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A recent talk by Airbnb’s cofounder Brian Chesky has been making waves across the startup landscape this month, all revolving around one exciting new term: Founder Mode. Up until recently, there was no convenient explainer for Founder Mode, but many have felt its effects or impact for decades. To better explain what Founder Mode exemplifies, it’s useful to start by understanding its opposite: Manager Mode.

For a long time, Manager Mode has been the way countless startups have been run as they scale into larger businesses. It’s the idea that, when a company reaches a certain size or success level, once-involved leaders begin to adopt a delegation-centric, hands-off management style. It runs nicely alongside the mantra of “hire good people and the work will take care of itself”, but it seems that doing so does not always reap the rewards Manager Mode promises.

In fact, Chesky and many others (including Steve Jobs) have felt that, when founders begin to ease into Manager Mode, the company suffers as a result. Instead, they believe in adopting Founder Mode, which is the art of remaining close to the details and to the people behind them, even as your company scales.

In a now widely-shared article by Paul Graham of Y-combinator, he talks about the reasoning behind why Manager Mode often doesn’t work for founders. He says, “What [founders] were being told was how to run a company you hadn't founded — how to run a company if you're merely a professional manager. But…there are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is.”

Essentially, if you take responsibilities like problem-solving, creative ideation and risk-taking decisions away from founders, you lose what makes them so uniquely useful and powerful to the company. Having them sitting behind a desk away from the noise is not where they typically thrive, or what got them there in the first place.

For many startups - like us here at Remotify - having Founder Mode coined is of huge importance, because it helps others to understand the differences between staying where our talents lie, and negative terms like “micromanaging”. As a female-founded business, this is especially important because Founder Mode is a much harder dance for women, who are more likely to get canceled or reprimanded for exhibiting Founder Mode than their male counterparts. As Bumble’s founder Whitney Wolfe Herd says, “[I was] in founder mode for 10 years and got attacked for it every single day.”

The more we learn about Founder Mode, the easier it will be for us to exhibit it, no matter who we are, what our gender is or what we look like. The results have continued to show us that many founders do their best work when they continue to roll up their sleeves and remain a part of the everyday running of the business. And who are we to argue with these results?

At Remotify, we work with companies and individuals to create amazing places to work, no matter where you are in the world. Want to find out more about how we do it? Book a call with a member of our friendly team today.

Outsourcing certain tasks and roles can be an amazing way for businesses to connect with the best talent for the job, and run a company efficiently from anywhere in the world—but it requires some due diligence. The nature of outsourcing will sadly encourage some people to cut corners or not treat outsourced talent with the same respect and fairness as their full-time employees. But doing so is lose-lose for both talent and brand, and that’s where the practice of ethical outsourcing comes into play.

What is ethical outsourcing?

Put simply, ethical outsourcing is hiring outside talent or services while still adhering to a high standard of ethical conduct and regulations. This means that everyone you hire - whether that’s internal or external - gets access to the same rights, privileges and dignity. These might include things like safe working conditions, labor rights, fair compensation, cultural or environmental sensitivity, and legal compliance.

What are the benefits of ethical outsourcing?

The benefits of ethical outsourcing for talent are pretty clear: they’re treated more fairly, have a greater sense of job security, and are better able to progress in their careers. But it’s not just workers who benefit from more ethical approaches to outsourcing. The companies themselves typically see an enhanced brand reputation, higher levels of productivity and work quality, more innovation and creativity, improved company culture and better financial results.

Alongside the positives, companies will also avoid a host of negative issues presented by unethical outsourcing, such as worker exploitation and legal and compliance complaints. Both of these can be hugely expensive to solve, but perhaps still not as detrimental or everlasting as the brand damage that comes with them.

Ways you can implement ethical outsourcing in your workplace

So, how do you begin to implement ethical outsourcing? The below list outlines some sure-fire ways to make sure you’re doing it right:

At Remotify, we work with companies and individuals to make outsourcing as ethical, successful and positive as it can be. We believe the best talent and connections take place all over the world, but you need the right tools, people and services to make that happen. That’s where we come in. Want to find out more about how we do it? Book a call with a member of our friendly team today!

There are many challenges to being a founder—most especially in the early stages of creating a business. When starting out as a founder, you are the business. You are the idea, the hard work, the salesperson, the creativity. Because of this, it feels amazing when you succeed—but it’s just as easy to take it personally when you don’t.

