When the hotSilicon Valley payments startup Stripe announced that its fifth engineering hub would be remote, it was widely cheered by the developercommunities across the world as it sprinkled holy water on what has alreadybecome inevitable.  After all, doesn’thiring the best 100 engineers worldwide make much more sense than housing theavailable 100 under one roof? Just look around you – coffee shops, co-workingspaces, shared offices and travel hubs like airports and stations – are allfull of people doing their work. And its high time that we figure out how tocater to a new generation of workers and workstyles, as Stripe has attemptedto.

On a very basiclevel, every employee has two options –

1. Work atan office – which entails getting ready on time, hitting the road, drivingthrough some insane rush hour traffic, get to the office, complete the work forthe day and then again battle through the traffic to get back home. There’s nodenying that a big chunk of our time goes in the work commute alone.
2. Work fromhome – save your time and energy, save money on commute, and potentiallypollute less with fewer vehicles on the roads!

From theemployer’s standpoint, the latter option alone helps them save on massiveinfrastructure costs. The world becomes your talent pool and employees canbenefit from a better work-life balance too. The added advantage is that itgives you a more diverse workforce. The factory mentality of turning up to workat once place is slowly changing with more and more people opting to “work fromhome” at every chance they get – be it a weekly or monthly choice. But of course,an entirely remote hub comes with its own unique challenges. While most say itis difficult to replace the ever-omnipresent whiteboard meeting in brick andmortar rooms, we are in an age of Google Docs, Slack, Zoom and the likes. It’sjust a matter of finding the right technology mix and your remote team can beas connected and engaged as their office counterparts, if not even more. Theonus is now on us to find the next generation of leaders who know how to managea truly remote workforce.