It’s interesting to see return to office mandates becoming increasingly common. 👀

The pandemic offered the chance for flexibility and freedom - employees working from home and still getting their work done. Now, so much of that is being reversed.

As a big believer in remote work, I find this confusing. Rather than measuring bums on seats, why don't more companies measure output? If an employee spends 10 hours at the office, it doesn't reveal anything about what they achieved during those hours. Another employee who spends less time at their desk, could have been insanely productive and added 10X the value to the company. 📈 Which employee would you hire?

My suspicion is that many companies don't have accurate, nor reliable, ways to measure employee output, and therefore find themselves reverting to the old method of visibility - if someone is present, the assumption is that they're working. We all know examples of where that’s not the case.

Thankfully, there are companies who are embracing remote work and benefiting from it too. Take Atlassian, Dropbox, and Mozilla to name a few. (See more in news.)💡

Recently, I met Michael Rebiffe from IQ Gecko at a networking event. I was pleased to learn that remote work there isn’t a perk for employees - it’s considered a competitive advantage! 👏

Read on for more on IQ Gecko, Ubud as a destination, and a simple trick for working wherever you are in the world. 😄

2019 was an epic year. It was the year before the digital nomad boom. Before the pandemic made travelling tricky.

My husband and I quit our jobs that year. We started a remote business and went travelling. 🌴

But the thing was, we wanted to go to different places. We didn’t want to get stuck in all the same nomad destinations. (Even though we love Bali and Thailand!)

We wanted to go to places where the Wi-Fi sucks. But how can you run a business like that?

We forgot about fast Wi-FI

Digital nomads typically don’t go to places where the Wi-Fi isn’t speedy. Except we did. When travelling, we’d often deal with painfully slow internet.

One time in Ella, Sri Lanka, where the Wi-Fi was super slow, I tethered during a video call to New Zealand — it was 4 am. I was in an Airbnb on a cliff face surrounded by the forest and monkeys playing in the trees. There was no place I would have rather been. And I had no issues on my call. Inspired and relaxed, I was also more productive than ever.

With a big data plan, we didn’t need to worry. It was more than enough to last us the entire month. Calls, streaming, all our work – done. ✅

Hot tip: Get yourself a mega data plan

If you’re travelling and working, get yourself plenty of data. That’s the simple solution.

Most countries have huge data plan options – helping you stay connected wherever you are.

There are also dongles and pocket Wi-FI devices that can keep you connected wherever you are.

Yes there are exceptions, but we soon realised you can basically work anywhere in the world.

Assuming you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone. 🌴🤙

IQ Gecko is a white-label loyalty and customer-engagement platform helping brands capture every transaction, unify their customer data, and deliver personalised experiences at scale.


Internally developed technologies like SaleGrabber interface effortlessly with any Point of Sale (POS) system, capturing rich and granular in-store transaction data alongside digital interactions captured from web, app, and cloud sources.

Being a remote-first organisation provides IQ Gecko endless benefits

• Access to exceptional specialists, wherever they live

• Faster progress through flexible, asynchronous collaboration

• Broader time zone coverage

• A culture defined by autonomy, trust, and deep focus

• Alignment with clients across multiple time zones around the world

• A work/life culture with great flexibility

“Remote work is how we work smarter, move faster, and deliver better outcomes for the marketing teams and brands we partner with.”

At Remote Squad, we love to hear it! 🙌

Have suggestions? Or want to feature as a success story? Feel free to email me: [email protected]

Until next time,
Chloe 👋