Research & resources
What we're learning from audits, cohorts, and the labor-market data — written for people doing the work rather than for a conference stage.
Remote postings are running at roughly 8.7% of the US market — about triple the pre-2020 baseline, down a sixth from the 2022 peak, and up year over year. A decline from a spike is not a return to normal.
Read the noteNew York Fed researchers estimate remote work accounts for 64% of the rise in unemployment among young college graduates. This is the strongest argument against our own field, and we are not going to soften it.
Read the noteThree quarters of remote-capable workers who aren't fully remote now report required on-site days, up from 63% two years earlier. Nobody announced it. It arrived as a twelve-point drift.
Read the noteIn the best-identified trial available, two fixed work-from-home days cut quit rates by a third with no measurable cost to performance or promotion. The design question was never how many days.
Read the noteGlobal engagement fell a point. Manager engagement fell five, and nine since 2022. In a distributed organisation the layer that collapsed is the layer that implements everything you write.
Read the noteOf the employers who publicly dropped degree requirements, 37% changed their hiring, 45% changed nothing, and 18% went backwards. Net effect: fewer than one in 700 hires.
Read the noteEmployers expect 39% of core skills to change by 2030 — and expect 11 workers in every 100 to need training they will not receive. The second number is the one to plan around.
Read the noteA repeatable exercise for deciding which recurring meetings earn their place. Includes the four questions we ask and the two we refuse to accept as answers.
Coming soonTeams don't fail to document because they're lazy. They fail because nobody knows who decides. Fix ownership first and the writing follows.
Coming soonA short structure — decision, evidence, risk, ask — that consistently outperforms a longer narrative. With three annotated examples.
Coming soonLocation-neutral onboarding that gives new hires the same first 30 days regardless of where they sit. What to write down, and in what order.
Coming soonTools
Included with the Lab Access Pass, and released individually to brief subscribers as they're finished.
Templates for decision logs, status updates, proposals, and handoffs — with annotated examples.
The spreadsheet we use in workshops to cut standing meetings, including the scoring criteria.
A pipeline template for sourcing, outreach, and follow-up that survives a twelve-week search.
One page for deciding what happens in person, what happens in writing, and who decides.
Monthly brief
What we found in audits, what changed in the remote labor market, and one template. Unsubscribe in a click.