July 30: The future of office work
226 CEOs were surveyed about upcoming remote work plans for their startups.
Source: Andreessen Horowitz
Published: June 2021
The future of office work
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the future of in-person office work. Venture capital firm a16z surveyed 226 CEOs about upcoming remote work plans for their startups.
How often will people be required to be in the office?
Frequency: 1-2 days a week
# of responses: 87
% of respondents: 38%
Frequency: A few days a month
# of responses: 33
% of respondents: 15%
Frequency: A few days a quarter
# of responses: 24
% of respondents: 11%
Frequency: No work from home allowed
# of responses: 18
% of respondents: 8%
Frequency: Only for offsites (team building outside of the office setting)
# of responses: 64
% of respondents: 28%
The survey results didn't make sense. For example, Amazon is going to 3 days a week in the office. That isn't an option on the survey, so where did 3-4 days in the office get placed? Were those responses just left out? Leads me to distrust the results.
So the real data point is 65% of CEOs funded by Andressen believe employees should not be in the office more than 2 days a week. And the other 35% hate remote work too much to consider an alternative. If we end up at 2 days of structured office per week and the rest of the time avoiding commutes... that would be pretty amazing. I suppose the follow-on step would be to see in those office days how many internal meetings could be removed from the non-office days.