Remote Work: Organizational Models

Remote work is a buzzword – everyone talks about that. However, it can have many flavours. This flavours may vary depending on who can work remotely, how often, whether it’s optional or mandatory, whether remote workers share the same time zone etc. 

There are few basic organizational models:

Model #1 – No remote work allowed

As simple as that – no remote work allowed 🙁

Model #2 – Home Office 

In this case employees by default work from a designated office but do have the option of (occasionally) work-from-home. This can also mean that each employee can work from home but only on certain day of the week (i.e. Friday).

Model #3 – Remote OK team 

Another option is that most of the team is in an office but some people work remotely. 

These (models 2 and 3) companies often have some experience with remote working but not as much as fully remote or fully distributed teams. One of the main challenges is that it can be easy for a person who works remotely to feel left out and like you are note part of the team. 

Model #4 – Remote-first team

In this type of remote working, company has a majority-remote team but also has a small office. These teams have a lot of experience with remote working, usually they share a single time zone. 

Model #5 – Fully distributed team 

This kind of company has no main office at all and only hires remote teams. These companies have biggest experience and know-how in remote work and very often they wouldn’t even consider having someone on sight since they have no facilities as such. These companies can work in various time zones. 

This model also allows us to work with so-called “nomads” – if you didn’t already know, a digital nomad is someone who travels the world and takes their work wherever they go. 

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Dawid Adach

Co-Founder @ MDBootstrap.com / Forbes 30 under 30 / EO'er

For years I've been working as an IT Consultant in countries like Netherlands, Belgium, Poland or India developing enterprise class systems for the biggest companies within domain.

Since 2016 I'm co-founder of MDBotstrap.com - world class UI Framework used by NASA, Amazon, Nike, Airbus, Samsung, Apple and many other Fortune 500 Companies.

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