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Two years after the start of the pandemic, the shift to remote work seemed to be a done deal for many workers. Early results were positive, people reported more happiness at work, more productivity, and experienced a better work-life balance. Leaders seemed to be on board. However, in the last few months, there’s been a confusing shift.  

Many high-profile leaders are pushing for a return to the office, citing reasons such as productivity and culture. They argue that remote work is not sustainable in the long term. But a big part of the workforce disagrees with them. They have expressed their resistance to giving up the flexibility that remote work offers. Flexibility that’s given them a taste of life without long commutes, dress codes and cubicles. Flexibility that’s proven to support diversity in your business and is creating better workplaces for women. Why wouldn’t you want to support an environment that’s proven to make your employees more productive and engaged? 

As a rising number of organizations are imposing return to office policies, employees are threatening to resign rather than comply, while others have been fired for their refusal. There is a clash between many leaders’ idea of what work should entail – command and control – and what employees desire and frankly, how they perform best. 

So, as a company that has made it our mission to empower the remote workforce and now permanently offer a remote-first environment for our employees, we wanted to explore what’s behind this move and find out what this shift has meant to the experts – our teammates. We conducted an Alludo internal survey in October 2023. And here’s what our people said: 

Our employees’ work-life balance thrives with remote work 

As many leaders are pushing for a return to the office, they’re overlooking that offices are not necessarily the key to better workplaces. For many knowledge workers, remote work supports a better work-life balance, which contributes to a healthy culture and better job performance. 

One of the standout findings from our survey is the overwhelmingly positive impact of remote work on our employees’ work-life balance. 84% of Alludo employees reported that their work-life balance has improved since making the transition to remote work, in contrast to the traditional in-office setting. When we break down the data, we find that female employees (85%) and non-managers (86%) experienced an even higher level of improvement. 

Remote work not only enables our employees to work where they feel most inspired and productive, but it also allows them to make their job fit into their life – not the other way around. They can adjust their schedule to fit their personal and family needs, as well as their peak productivity hours. They can also pursue their hobbies, interests, and passions, without compromising their professional performance.  

Increased productivity: What should be the new normal for knowledge workers 

Not only do our staff see improvements in their work-life balance but an impressive 79% report boosts in productivity since transitioning to remote work, 19% said their productivity remained the same, and only 2% said they experienced a decline in productivity. Even more simply put, 98% of our teammates said remote work made them just as or more productive than before! 

It is our belief that this data likely reflects the reality of knowledge workers everywhere, not just at Alludo. Flexibility positively affects outcomes and success for both employees and companies as a whole. And one way of enabling flexibility is by empowering knowledge workers to work remotely, freeing them from the constraints of traditional office hours. 

Our team consists of diverse workers. Some are night owls, some are early birds, and some are neither! We believe in embracing these differences and empowering our employees to work at their peak performance during their preferred hours, rather than trying to fit them all into one and the same box. Remote work is the catalyst enabling that. 

The data speaks for itself: Alludo’s remote-first approach is working 

We are firmly committed to true flexibility at work and remain remote-first and the data backs us up. Our latest Alludo employee survey findings tell us that remote work is a positive and beneficial experience for our staff and offers productivity boosts for the majority of our people, contributing to our success as a company. 

Interested in working at Alludo? Discover how you can join us.  

I couldn’t be more excited to join Alludo as the new Chief Financial Officer. Alludo has such a strong brand identity and culture that I feel like I knew exactly what to expect—and I was right. In the best way possible. 

Alludo appealed to me for so many reasons. Early on in the process, it became clear to me that my personal and professional values are very much aligned with Alludo’s company values. I’m focused on growth, efficiency, and simplicity—and I can see all those elements here. And so much more. I was so impressed with Alludo’s commitment to Work3, including the company’s emergence as a leader in embracing and celebrating neurodiversity at work and encouraging people to bring their whole selves to work. That is so important to me, and I feel a ton of pride working for a company that is vocally advocating for what they believe in. I’m a huge advocate for Parkinson’s awareness and research, and I know I’ve landed in a place where being genuine and passionate about a disease that impacts millions, in very different ways, will be welcomed. 

As for my professional history, I’ve been fortunate to have a 30+ year career, including 25 years as a CFO. Most recently, I was CFO of Avetta, a SaaS solution for contractors and supply chain. Prior to that, I was CFO of Appriss, a global SaaS provider for safety, retail and healthcare fraud and risk solutions. I specialize in technology and global profitable growth companies ranging from $100M to >$1B revenue. I’m passionate about working alongside great teams to build and elevate high performance companies, and I’m so excited by what we’re achieving here. 

My goal: purposeful, operationally focused, data-driven, strategic leadership that drives results. I love an opportunity to roll up my sleeves and dive in with a hands-on approach. Being able to do so with a great team is the ultimate reward.  

And I’m excited to have fun along the way. I recently took the Alludo Chronotype Quiz and I’m proudly a turtle, though don’t mistake that for being low energy. I’m quite the opposite, and I completely resonate with the description of a turtle as a go-to, steady resource who works hard and gets stuff done. 

One more thing—I’m grateful for Alludo’s remote-first environment and I’m fully taking advantage of it, with more time at home with my wife Lisa – not having a daily commute is wonderful.  But, I will be hitting the road soon enough to be out visiting with many of you too. 

I’m appreciative of the warm welcome I’ve received already. And I’m honored to be here. 

Trever Noah.   
Lady Gaga.  
Chipotle. 
Bill Nye.  
NASA. 
BMW. 
Lizzo.  
Alludo. 

That list above? It’s a sampling of Shorty Award winners. And we’re on it.  (Don’t worry; we are definitely not comparing ourselves to the greatness of Lizzo or any others. It’s just a very fun list to be on.) 

