Five years have passed since the famous March 16 when France locked itself behind its shutters during the COVID pandemic.

I’m proposing a questionnaire like those in certain magazines to evaluate your ability to work remotely, your remote work index. The questionnaire result should be reviewed every week.

Here is questionnaire version 1.0: remote work index.

Can I work remotely?

Main questionnaire (max 250 points)

  • I am experienced: this means I know how to organize myself alone, I have discipline, I have rigor, focus. If you have the slightest doubt, the answer is NO. +60 points.

  • I have accumulated enough information to work alone for a while. Don’t need anyone to know. +40 points

  • I have accumulated enough culture and sense of my organization or my group to feel like I belong to it. No social void, no isolation, no loneliness. Be careful, this is often difficult to detect. And I have a social life outside of work: acquaintances, interactions, conversations, etc. +30 points

  • I have enough experience to feed myself intellectually autonomously (introspection, monitoring): in the sense that I don’t need anyone to progress and that I have observed that I could progress alone. +30 points

  • No one is supposed to supervise me for my own good (help me progress, help me), in short I have no hierarchical relationship above me.+30 points

  • I have the information now and I can produce alone all week: develop code, make mockups, assemble elements, and I can do it alone (my job allows me to). Don’t need anyone to do it. +30 points

  • Everyone does remote work identically in my environment (everyone same rhythm, same practice). +30 points.

A few bonuses (max 90 points)

  • Every day, I spend at least one hour with connection conversation sharing on the content of what we’re making, envisioning, etc. This cannot be a meeting (they shouldn’t count in the time spent). I’m talking here about mob programming, pair something, etc. +20 points.

  • I equipped myself really well: screen, chair, camera and especially good sound. +20 points

  • No problem I always leave my camera on, and people see me living in my home. +10 points

  • I have a dedicated space for remote work (no other screen, no other person). +10points

  • Add +40 points if you have a conversation system like slack, mattermost, etc., and it is very active.(Very active I said! Dozens or several dozens of messages per day that you find interesting).

  • I have a co-working space +30 points where I go regularly.

Other bonuses (max 80 points)

  • Add +20 points if you spend 1 day of presence per week (no remote work) and this allows you to meet and have interactions with at least 10 people or 50% of my colleagues OR:
  • Add +60 points if you spend 2 days of presence per week (no remote work) and this allows you to meet at least 10 people or 50% of my colleagues OR:
  • Add +80 points if you spend 3 days of presence per week (no remote work) and this allows you to meet at least 10 people or 50% of my colleagues.

I have accumulated … points:

At least or more than 250 points.

Great. You can continue like this until next week and then take the test again. If this score persists for several consecutive weeks, it would be interesting for you to evaluate this score for your work colleagues and ensure that it’s the same case for them. If not, you lose -100 points.

Between 150 and 250 points.

Great. Everything is going fairly well. It’s just slower. Everything is slower. But maybe (and this is another debate) that’s exactly what our lives and the world need.

Below 150 points

Better to spend the week on site (naturally provided you’re not alone, but that’s another debate). I need to learn, to progress, to have interactions, to be observed.