Four years ago, the pandemic brought about a massive change in the way we work, forcing companies to adapt to remote operations almost overnight. Today, many companies are still struggling with the decision of whether to mandate a return to the office or embrace remote work as the new normal. Firms like Disney, Tesla, JPMorgan Chase and ironically, even Larger have issued strict mandates for employees to return to the office, citing concerns for collaboration, creativity and productivity. And Amazon recently made headlines for thrill their employees consider the requirement to return to the office five days a week starting in 2025.

A quantum workplace survey showed that fully remote workers have an engagement rate of 78%, while office workers have the least high levels of engagement (72%). This finding suggests that remote workers may experience higher levels of job satisfaction.

Telecommuting can benefit workers' quality of life in other ways, too—for example, by eliminating daily commute. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2019, the average commute for American workers was 27.6 minutes. How much would your life improve if you had almost a full hour “back” a day to do something besides drive?

For these reasons and more, we've leaned into remote work at my company, Wildfire Systems. Here are our principles for creating a productive, collaborative and satisfying work environment — that's also completely remote.

Related: Reinventing Remote Work – 10 Unconventional Strategies for Creating a Culture of Engagement and Innovation

Remote work leads to better employee morale

Despite the conventional wisdom peddled by some corporate giants in favor of office work, fully remote companies can indeed attract and retain, top talent fostering a culture of trust, transparency and remote work-life balance.

Here are 11 tactics I recommend that can help remote work work:

1. No, really elimit office: To level the playing field, make sure everyone is really far away. I suggest whenever possible not to maintain a physical office, even for team members in the same city. The goal is to make sure no one feels left out and to prevent cliques or “favorites” from appearing on your team.
2. Provide personal infrastructure: Invest in equipping your team with the tools they need to be productive at home, whether it's high-end computers, monitors, a good headset or specialized software. A small investment in employee comfort and happiness in the form of high-quality tools that help them do their jobs can pay off massively in increased productivity and satisfaction.
3. Use collaboration software: Platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams enable instant COMMUNICATION and create a searchable knowledge base. Create channels for work, projects, and even casual water cooler chats to foster a sense of community. At your company, consider creating channels dedicated to team members' interests outside of work: for example, music, food and recipes, great online deals and, of course, pets.
4. Become a “video on” company: Encourage the use of video during virtual meetings to encourage a more intimate and engaging communication environment. It really helps to see friendly faces every now and then, especially if you're home alone working all day.
5. Hold frequent internal meetings: Conduct standups for each functional area to keep everyone informed, clarify priorities, and promote accountability. A suggestion that works well is to hold 10- or 20-minute meetings with small teams almost every day to keep a constant connection between team members and provide brief status updates or check-in on key projects. — even among the executive team.
6. Create virtual meeting rooms: Create ongoing virtual meeting spaces for impromptu discussions that can mimic the spontaneity of office interactions. Create a permanent standing meeting room so that people who need a quick chat that's too long to explain over Slack or Teams can walk into one of these standing rooms and get five minutes to discuss it. Another tactic I recommend is to set up one of those standing rooms for a recurring “happy hour” for casual, non-work-related chats. Set it at a time that is not too late for people who work in early time zones and not too early so that it interrupts the workday for those in later time zones. Be sure to let everyone know that it's okay (but not required!) for them to come in and casually chat with anyone else who happens to be joining at the time.
7. Share calendars transparently: Allow and encourage team members (even managers) to view each other's calendars, providing context and enabling better decision-making about downtime or scheduling.
8. Expect regular demo days: Regularly showcase the work of different teams across the company to foster respect, recognition and a shared sense of progress. Allow your development or production team, along with any business team, to share visible progress with the entire team, such as new features that have been developed, new products that have been launched, updates on new partnerships, key metrics or milestones or any other representation of recent achievements. Demo day show everyone on your team that everyone is succeeding together.
9. Facilitate in-person meetings: While remote work is very effective, periodic withdrawals in person and teams abroad can strengthen ties and foster collaboration even further. As a few examples from Wildfire, once a year our entire company gets together for an all-expenses paid retreat to relax and connect with coworkers. And our engineering team gathers annually for an off-site hackathon to build new ideas and proofs of concept that can be turned into full features. Finally, smaller teams also meet throughout the year. The cost for these in-person getaways is about the same as a commercial rental anyway, so the investment in team relationships is worth it.
10. Encourage work-life balance: It's easy for the lines between work and personal time to blur in a remote environment. Encourage teams to take time to manage their personal responsibilities unlimited PTO policies. This shows confidence in your team's ability to manage their workload and be accountable.
11. Celebrate with gestures: Use your spending policy to send team members small gifts or tokens of appreciation to remind them of the human connections behind the virtual workplace. The new baby? Child's graduation? Death in the family? Send it yourself or give a small annual budget that your team members can use at their discretion to show they're thinking of their colleagues.

Related: How to foster a strong culture with a remote or international workforce

By embracing these principles, you can create an environment where team members thrive, leading to increased productivity, collaboration, and job satisfaction. Rather than assuming remote work is a “failed experiment,” successful leaders must recognize the changing landscape and adapt their strategies and processes to empower their workforce, build trust, and foster innovation.

For companies unable to embrace a fully remote work environment, a hybrid approach is better than a 100% in-office requirement. In fact, Gallup's 2023 Workplace Poll found that 34% of employees able to work remotely indicated that they prefer a fully remote situation and 59% prefer a hybrid approach.

In many companies, a fully remote work model has proven to be a tremendous success, and I invite other entrepreneurs to help build the future of work together.