Caution: Do not forego this newsletter due to its apparent lengthiness. Its pages are filled with tables and charts, not verbosity.

Some time back I started collating some of the worst and best statements made about remote working.

I revisited the list recently and I was just going to publish it along the lines of “What They Said” comparing the myopic with the visionaries. Then I wondered whether there could be any correlation between the stance that executives took on remote work and organisational performance. This was a long bow though. I then wondered if there was a link between the organisational stance on remote work and how employees rated the organisation platforms like Glassdoor, Comparably, and Seek. I also checked out which companies made it into the top 100 Great Place To Work 2023 list.

I have chosen to pick 9 companies whose executives spoke negatively about remote work and 9 whose executives spoke positively about remote work.

You can read the findings for each company or jump to the comparison table and commentary towards the end of the newsletter.

The table format is as follows:

· Statement from a company executive

· Company review score (aggregated) from Glassdoor, indeed, and Comparably

· Financial performance indicator 2023 (Click on the arrow for the information source)

· Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 2023

The nine negatives

AT&T

Goldman Sachs

SpaceX

JPMorgan Chase

Morgan Stanley

Netflix

WeWork

Washingtonian Media

Saks

The nine positives

Adobe

Atlassian

Deloitte

Dropbox

GitLab

HubSpot

Shopify

Slack

Spotify

Comparison and commentary

The following table contains all the findings for the organisations listed above. The organisations are listed by their employee review aggregate score from high to low.

The organisations in green cells are those whose executives had a positive stance on remote work.

The organisations in yellow cells are those whose executives had a negative stance on remote work.

Performance of the positive

· All had high employee review ratings (3.8 or above / 5)

· All had good financial performance reported in 2023

· Three were included in the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work 2023 listing

Performance of the negative

· All (apart from Netflix and AT&T) had lower aggregated employee review ratings (3.9 or below / 5)

· All (apart from JP Morgan and Chase) had poor financial performance reported in 2023 or the performance was unknown

· None were included in the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work 2023 listing

Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase profit climbed as it earned more from borrowers’ interest payments and benefited from the purchase of First Republic Bank.

There are two outliers regarding employee review ratings - Netflix and AT&T – with ratings of 4.3 and 4.1 respectively. There is a noted difference between the reviews provided to Glassdoor and AT&T and those provided to Comparably which raises some suspicion of the integrity of the reviews within the latter. The positive comments on Glassdoor refer to pay and benefits whilst negative comments refer to no work-life balance. The same is reflected on indeed.

It is a similar story for AT&T where Glassdoor and indeed reviews talk about good pay but terrible work-life balance. Only 57% of the reviews on Glassdoor approve of the CEO John Stankey.

Another perspective

If we reorganise the table and place all the organisations with a positive stance on remote work at the top and the rest at the bottom, it tells an even more compelling story.

· Every one of the organisations with a positive stance on remote work had good financial performance reported in 2023

· Four of them were included in the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work 2023 listing

· Apart from one organisation, all of those will a negative stance had poor or no financial performance reported in 2023

· Five of the organisations with a stance had an employee aggregate review score equal to or below the lowest of the positive stance (3.8)

Conclusion

I am by no means saying your position on remote work is the only factor affecting your employee engagement and financial performance, but I will say it is a significant driver.

What conclusions would you draw from these findings? Let me know.

And the rest

There are other quotes and items of note that were not included in the body of the newsletter that I thought I would capture here. My favourites are from Annie Dean at Atlassian and the massive backflip from Mark Zuckerberg.

Is Your Stance On Remote Work an Indicator of Company Performance?