The Problem with Remote Work

Remote work doesn’t make people worse at their jobs. It makes the signals of good work harder to see.

I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to reconcile company leaders demanding more butts in seats and teams quietly resisting because flexibility is now a non-negotiable. We live in this messy hybrid era where visibility is currency, and the exchange rate is uneven depending on where you sit.

I’ve been remote for over twenty-five years… long before Slack or Teams, long before the webcam halo lights, long before the political arguments about who should work where. I’ve also led teams across offices and time zones. And in all that time, one truth has never changed:

Good work does not speak for itself. Not now, not before, not for remote workers, and to be completely honest, not even for people in the office.

Excellent work must become visible.

1. Visibility Used to Be Automatic

There was a time when showing up was half the job… Not because it was virtuous by itself, but because it created ambient proof of your value. People saw you grabbing a conference room, walking with purpose, answering questions in the hallway, stepping into an ad-hoc brainstorm, and giving a quick status update before a meeting started. You didn’t have to orchestrate visibility, it just happened as a side effect of being in the same physical space.

Remote workers don’t get any of that. Instead, they work inside a vacuum of context. When you’re not physically present, there’s no friction but also no gravity. Nothing pulls leaders toward your work unless you intentionally create those signals. Periodically, you get seen but mostly without the context of daily activity or touchpoints.

2. Remote Workers Go Invisible Because the System Pushes Them There

Remote invisibility isn’t tied to performance. Disappearing is tied to distance. If you’re not in the room, leaders don’t see your micro-leadership behaviors in the way you steady a project, guide a conversation, calm a tense moment, redirect toward the goal, and solve quietly without fanfare.

Meanwhile, your in-office peers are accumulating micro-proof all day. No one person or group is at fault. The system is.

Hybrid workplaces, as they exist today, were built to accommodate remote workers, not to support them. The improvisational nature of hybrid (some people in, some out, random attendance patterns) makes it all worse.

That’s why so many remote contributors quietly feel punished for preferring flexibility. And why so many leaders feel like they’re guessing.

3. Invisible Work Leads to Missed Opportunities

Unfortunately, when your work is invisible, your professional development becomes more difficult.

This is not malicious. It’s a function of not being able to see enough of your impact to gauge your readiness for the next step.

Remote workers tell me things like:

“I’m delivering. I’m consistent. But I’m not getting pulled into bigger conversations.”
“I keep learning about decisions after the fact.”
“I see my peers getting stretch work that I could easily handle.”

I have experienced these myself.

Here’s what happens next (or doesn’t happen):

fewer opportunities
smaller sphere of influence
delayed promotions
reduced trust in your long-term role
“not top of mind” moments that sting

It’s deeply unfair. But it’s also deeply solvable.

4. Leaders Don’t Want Remote Workers to Go Invisible, But They Don’t Have a System Either

This part surprises remote teams every time. Leaders aren’t trying to ignore their remote talent. They’re overwhelmed. Hybrid leadership is a job no one saw coming. It’s hard to:

spot disengagement through a screen
know who’s struggling without visible cues
run meetings that are fair to everyone
prevent proximity bias
provide clarity without micromanaging
build culture across locations

When leaders don’t have a system, they default to … well, the default. They look at whoever is physically around them. Visibility becomes a byproduct of geography rather than contribution.

This is why remote visibility isn’t a personality issue. It’s an infrastructure issue.

5. Visibility Isn’t Self-Promotion. It’s Context Creation.

Remote workers often resist the idea of “marketing themselves.” I did. I hated the idea of extra effort to just deliver the work I already did. It feels like it should be unnecessary. Or, to go further, to brag about my work. But visibility done well isn’t bragging.

Making your work visible is a set of behaviors that make your work legible across distance. It sounds like:

“Here’s what I’m working on this week.”
“Quick update: we hit a barrier; here’s the plan.”
“Here’s what I completed today and why it matters.”

These behaviors build trust faster than proximity ever did. This is how remote visibility really works: Say what you’re going to do. Do it. Say what you did — and why it mattered.

Simple. Respectful. Efficient.

This pattern builds a reputation that compounds.

6. The Fix Isn’t More Time in the Office — It’s Better Remote Operations

Some leaders are pulling back toward office-first policies because they’re trying to solve a system failure with a geographic solution. But geography doesn’t create trust, and this demand for RTO is so costly.

So how do we fix the visibility and trust problem? The organizations that thrive this decade will be the ones that treat remote visibility as a design challenge. They’ll build systems for clarity:

clear work agreements
predictable communication rhythms
visibility rounds (the modern MBWA – Manage by Walking Around )
meeting norms that level the field
performance clarity frameworks
hybrid cadence that’s actually predictable
advancement paths that don’t depend on proximity

Remote work isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the talent exodus from companies that ignore this truth.

7. For Remote Workers, Visibility Is the New Career Advantage

When you learn how to make your work visible without overexplaining, oversharing, or overworking, your career accelerates.

You’ll know it’s working when you get…

pull-ins instead of chasing
stretch work instead of leftovers
influence instead of guessing
safety instead of anxiety
a path instead of a question mark

You stop being “the remote one” and start being “the reliable one.” The trusted one. The one people want in the room, virtual or otherwise.

If this is resonating, you can start with something simple: my Remote Morning Launch Sheet the daily habit that turns invisible work into visible progress.
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8. Remote Workers Don’t Need to Work Harder, they need to work on being Seen

This is the part that can mean freedom. You don’t have to:

become louder
add more meetings
be constantly online
over-prepare
prove yourself twice

You do need a strategy that makes your work unmistakable, near or from a distance.

Remote visibility isn’t about “showing off.” It’s about making sure the right people understand your impact. That’s “showing up”. And once you get here, the journey forward gets easier.

If you want the systems, habits, and credibility upgrades that keep remote professionals visible and valued, join my weekly Remote Leadership Notes.
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