Remote work can unlock productivity or push burnout. Here’s how smart companies are planning for our ‘hybrid’ and WFH future.

• Executives have expressed concern over the rise of remote or hybrid work.
• It’s a risk for retention and innovation. It could be a boon to productivity. 
• “We’ve really dedicated ourselves to taking the leap,” said Zillow people chief Dan Spaulding.

Prashant Hegde, senior director of product development at Zillow, used to be skeptical of allowing remote work or having fully remote employees on his team or at the company. He told Insider he felt it was a muscle the company didn’t have, so it wouldn’t work well.

As a product lead, he spends his days with engineers, designers, and marketing and customer success teams to ensure Zillow is continuously improving its offering. After going fully remote during the pandemic, Hegde acknowledged the need for a new approach to work.

“When you go back, there’s going to be this tendency to go back to the old normal, where you don’t know or didn’t have to think much about what it felt like to be a remote employee,” he said, “and we can’t do that.”