Alludo took home a Gold Honor at the 15^th annual Shorty Awards for our rebrand campaign, #HelloAlludo!  

We could not be more honored to have received this recognition—especially given that Shorty Awards are highly coveted awards that recognize the very best of digital and social media campaigns. And the competition is stiff. This year’s winners represent some of the world’s biggest names and brands. 

Award criteria  

Shorty Award winners are determined by a jury based on three main criteria: creativity, strategy, and engagement. 

We’re so thrilled that the jury recognized our efforts, which entailed a massively ambitious, comprehensive rebrand that reimagined everything from our positioning to our name. The result: a modern, stunning visual identity, deeply human messaging, and dynamic experience for both team members and customers.  

The new name, Alludo, is a nod to our purpose: empowering all you do. Our solutions give people the flexibility and freedom to create, ideate, and share anywhere, anytime, on any device. We’re reimagining the future of work by turning prescriptive and limiting notions of 9-5 office work on their head.  

Introducing Work3 

As part of this rebrand, we introduced ownership of the future of work—what we call Work3. Work3 challenges assumptions about productivity, recognizes the unique person behind the effort, and values freedom and flexibility. 

It’s fitting that we introduced Work3 as part of the rebrand, while living the Work3 values as we made the rebrand a reality. We embraced an all-hands-on-deck approach where everyone’s ideas were valued, and we leveraged the incredible individual strengths of the team. These varied skills meant we could be intentional about every imaginable element of a fresh new brand: our visuals, brand identity, voice, employee engagement programs, social media strategy and channels, and even the way we structure our product families.  

Partway through the rebranding, we created and had employees take a quiz to determine our “chronotypes”— the times of day when we do our best work. We were able to see these chronotypes play out as the Owls shared late night branding inspiration and the Honeybees teamed up for morning momentum. 

The rebrand process culminated in a dynamic Times Square billboard, where we introduced Alludo to the world. 

We have been so thrilled by the reception to our new brand, with enthusiasm coming in from team members, customers, partners, industry experts, and the media. This Shorty Award is the icing on the cake, and we’re immensely proud of the honor.  

Read more about our rebrand and how we brought it to life. 

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about the possibility of four-day work weeks recently. You may have been dreaming about a four-day work week since the start of your career. There’s a lot of appeal to the idea of capturing a three-day weekend every single weekend.  

Here’s the thing: I agree that we need to find a solution to workplace stress and maintaining balance in our lives. 

But I am not convinced the mandated four-day work week is the best way to make this happen. 

Maybe you’re thinking, “Of course, a software company HR exec isn’t all for giving everyone Fridays off.” Here’s the plot twist: it’s not for the reason you think. 

It’s not because I think productivity will drop. 

It’s not because I think employees will disengage. 

It’s not because I can’t make it make financial sense. 

It’s not because I am a tyrant who loves to see people glued to their office chairs. 

It’s because, for knowledge workers craving workplace freedom, I don’t believe a four-day work week offers enough freedom. 

Focus on outputs, not inputs

The mandated four-day work week is still an employer-prescribed, top-down methodology that is too focused on inputs (i.e., hours spent in the chair) versus outputs. 

It could just be code for “do your job when we tell you to, but now just do it faster.” 

And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a lose/lose. 

Let’s be clear: a four-day work week might be perfect for some people. But it shouldn’t be dictated by the company. 

True freedom at work

So, what IS the solution? It’s exactly what we’re working on building here at Alludo: True freedom at work. And that means—when the situation allows it—working wherever, however, and whenever you want. The best employers and managers focus on outcomes, not inputs like hours spent or people in seats. They want to know if you’re getting your job done and doing it well. They couldn’t care less whether you prefer to wake up at the crack of dawn and hit the ground running, or spend the day with your family and focus on work at night. That’s exactly what we want to see here at Alludo, and ideally in as many places as possible where knowledge work happens. 

True freedom at work isn’t the ability to leave work early to watch your kid’s soccer game. It means that watching a soccer game in the middle of the day isn’t “leaving early” at all. 

Sure, there are times when the team will need to be aligned for a meeting or a deadline. But that noon meeting might be the beginning of the day for some and the end for others. It might be a quick moment of work focus on an otherwise non-work day. And if you have a global workforce like we do here, flawless alignment on work timing isn’t realistic anyway. 

This isn’t just about making a more welcoming workplace for employees, though that’s a big part of it. It’s also smart business. Seriously. 

We’ve found that freedom and flexibility are not only great for people, but also for our company. During the pandemic, knowledge workers everywhere proved that productivity didn’t require an office. And it goes without saying that work/life balance can be dramatically improved by taking away the artificial constraints of “industrial-era” 9-5 office work. When the focus is on results instead of counting people sitting in cubicles, employees discovered they could make more space not only for their lives and families, but also for their careers. 

Why wouldn’t we want to lean into that? 

Again, I acknowledge that this philosophy only applies to knowledge workers. I’m humbled by and grateful for the essential workers who keep the world healthy, safe, and fed by showing up (literally) every day.  

To be clear, a four-day work week might be ideal for some knowledge workers. And if you’re one of them, I believe you should have the right to ask your employer for it. But it shouldn’t be dictated to you, nor should any other rigid schedule.  

If you’re an employer who is considering implementing a four-day work week at your company (or have already done so), please think twice before making it mandatory and dictating the specific day people need to take off. 

Freedom at work, counterintuitively, can be an adjustment for both knowledge workers and employers. And yet, when you embrace freedom at work and lean into tracking outputs instead of inputs, I believe everyone wins. 

A version of Scott Day’s blog originally appeared on HR.com.