BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — The pandemic turned the workforce on its head as many were forced to work from home. But does the future of work include more remote jobs?

At one Birmingham business, remote work is not only the norm — it’s the only option.

For CEO John Burdett and his team at Fast Slow Motion, the home office is the only office. 

All 125 employees work from nearly 30 states, helping clients with Salesforce and Hubspot platforms. From day one, the benefits of remote work outweighed the negatives. 

”We started the company nine and a half years ago as a fully remote company,” Burdett said. “We want our team members to have meaningful family lives as they work and so part of that is being around their family, part of that is being present, part of that is not commuting an hour and a half to work every day.”

A recent Pew Research study found that prior to the pandemic, seven percent of workers would have jobs that could be done remotely. Today, that number stands at 35 percent.

Dr. Patrick Murphy with the UAB Collat School of Business says remote work has staying power, but one size doesn’t fit all.

”Remote work is here to stay, however, it’s not going to be the best solution for all types of companies. There has to be a level of intentionality and purpose behind these decisions,” Murphy said.

Burdett agrees and says when done well, remote work not only makes sense, it also removes the limits and constraints of in-person work.

”It allowed us to find the right people that were the right fit and they could work anywhere,” Burdett said. “It works really, really well for us, but that doesn’t mean it works well for everybody.”

Burdett says even though Fast Slow Motion is fully remote, that doesn’t mean they don’t value face-to-face interactions. That’s why every year he flies his entire team to a location where they spend days together. This year, all 125 of his employees will gather in Orlando in a few months.