Remote work, for all of its momentum, has gained its share of critics over the years. Corporate and government leaders regularly reissue return-to-office mandates, citing performance concerns. Professor and bestselling author Scott Galloway has described remote work as one of the worst things to happen to young people. The New York Times recently reported on a study finding that “younger workers suffered career-wise by working from home, receiving less training and fewer opportunities for advancement.”

As the leader of Tulsa Remote, the largest remote worker attraction program in the country, you might be surprised to know that I agree with most of these critiques — just not their solutions. While COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of remote work, too few resources and organizational investments have been made to support employees and managers in this new professional environment. 

How Tulsa succeeded with remote work

As a legacy oil and gas town that suffered from population decline — and a “brain drain” of college graduates like many of its regional counterparts — Tulsa launched an experimental program in 2018 to attract remote workers and diversify its economy. While the program depended on workers’ ability to perform their job from anywhere, its success would hinge on redefining what it meant to “work remotely.” If newcomers to town worked in isolation in their new apartments, spending most of their days on video calls with no connection to the community around them, we knew they wouldn’t be likely to stay. To combat this, our program overcorrected for the deficiencies of remote work, investing in in-person experiences and human connection. 

In practice, this meant that a remote worker would be assigned a “member integration specialist” when they arrived in Tulsa, who would provide one-on-one support to connect them to groups, activities, and volunteer opportunities that fit their interests. Tulsa Remote offered free coworking space so that members could work alongside their peers and hosted several events each month, from happy hours to baseball games and trips to museums, to facilitate in-person engagement. To further encourage connection, the program leveraged Slack, with hundreds of available channels broken down by shared interests, origin city,  or industry, for remote workers to find others who share their interests or backgrounds. 

By facilitating connection, we created natural opportunities for mentorship and reproduced the opportunities that arise from being in proximity to coworkers. Members would help each other through professional challenges such as learning new tools, dealing with management issues, advocating for promotions, and even negotiating salaries. We began offering professional development opportunities led by our members to support upskilling in remote careers. Our members were so hungry for these trainings that we recently launched  to help workers navigate this new professional environment and manage distributed or hybrid teams. Staying true to our belief in the value of in-person connection, three-quarters of this course will be offered virtually, with the culminating module hosted in Tulsa.