First came COVID. Then burnout. Now hybrid? We interviewed 200 tech managers to learn about remote work in 2021. Read about remote challenges, future plans, and pro tips in our Remote Manager Report.
Hi! I'm Sid, I'm one of the makers of Kona too. 2020 was hard, and 2021 started out just as difficult for the world. Remote work is here to stay, and the cliched "new normal" is still very much TBD.
Our product does daily emotional checkins for remote teams in Slack - as a result, we have awesome (anonymized and private) data on how folks have been feeling in the remote world! The full report goes deep into what's been going on with the hundreds of managers we interviewed, plus the 80+ teams that use Kona every day to stay emotionally connected with their team :)
Check it out and we'd love to hear your thoughts on what we've addressed!
Hi! I'm Corine, one of the writers of this year's report:)
2021 has already been one crazy year. January saw the one-year anniversary of COVID-19. March marked a year of forced work-from-home.
We hoped to take a snapshot of the worldโs long-term remote experiment: its successes, its shortcomings, and its future beyond the vaccine. So we interviewed 200 remote managers at over 150+ tech companies. This report has everything we learned.
Here are some key points we cover:
๐ The next remote transition and trends for the Future of Work
๐ A snapshot of hiring and growth during the pandemic
๐๐ปโโ๏ธ The state of gender diversity in remote leadership
๐ The importance of leadership and soft skills training
๐ Attitudes towards meetings and Zoom fatigue
โ The biggest challenges in remote work for managers
โ๏ธ Tips for managers, culture leaders, and more!
The main takeaway: The challenge is no longer maintaining business-as-usual. Itโs long-term remote wellness to help teams grow and thrive without an office.
Our team at Kona had a blast writing this report. Check out the full report for free and let us know what you think in the comments. Thanks!
Cheers,
Corine
@itscorine Congratulations on the launch! Can you please update the thumbnail GIF? It seems like the first frame of the GIF is a blank pink slide and that's why the thumbnail looks blank on the website. This happens because the GIFs do not auto-play. They play only on hovering :)
What an incredible resource for all types of remote workers! Thank you for creating this!!
I was pretty surprised to see that the #2 of the report highlights was that hiring boomed in the pandemic, as I remember the overall unemployment rate increasing significantly during the pandemic. I realize that this is likely because all companies in this interview are in tech, but does Kona aim to also help teams who aren't necessarily in the tech industry?
Great work @itscorine and team, can see a lot of effort has gone into this!
Do you have any plans for something similar in the future from a non-tech perspective? Would love to learn how other industries are adapting to remote.
@_duncanhall Great question. It's definitely something that we'll start researching now. Hopefully we can get more diverse industries in next year's report!
The gender distribution across functions in this report was an eye-opener. Equal gender distribution within different positions should be a greater priority in remote-work companies!