In a post-pandemic world, remote work has become all the rage for employees, and for good reason. Remote jobs offer a ton of perks for both companies and their staff, such as flexibility in where they live, less time and money spent on commuting, a bigger talent pool to choose from, and the ability to work in your PJ’s (if that’s your thing).

Of course, remote work isn’t without its challenges. It can be hard to stay focused when you’re surrounded by distractions like dirty dishes and Netflix. As a company that has always been fully remote (even before COVID!), EarlyDog interviewed our team members to uncover insights on what we enjoy most about remote work and how we overcome any difficulties.

One of the most cited benefits of remote work by our team was not having to spend time fighting through rush-hour traffic each day (besides, have you seen gas prices these days??). Instead, they get a few extra serotonin boosts throughout the day by spending more time with their family and pets. It’s always nice when we get a cameo from one of our four-legged friends during our team meetings too!

On the flip side, the overwhelming consensus about the difficulties of working remotely was not being able to interact with our colleagues or get to know them on a more personal level. To combat this, it’s important to take deliberate steps to keep your company’s team members engaged with one another.

Some ways EarlyDog does this is through:

• Company Slack channels beyond just those for work topics (our #random Slack channel, for example, is indeed *very* random)
• Semi-annual team offsites in cities across the country that focus on team bonding activities (we may or may not be thinking about getting company-branded pickleball equipment now)
• Weekly virtual team meetings just to catch up and spend some quality face time with each other (okay, we admit we mostly just talk about our pets during these meetings too)

So fear not: you won’t ever have to worry about any pesky return-to-office mandates with us.