment that fits their talents and interests?

Job seekers are no longer looking for a singular job to fit a singular talent or interest, they are looking for an opportunity to grow, expand, and develop. It isn’t so much about the job but about the company. The future of work is a place of belonging and for jobseekers: that means bringing your authentic self to every interview. A company should be hiring you for your current skills and interests but also for your unique point of view and the potential they see in you.

It’s important to interview the company as much as they interview you. Outside of work, you have an entire life that you want to enjoy, and the company should support that. Async work styles, flexible conditions, and benefits that enable you to maximize your time outside of work are just as important to you as your skillset is to your future employer.

The statistics of artificial intelligence and automation eliminating millions of jobs, appears frightening to some. For example, Walmart aims to eliminate cashiers altogether and Dominos is instituting pizza delivery via driverless vehicles. How should people plan their careers such that they can hedge their bets against being replaced by automation or robots?

There is a common misconception that automation takes away jobs, when in reality, it often creates new opportunities to work with the technology. These automating technologies need to be developed, trained, implemented, serviced, and more, creating a new ecosystem of opportunities.

The jobs companies are hiring for today are completely different than they were 10 years ago, and in another 10 years they will be different again. The best anyone planning a career can do is participate in change.

Technological advances and pandemic restrictions hastened the move to working from home. Do you see this trend continuing? Why or why not?

I see remote work going through a stabilizing period and becoming the normal work practice for a lot of previously office-based jobs. The technology that has been developed over the past two years is a testament to our commitment to remote work and has allowed us to increase the overall efficiency of working. There is also so much investment in supporting tech that is only going to evolve and improve the experience.

For employers who are looking to reinstate an office-first work approach, they will find this new world difficult. The pandemic completely flipped the model of employers telling employees where to work, and companies looking to attract and retain top talent will need to offer remote or work-from-anywhere options for employees, or risk losing talent to competitors.

What societal changes do you foresee as necessary to support the fundamental changes to work?

So much of society is centered around work, so we need to broadly recognize that if people aren’t all working the same schedule, the work will still be done and society will not collapse. Productivity is not time based, and with the technology available now allowing us to do our jobs more efficiently, we should allow employees to have the flexibility to be productive on their own time.

Remote work has given a lot of freedom back to employees, which is something many are still learning to embrace. That paired with asynchronous work means that 9–5 office work days are over, and the emphasis needs to shift from how much you are working to how well you are working.

How society interacts with different cultures is also something that is going to have to change. When a company has employees across the globe, it isn’t enough for people to acknowledge there is another culture. They have to learn, understand, and embrace all that involves, or they will isolate these employees.

What changes do you think will be the most difficult for employers to accept?

The fact that hybrid work doesn’t work. When you take a hybrid work model, people in the office have unfair advantages. That’s not to say companies shouldn’t have an office or encourage gathering, but it should be done under a remote-first approach.

If you are hybrid and working from an office, you still need to use remote-first best practices to ensure the team has the same shared experience. Things like logging into video calls at your desk instead of from the boardroom, and taking notes in a place everyone can see and access, means that anyone joining remotely will have the same experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic helped highlight the inadequate social safety net that many workers at all pay levels have. Is this something that you think should be addressed? In your opinion how should this be addressed?

There is a baseline quality of life that every person deserves, and a lot of people felt the fragility of access to these needs during the pandemic. Government policy plays a huge role in delivering this, but employers also play a big role in offering reasonable wages and benefits. When companies are hiring remote teams across the globe, not understanding the local policies and living expenses means a lot of employees are suffering. Remote has team members on the ground in each country we operate in for this very reason, to understand the nuances that impact employees lives and ensure in every way possible they are being addressed.

Despite all that we have said earlier, what is your greatest source of optimism about the future of work?

One of the biggest goals for myself and Remote is to create a future where someone’s ability to access work, make money, and build a career for themselves is not limited by anything other than their own talents. We are working hard to remove the barriers that stop people from reaching their potential and envision a future of equal opportunity. Remote work has already opened the door for so many people to work from anywhere, and we are still at the very beginning of this future.

Historically, major disruptions to the status quo in employment, particularly disruptions that result in fewer jobs, are temporary with new jobs replacing the jobs lost. Unfortunately, there has often been a gap between the job losses and the growth of new jobs. What do you think we can do to reduce the length of this gap?

Technology and innovation means that it is easier than ever to access and implement change. If we look at how quickly new companies were created out of the pandemic, we see that technology creates new well-paying jobs fast. I think with technology as advanced as it is, the gap will naturally shorten, and for the most part, we are already seeing this.

Okay, wonderful. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Top 5 Trends To Watch In the Future of Work?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

• Focus on employees. Employers will play a greater role and have more responsibility in the safety net of their employees. The Great Resignation was largely driven by employees being empowered to demand more. Companies that didn’t handle the transition to remote work well and that didn’t value their company culture in the transition, paid the price in a competitive market. Many companies are changing their strategies and hiring or expanding the responsibilities of their Head of Remote (or HR leaders in the absence of remote-specific leadership) to ensure employee job satisfaction.
• International hiring. This is one I am most passionate about. Where you live should not determine the opportunities you are given in life. Jobseekers will be able to access well-paying jobs, companies with good benefits, and opportunities for professional development from wherever they choose to be based. Companies will be able to access the best talent for any role rather than the best talent within commuting distance.
• Asynchronous work. Employees can be based anywhere now, across multiple countries and timezones, meaning the idea of standard work hours is obsolete. People should be empowered to work at times that fit their lives, because a team doesn’t need to be online at the same time to deliver great results. Employers can look for talent across the globe. In cases where time is genuinely important, like live customer service, you can look at timezones that are compatible, even if they aren’t an exact match.
• The growth of distributed workplace startups. Now that remote-first work is the new normal for many organizations, innovators are looking at how companies manage communications, culture, and operations. There will be a growing number of startups providing solutions to help workplaces optimize a distributed workforce, especially as these companies iron out their policies and enter the maintenance phase of the remote workplace.
• Expanded trust in employees. This trend really connects every other trend we are seeing for the future of work. Trust underpins an entire organization, and since the boom of remote work, employers have had to show more and more trust in employees in order to operate. There are a lot of benefits to trust beyond remote work: increases in efficiency, greater employee satisfaction, and faster company growth; all very important to the bottom line of a company.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how this quote has shaped your perspective?

One that my wife tweeted the other day that I really like is from Carl Jung: “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become,” which is good, because I feel like that’s the way to happiness, to accept responsibility for your own life.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I’m not someone who has this admiration for particular people. It’s my wife. With two small kids, having a private dinner is a really rare occasion, so I would choose her over anybody else.

If it’s not my wife, then it’s got to be Tim Cook. Or maybe Jony Ive.

Our readers often like to follow our interview subjects’ careers. How can they further follow your work online?

Readers can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this. We wish you continued success and good health.