Traits like being able to handle rejection, having perseverance and betting on yourself require a unique and - to many of us who have been taught to value modesty or carefulness - an unnatural way of thinking. But it’s a crucial mindset to have to succeed in the startup space.

Here, we’ve explored some of these character traits in more detail which we believe make up that endlessly sought-after ‘founder mindset’.

Handling rejections

Hopefully, as a founder, you already believe in what you do. If that’s the case, you’re in the right mindset—you just need to keep flexing it, like a muscle. When you understand exactly why your business is vital - and who it’s vital for - you grow a much thicker skin when pitching to the outside world. In this way, when you experience rejection (and as any seasoned founder will tell you, you’ll experience plenty in your journey, no matter how successful you are!) it won’t derail your journey or make you doubt your vision.

Coming to terms with rejection as a part of (startup) life - something to learn from but not dwell on - will give you the right mindset to persevere with your journey. Because sometimes, just carrying on is the hardest but most necessary thing you’ll have to do.

Betting on yourself

Creating a business from scratch requires more than a little risk—and risk is something you must learn to live with and use if you want to be a successful founder. When leading a startup, there are of course times to be careful. You need to be able to stay afloat in harder moments and have a plan for the future, for instance. But there are also times when you need to have the mindset to bet on yourself, in spite of the risks.

In its simplest form, betting on yourself is just another way of having faith—faith in what you’ve created, but also faith in your ability to see it through.

Being your most reliable ally

Sometimes, it might feel like being a founder is all about being strong, robust and thick-skinned, but you also need to be gentle and compassionate with yourself and your team.

Being an ‘ally’ to yourself isn’t only about openly supporting what you’re doing, it’s about supporting yourself on an emotional level, too. Having your business’s best interests at heart can sometimes look like asking for help, taking a break or slowing down. Founders are only human, after all, and no one can keep up a founder mindset without rest, kindness and support.

At Remotify, we’re on a mission to help companies and their founders succeed through the freedom and flexibility of remote work. We help both companies and individuals grow with remote teams, using our Employer of Record Plus service. Want to find out more about how we do it? Book a call with a member of our friendly team today.

Globally, the Baby Boomer generation are reaching retirement age, resulting in a mass exodus from the workforce. Great news for any Boomers ready to swap corporate meetings for gardening gloves (or any other hobby of their choice), but the exodus is leaving the labor market in rather a sticky situation. The problem is: employers aren’t being left with enough time to transfer skills and knowledge onto younger employees, meaning certain skills are at risk of dying out altogether.

That’s where ‘flextirement’ comes in.

What is flextirement?

Flextirement is the new term being used by companies offering older employees the chance to ease flexibly into retirement without giving up work altogether. It would focus less on day-to-day tasks and more on the transfer of knowledge and skills. Employees that are ‘flextired’ are more likely to take up mentoring or consulting positions, for example.

Why are people doing it?

As well as allowing older generations to properly pass on their learnings to younger employees, flextirement also allows people at retirement age to make a slower and more gradual journey towards retirement, rather than cutting off all forms of work at once. While retirement is often positioned as a happy, relaxing moment in our lives that we’ve worked hard to reach, research has found that almost one in three retirees say they feel depressed—a rate higher than that of the adult population overall. Going from full-time work to nothing at all can be a physical and emotional shock. Flextirement is one way to make the process less so.

A shift towards flexibility

The trend in flextirement is a mirror of other more flexible measures occurring across the global workforce. Since the pandemic, many workplaces have introduced either remote or hybrid working options, and the rise of the ‘digital nomad’ career has skyrocketed. Clearly, we’re living through a moment of unparalleled openness to change.

While flextirement gives employers a great opportunity to squeeze knowledge and skills from an experienced demographic, undoubtedly most of the benefits are felt by the workers themselves. Flextirement is giving the Boomer generation the flexibility to prioritize things like family, health, and travel—all while retaining a sense of career purpose until they’re ready to fully transition into retirement.

For those willing to embrace more flexible, unconventional methods of working, the future of work will be second nature. That is, after all, where things are headed.

At Remotify, we believe in the power of flexibility and being able to work from wherever you choose. We help countless companies and individuals transition seamlessly to growing with remote teams, using our Employer of Record service. Want to find out more about how we do it? Book a call with a member of our friendly team today.

