Work Has Changed. Here's What We Might Do About It | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Distributed work has permanently changed how teams collaborate, but many organizations have not yet adapted their processes. Figma’s research finds that product development is strained by three forces: more participants, greater geographic distance, and more simultaneous work. The strongest teams counter this complexity through transparency, shared understanding, and intentional connection.

Distributed Work Is Now Permanent

• In a Figma survey, 75% of designers in Europe and Asia said they work from home more often than before the pandemic.
• U.S. work-from-home days are now five times higher than in 2019.
• Teams meet in person less frequently, making remote collaboration a lasting feature of modern work rather than a temporary adjustment.

Product Development Faces Widespread Barriers

• Forrester Consulting found that 9 in 10 respondents experienced barriers during product development.
• Six in ten reported at least one of the three most significant obstacles:
  • Lack of alignment across teams
  • Difficulty making decisions
  • Lengthy development cycles
• These problems existed before the pandemic but have been intensified by distributed work and faster product-release expectations.

Three Forces Increasing Workplace Complexity

More People Involved

• Product development now includes designers, engineers, data specialists, security, content, marketing, product management, and executives.
• Broader participation brings more expertise and enables global collaboration.
• It also increases the number of perspectives, dependencies, and decisions that teams must coordinate.

More Distributed Work

• Physical distance can create emotional distance and make it harder to build trust.
• Teams lose some of the informal coordination that came from working together in the same office.
• Digital tools provide real-time editing, shared files, and multiplayer collaboration, but can also produce notification overload, fragmented discussions, and confusing comment threads.

More Work in Progress

• Companies are expected to release new versions of websites, applications, and digital products more frequently.
• The growing volume and speed of work can allow high-performing teams to achieve more, while leaving others overwhelmed and frustrated.

What Separates Effective Teams

• Successful collaboration requires more than simply placing everyone in the same digital file.
• High-performing teams distinguish themselves through:
  • Greater transparency
  • A shared understanding of goals and work
  • Intentional efforts to maintain connection and trust
• These behaviors help turn distributed collaboration from a “cooperative mess” into productive teamwork.

Teams should treat distributed work as a permanent operating model and deliberately invest in visibility, alignment, decision-making, and human connection rather than relying on digital tools alone.