When we made the decision to go fully remote in 2018, we thought we were positioning ourselves ahead of the curve. Since then, we've earned our "Great Place to Work in Canada" designation twice, and the benefits for our team members—especially those juggling young families—have been undeniable.
But after more than two decades of running this company, I keep returning to an uncomfortable truth: the work arrangement that's perfect for one person might be completely wrong for another. And it has everything to do with where you are in your career.
The Three Career Stages
I've come to see three distinct phases where our relationship with remote work fundamentally changes.
Stage One: Early Career—You Need to Be in the Room
When I was growing up, my family ran a shop in the Congo. I didn't learn business from textbooks. I learned by watching my parents' body language shift the moment a customer walked through the door. I saw how they navigated complaints, how they read situations, how they made those split-second decisions that either built or broke trust.
That kind of learning can't happen through a screen.
I remember my first job after graduating. I was using a tool completely wrong, about to cause real damage. My boss walked by, saw what I was doing, and stopped me cold. "No, no, no, you don't do it that way. You're going to break this." Two minutes. That's all it took to save me hours of frustration and prevent a costly mistake.
Now my own kids can't see any of that. I'm behind a closed door on Zoom calls all day. When we had an office, my nieces and nephews would visit and absorb how professional interactions actually work just by being around. They'd see meetings, conflicts, collaborations—all the messy, real parts of work life.
This is how business judgment actually develops. You don't just learn procedures from a manual. You absorb timing, tone, and the hundreds of micro-decisions that separate someone who's competent from someone who's truly effective.
We used to hire through university co-op programs. Students would spend four months with us, and if things went well, we'd offer them full-time positions after graduation. Those co-op students learned as much from overhearing conversations in the hallway as they did from any formal training we provided.
That pipeline doesn't work the same way remotely. We can't observe how someone's actually working in that natural mentorship way where you notice them struggling and step in with guidance before it becomes a problem.
You can't learn to read a room through Zoom. You can't absorb professional norms by watching boxes on a screen. The subtle skills—knowing when to speak up, how to navigate conflict, how to build trust across teams—these come from physical presence.
For people starting their careers, being in a shared environment isn't just nice to have. It's foundational. That's when observation builds the instincts that carry you through everything that follows.
Stage Two: Mid-Career—Remote Is a Lifeline
Then life changes. You start a family. Suddenly, saving 90 minutes of commute time isn't about convenience—it's the difference between making it to your kid's doctor appointment or missing it entirely. It's being there when someone gets sick, showing up for school events during the years when your presence actually matters.
This is where remote work delivers its most powerful benefit. For parents with young children, that flexibility can be transformative. And crucially, these are often people who've already built their professional foundation through earlier in-person experience. They know how to work. They know how to communicate. They know how to deliver. Now they just need space to execute while managing life's demands.
I'll be honest about the tradeoff: remote workers often have less visibility when new opportunities arise. If you're not in the room, you miss the spontaneous conversations that sometimes lead to interesting projects or expanded responsibilities. Many people in this stage knowingly accept that tradeoff—they're prioritizing their family during these crucial years, and that's a completely valid choice.
Maybe it's one parent working from home while the other goes to an office. Or parents alternating which days they're remote. The key is having the flexibility to create arrangements that actually work for your specific situation.
Stage Three: Late Career—Time to Come Back
But here's where it gets interesting. There's a third stage that doesn't get talked about enough.
Eventually, your kids grow up. Family demands shift. And suddenly, that flexibility you needed so desperately matters less. At this point, I believe experienced professionals should consider spending more time in group environments again.
I was discussing this framework with someone recently, and he pushed back on the middle stage. "We managed to commute and raise kids when they were three or four years old. We did it all," he said. Then he paused. "But yeah, I can't stand being home all day anymore. I want to be out with people."
After spending decades building expertise, there's real energy in being around the problem-solving that happens when people work together in person.
But here's the thing—it's not just about our own fulfillment. It's about what the next generation needs.
Those early-career workers who need someone to observe? They're looking for us. The co-op students who learn by osmosis? They need experienced people around. The mentorship that used to happen naturally through proximity? It requires experienced professionals to actually be present.
If everyone who knows how to do the work is remote, where do the people learning their trade get their observation time? Someone has to be there for them to watch, to learn from, to absorb all the unspoken parts of professional practice that can't be captured in a Slack message.
Nobody wants to be "forced" back to the office—that's not what I'm advocating for. But experienced professionals have something invaluable to offer that early-career workers desperately need: the chance to learn by watching people who actually know what they're doing.
A Framework Still Taking Shape
Look, we're fully remote now. Our team is distributed across the country. Going back to a traditional office setup isn't realistic, and honestly, it's not something we'd want—we'd lose significant benefits we've gained.
But I'm thinking more carefully now about matching work arrangements to what people actually need at different points in their lives and careers:
- Early-career workers need proximity to experienced professionals for observation and real-time learning
- Parents with young families need the flexibility that remote work provides to balance work and life
- Experienced professionals benefit from group environments where they can provide the mentorship that early-career workers need
When experienced professionals work alongside early-career people, both sides benefit. We can read body language, sense when someone's stuck, offer guidance before small problems become big ones. But it's not one-way—early-career people bring fresh perspectives, new tools, different ways of thinking. When you mix these generations in person, something remarkable happens. And ultimately, that brings real value to the business.
The Honest Truth
This isn't solved. We're still experimenting with ways to create intentional learning moments for people at different stages of their careers and lives.
Remote work isn't going away. For many situations, it's clearly better than the alternative. But the false choice between "fully remote" or "fully in-office" misses a fundamental truth about the future of work: different people need different things at different times.
And preserving that crucial learning through observation—really seeing how a business works, not just hearing about it in meetings—means we need to move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions.
The answer isn't forcing everyone back to the office. It's being thoughtful about what each person needs based on where they are in life, and creating environments where observation, mentorship, and flexibility can all coexist.
That's the challenge worth solving.