Tap in, drink a coffee, tap out. Sound like the ideal day at the office? Well, plenty of people are doing exactly this—but employers aren’t too happy about it. ‘Coffee badging’, a term coined by Owl Labs, describes the new trend of office workers showing up to work to physically meet their attendance quota, staying for the length of a coffee, catch-up or meeting, then heading home right after.

Why are so many people ‘coffee badging’?

After the pandemic, many employers wanted to get their staff back into the office, some going as far as to implement mandatory office days that were tracked by swipe cards. While the new trend of coffee badging undoubtedly has a connection to the popularity of remote work, it’s largely down to rising resentments around a lack of freedom and trust.

With so many companies offering either fully remote or hybrid working options for employees, it’s understandable that individuals might come to resent companies that don’t offer the same freedoms.

Surveillance and scaremongering - why it doesn’t work

At first glance, mandatory office time bolstered by surveillance might seem like a good way to get butts back in office chairs. But research has shown that a staggering 77% of workers are more likely to leave a company if they’re not offered some level of freedom to choose where they work.

Scaring your workers into returning to the office won’t end up boosting productivity. Rather, the stats show that workers who feel pressured and surveilled will simply find somewhere else to work.

So, what’s the solution?

If you want your employees in the office at least some of the time, the best thing you can do to avoid coffee badging is to make in-office time useful, productive and sociable. People are far more likely to feel frustrated if they come into the office to do exactly what they could at home. Actively schedule meetings, guest speakers, treats and perks for those days when you require people’s attendance. And perhaps try to encourage your staff to come in on specific days, so that they’re not surrounded by empty desks.

Of course, you could always trust your employees to choose for themselves whether office or remote work works best for them. Not all humans are built the same, and some people simply prefer - whether for mental, physical or personal differences - to work from home. And do a better job because of it.

At the end of the day, as long as employees are performing well and are happy in their roles, what does it matter if they are at home, in an office, or in a co-working space? Surely anything is better than resentfully beeping in for the sake of it.

At Remotify, we believe that the best workplaces are flexible workplaces. Our Employer of Record service makes transitioning to remote teams simple, seamless and effective. Want to find out more about how we do it? Book a call with a member of our friendly team today.

Some of the world’s most powerful tech giants are losing senior talent by forcing them to return to the office, according to new research by the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago. The study, which analyzed 260 million resumes, found that senior team members are far more likely to leave a position if a return to the office is made mandatory.

Which tech giants have seen the biggest drops?

Microsoft’s senior staff dropped by over 5% after implementing a return to office (RTO) plan. Similarly, Apple experienced a 4% exodus after mandating a minimum of one day in the office per week. But the most shocking drop can be seen at SpaceX where, after insisting senior team members spend all five days in the office, the company saw a whopping 15% plunge in personnel. The findings appear to show a correlation between days spent in the office and the number of departures—the more time required in the office, the more likely people are to leave.

A need for flexibility

Interestingly, a different piece of research by Morning Consult, which consulted 6,625 adults in the USA, found that worker attitudes towards hybrid work are becoming increasingly positive, with 29% saying they preferred a hybrid work model in 2024, up from 25% the previous year.

What this tells us (global tech giants take note!) is that a level of flexibility is required in order to retain talent—whether that’s senior team members or entry-level new starters. As SpaceX found out, by setting rigid rules around office days, there will inevitably be people who simply jump ship, rather than struggle with an arrangement that doesn’t work for them.

Similarly, given that hybrid work is proving even more popular than fully remote work, companies would do well to trust their employees to come to the office when they can. Every employee is different. They have different personal lives, different physical and mental requirements, and different barriers to working from a singular place. The best and most popular employers will be the ones that take these differences into consideration when thinking about time spent at work, versus time spent elsewhere.

For anyone worried about losing top talent, the best antidote may be trusting your employees to do what they feel is right for them.

At Remotify, we believe that the best workplaces are flexible workplaces. We’ve helped countless companies transition from mandatory office hours to a more flexible approach, handling the complex details on your behalf. Want to find out more about how we do it? Book a call with a member of our friendly team today.

Since the global shift to remote and hybrid work, have you ever taken a day off without officially using it as a holiday? Well, you’re not alone. The trend of taking a ‘hush-cation’, as they’ve been coined, is on the rise, causing concern among employers and teams alike.

