Decentralized workforce is key to some of the most innovation-driven companies out there. Instead of hoarding experts in a particular office location, they let staff work from home. This means they can employ experts from around the world and don’t even need to make them relocate. Believe it or not, a relocation for a new potential job is a deal-breaker for many, especially people who settled down and have a family.
Employing remote workers is similar to bringing people from different locations into a virtual team. The only difference is that instead of being in different office buildings, staff is scattered around the globe forming a virtual team with as many locations as the team has members.
Further Reading
- Why and How to Work with Virtual Teams?
- How to Work Effectively from a Coffee Shop [Chart]
- Visions of Open, Collaborative & Flexible Working Culture [Video]
Is remote staffing a startup trend?
We asked our followers on Twitter where they would prefer to work and we got the following results. Before the 31st of July 2017 you’ll need to vote in order to see the results. After the poll has been closed, the results will be visible for all without voting.
Where would you prefer to work?
— TechAcute (@TechAcuteCom) July 28, 2017
Who’s big in employing remote workers?
Here is a list of 23 companies who embrace remote working with the majority of their staff. From having a first and second look, we can tell that most of these are somehow related to software development, many are from the US and all of them are fairly young companies, with the oldest being founded in 2005.
| Name | Category | Year Founded | Funding Amount (USD) | HQ City, Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automattic | Blogging Platforms | 2005 | $317,300,000 | San Francisco, US |
| Sococo | Collaboration Software | 2007 | $12,258,618 | San Jose, US |
| GitHub | Software Development | 2008 | $350,000,000 | San Francisco, US |
| Ushahidi | Software Development | 2008 | $2,095,740 | Orlando, US |
| TeamSnap | Sports App | 2009 | $47,577,276 | Boulder, US |
| Plex | Media App | 2009 | $11,000,000 | Los Gatos, US |
| Parsely | Analytics Software | 2009 | $6,052,753 | New York, US |
| DataStax | Enterprise Software | 2010 | $190,000,000 | Santa Clara, US |
| Buffer | Social Media Software | 2010 | $3,900,000 | San Francisco, US |
| InVision | UX Design | 2011 | $135,200,000 | New York, US |
| Help Scout | Customer Service | 2011 | $12,980,147 | Boston, US |
| Trello | Task Management Software | 2011 | $10,340,000 | New York, US |
| Zapier | Software Development | 2011 | $1,300,000 | Mountain View, US |
| I Done This | Task Management Software | 2011 | $380,000 | San Francisco, US |
| StudySoup | Social Media Software | 2012 | $2,106,349 | San Francisco, US |
| Doist | Task Management Software | 2012 | $40,000 | Santiago, Chile |
| Seeq | Analytics Software | 2013 | $12,189,731 | Seattle, US |
| Timely | Time Management Software | 2013 | $1,100,000 | Oslo, Norway |
| TaxJar | Tax Software | 2013 | $600,000 | San Diego, US |
| Blossom | Internet of Things | 2013 | $102,600 | Irvine, US |
| GitLab | Software Development | 2014 | $25,620,000 | San Francisco, US |
| NodeSource | Software Development | 2014 | $15,571,708 | San Francisco, US |
| Teleport | Search Engine | 2014 | $2,500,000 | Palo Alto, US |
What do you think? Is this the future? Good bye to office culture? Are we going to stick to collaboration software to work together or perhaps immerse in VR office locations and kind of work near each other but not in reality? I would love to hear what you think. Please share your thoughts below in the comment section!
Photo credit: Kathy Ponce
Source: Crunchbase
