The Future Of Work Is Borderless

It is an undeniable fact that the global pandemic upturned the world of work — and nothing was more disrupted than where that work took place. But talk has been brewing since the dawn of the digital age surrounding the key question of “do we really need to be together, in an office, to get our work done?”. This line of questioning isn’t anything new, but it was with the pandemic that we finally found our answer. As millions of workers worldwide were forced out of their offices, to many large corporations’ surprise, productivity did not universally drop. The work still got done. In fact, working from home turned out to be a resounding success for many companies, so much so that a new trend was born, aptly titled “work from anywhere”.

It may sound like just another way of saying “work from home”, but conceptually it’s rather different. Geographically, working from home still requires employees to be in relative proximity to the office for in-person meetings and work events. On the other hand, working from anywhere (WFA) encourages employees to work from – you guessed it – anywhere. It makes remote work global, drawing upon talent from anywhere in the world and creating a pool of employees with vastly different perspectives and traits.

For employers, this means you’re benefiting from a diverse range of experience and skills, whilst promoting an inclusive workforce. Whatever skill shortages are present in your own home country will have little effect when your talent pool is borderless. There are of course drawbacks to WFA, such as the obvious time zone differences, lack of community and the difficulty of building a cohesive company culture. This kind of working arrangement is obviously more suited to some professions than others, but it should be noted that WFA has been shown to increase both productivity and job satisfaction in workers. So if it works for your profession, perhaps it’s time you considered going global.

WFA is an opportunity to create a more inclusive workforce, not only on a global scale, but also in terms of gender. Across industries, women lose out on career opportunities because of geography — promotions or new job opportunities arise, but many can’t accept them because spouses or children aren’t able to move. Work from anywhere allows for greater upward mobility for everyone.

This method of working gives employees the flexibility to tend to their everyday responsibilities alongside work. Having this freedom of choice allows employees to prioritise what’s important to them in their personal life whilst balancing the needs of the company at a time and in a location that suits them. Employees, when given the choice to work from anywhere, also feel more empowered, which leads to higher levels of both motivation and productivity.

Although global remote working jobs do allow for more creative and diverse collaboration opportunities between employees, without sufficient tech, strategic methods for knowledge sharing, and facilitated employee engagement, it can prove difficult.

In our eyes, ambition has no borders, so why should work? Global coworking spaces allow the WFA model to flourish, with members free to work like a local from anywhere in the world. Global coworking allows employees to feel that sense of community and belonging that remote working often lacks, whilst facilitating the collaboration that the WFA model is all about, all in a comfortable environment that is specifically designed to suit the way you work. Using coworking spaces whilst you’re travelling for business (or for pleasure) also allows you to effortlessly expand your network across borders.