So, what exactly is a hush-cation?

A hush-cation is essentially working from a place where your employer and colleagues do not expect you to be, and where you might not be able to properly do your job. This could be on a trip, holiday or during an event.

Why are hush-cations on the rise?

In an office environment, you couldn’t begin to get away with a hush-cation. You were either in the office, or officially away from it. But since the rise in hybrid and remote work, there are more gray areas when it comes to how and where you work, giving people more opportunity to move the goalposts.

The root cause of hush-cations are more complex, however. While there will always be a few who take them because they just want more time off, for the majority of people, there are wider problems at play. Things like overwork, burnout and lack of mental health support can all contribute to people taking vacations off the books. Similarly, when there is little trust, compassion and support between a company and its employees, workers are far more likely to cheat the system without guilt.

In short, hush-cations are a result of poor company culture and communication.

Why are hush-cations problematic?

Now, you might be thinking, well, as long as someone’s still doing their job, what’s the problem? Well, therein lies the problem: usually, people aren’t working to the level they would normally. Hush-cations are not the same as being a digital nomad, or even working from a foreign country for a while. They’re a way to disguise a holiday as a working day, which leaves employers - but also teammates - without proper support.

What to do instead of taking a hush-cation

Avoiding hush-cations isn’t as mundane as you might think. Often, you’d be surprised just how much a company is willing to support you if you are honest and transparent. For example, if you’re feeling burnt out or overworked, a much better long-term solution is to raise this formally with your employer. That way they can either share your workload among your peers, figure out a way to help you manage better at work, or even sign you off for some proper burnout leave.

Or, if what you’re after is the ability to work from abroad, most companies these days are happy to let you do this if your role allows for it. Again, it’s all about being honest. That way, you can be a digital nomad without hiding your adventures or feeling guilty about where you are in the world.

If you foster a culture of honesty and support, the need to take a hush-cation is all but eliminated!

At Remotify, we’re all about creating great places to work from anywhere in the world. If you’d like to find out more about transitioning to remote work without the hassle, book a call with a member of our friendly team today.

Mental strength is about so much more than being resilient or performing under pressure. It’s about rest, introspection and reaching out for support when necessary. For business leaders, this last part can be especially hard. Our team looks to us for direction, knowledge and bravery, which can sometimes feel like the only faces we’re allowed to show to the world. In reality, though, business leaders, founders and CEOs have an equal responsibility to take care of their mental wellbeing, as well as the performance of a company.

Generally speaking, the atmosphere at the very top of a company tends to lay the groundwork for how things feel down the ranks. So, if a CEO makes rash decisions, punishes mistakes harshly or engages in unkind behavior, the likelihood is other people in less senior roles will do the same. On the flipside, if a CEO is committed to being honest about their wellbeing, asking for help when necessary and leading with kindness, chances are the whole workforce will follow suit. In this way, fostering a culture of positive vulnerability actually has a high chance of improving the performance of a business overall.

Things like employee burnout and resignations are very expensive to deal with—and also very avoidable. By tracking and responding to employee mental health, being transparent about wellness and taking steps to make work a safe place to be, a business can benefit significantly from the financial perks of being an amazing place to work—before we’ve even got into what the company does or how well it’s doing.

But how do we make sure our leaders are caring for their mental wellbeing? Work is busy, after all, and wellness can easily drop to the bottom of the list when things ramp up. The team behind this month’s Mental Health Action Day have come up with an easy new way to remember to check in with yourself and others. It’s called A.S.K. Coined as “the new stop, drop and roll for emotional support”, A.S.K stands for “Acknowledge, Support, and Keep-In-Touch”. It encourages leaders and employees alike to be transparent when talking about how they feel, but also to remember to continue checking in with ourselves and others, even after things improve. Wellbeing doesn’t have an end point—it’s a circular road that needs consistent work.

At the end of the day, leaders want what’s best for their business. But it’s useful to remember that looking after yourself is one of the most obvious ways to achieve this. A content and supported leader breeds a content and supported company. And that sounds like a truly great place to work.

At Remotify, we partner with companies and individuals to create great remote work cultures that stand the test of time. If you’d like to find out more about our services, why not book a call with our friendly team? We’d be happy to help!

