Sharon Koifman had been running a remote-work recruitment agency for 13 years when the pandemic hit in March 2020. As panic and confusion spread over a suddenly mass remote workforce, Koifman, who’s based in Montreal, thought he could help. 

On the third day of lockdown, he began writing everything he had learned about remote work. “It took me two months,” he told The Logic at the Collision tech conference in Toronto. “All those years of knowledge accumulation, and I just wrote it.” His book, Surviving Remote Work, became an Amazon bestseller. His organization, DistantJob, has doubled in size to 53 staff since the start of the pandemic and he’s launched an online magazine for companies and workers coping with the shift to working from home. “We’re recruiting and now we’re educating how to do it better,” said Koifman. 

As members of Canada’s tech sector head home after this week’s Collision event, most will be returning to new ways of work. Though pandemic restrictions have been lifted for months, startup CEOs said they’re grappling with this big question: How should my company adapt to shifting worker priorities and a tight labour market?

Toronto-based cybersecurity company 1Password has been remote-first for more than a decade. Now, even as companies return to the office, it’s sticking with that arrangement, amid an intense global competition for tech talent. CEO Jeff Shiner said this lets the company cast a wider net and gives it an edge in recruiting.

Other tech companies are experimenting with hybrid approaches. Steve Munford, CEO of Vancouver-based digital identity startup Trulioo, is skeptical of the fully remote model, saying he thinks it’s “destined to fail,” Munford said. “I just don’t think you can innovate, build culture, problem-solve—all the things you need to do in a product-focused company.” The amount of time that employees have to spend in the office will depend on their team, he said. The company settled on the approach after finding its turnover rate among remote employees was higher than those who came into the office, Munford added. 

It’s clear companies are still figuring out how to strike the right balance. Jeffrey Fermin, marketing lead with WFHomie—which bills itself as an all-in-one resource for remote workforces—said the Toronto-based firm has gained a huge number of leads at Collision. In the span of 30 minutes on Thursday, Fermin said his team signed up about 40 prospective clients to add to a roster that already includes Wealthsimple, Meta and RBC. “It’s probably the best adoption we’ve had as a company.”