The Philippines is a unique country, both in terms of its geography and its culture. Filipino people are also exceptionally unique, but it’s sometimes harder to put into words exactly why this is. For many of us, that feeling of uniqueness is exactly that—a feeling. That’s why, when hearing the former Chilean Ambassador to the Philippines, Roberto Mayorga, describe the Filipino people in a recent video, it felt like he’d finally found a way to describe that elusive, unique feeling.

The term Mayorga coined to describe our people’s quality was “Calidad Humana”. It describes perfectly the way that humanity and care is effortlessly ingrained into Filipino people. He went on to explain: “The people may not be rich, but they’re warm, always smiling, even in their poverty. I’ve been to many countries, but it’s different here. It’s not happiness, not material happiness. It’s something to do with human-ness, compassion, and feeling for others.”

In the corporate world, kindness and empathy are sadly undervalued, especially considering how much they improve company performance and employee retention. In the Philippines, because these traits come naturally to us, we tend to meld easily in any corporate culture, making us a great place to build outsourced teams. Warmth, friendliness, respectfulness, and resourcefulness are just a few of the common attitudes shown by Filipino workers. Combined with our resilience, English proficiency, high educational attainment, and westernized culture, the unique Filipino characteristic of "Calidad Humana" shines through, making us leaders in the outsourcing space and a favored choice for collaborative partnerships worldwide.

It’s so important to share this unique humanity with the rest of the world. In the same way that we export our skills and talents, so too should we be exporting our human kindness. It’s one of the reasons that “doing good” is a core mantra for Remotify, because we believe that remote work is about more than doing good for the individual. It also allows the whole world to feel that same goodness, to onboard the best bits of other cultures and share in that kindness.

For us, one of the best things about remote work is the ease with which we can share our cultures and connect across boundaries and territories. Every day, we’re proud to bring the world a little closer together, sharing our “Calidad Humana” with whoever needs it.

At Remotify, we specialize in outsourcing Filipino talent remotely to the rest of the world, bringing our positive, can-do attitude to global businesses—without employees having to leave the country or their loved ones back at home. If you’d like to find out more about our services, book a call with a member of our team today!

While many people point the finger at remote work as a hotbed for procrastination and distraction, 68% of us find it more distracting working in an office than at home, where only 62% of us struggle to stay focused. Nevertheless, 62% is still a lot of us, and it’s clear that distractions can creep up on us no matter where we’re working.

Whether you look longingly over at your comfy bed or itch to scroll listlessly through your phone, working from home is an inviting place to give in to distractions. But, according to experts, you can better control your urges and distractions with something called ‘spatial association’.

Coined by neuroscientists, spatial association is all about creating dedicated areas to work and dedicated areas to do the exact opposite. By employing strict rules around where you focus in your home, your brain is able to recognise the places where it’s time to concentrate, and the places where you’re welcome to take a break.

For example, if you’re guilty of having the television on while working remotely, it’s a good idea to make any room with a TV a no-go-zone when working. Instead, choose a room with fewer temptations and leave the living room for relaxation time when the working day is done. Alternatively, if you find yourself unable to switch off from work once the day is over, try making certain rooms a completely work-free zone. For instance, you can ban checking your work emails or opening your laptop in the bedroom, helping your brain to associate that space with rest.

If you want to, you can take spatial association to the next level by using individual places for different purposes. For example, you could use your desk for longer tasks like writing or creating pitch decks. But for creative sessions or ideation, you might like to use a standing desk (aka the kitchen counter) or even spread your ideas out across the living room floor. If you do this with enough consistency, your brain will start to recognise where it needs to think most creatively, and when it needs to prepare for longer focus sessions.

In order for spatial association to work really well, you need to teach other people to have the same respect for these places that you do. Making the kitchen a distraction-free zone is much harder if your family or housemates see it as a place where they can interrupt you whenever they like. And similarly, if the bedroom is a work free zone, it can help to employ that rule to anyone that shares that bedroom. It’s not much fun trying to unwind with a book if your partner is tap-tapping away on their work laptop.

By becoming stricter with spatial association, your home can function just like an office. There should be places where you can switch off, spaces where you can be creative, and spaces where it’s time to really focus. Of course, the benefits over an office are obvious. Because, after a hard day’s work, you only have to commute a few strides before you can sprawl out on the sofa for a well-earned rest.