REMOTE Score: How We Measure Remote Work Culture

The REMOTE Score is Remotivated's proprietary framework for evaluating what actually matters in distributed work environments.

What is REMOTE Score?

The REMOTE Score is a framework specifically built to assess what actually matters for distributed teams. The acronym represents six critical dimensions of remote-first culture:

R — Retention
Are employees choosing to stay?

E — Engagement
Are employees invested in their work?

M — Morale
Does the team believe in where they're going?

O — Onboarding
Are new hires set up for success?

T — Technology
Do tools enable or obstruct great work?

E — Equity
Is opportunity distributed fairly?

Each dimension is scored and weighted to produce an overall REMOTE Score from 0-100.

Why REMOTE Score Exists

We measure everything. Revenue per employee. Time-to-hire. Net Promoter Score. Quarterly OKRs broken into weekly KPIs broken into daily standups. We've built dashboards for dashboards.

But ask most companies about their culture... and you get vibes and platitudes.

What gets measured gets managed.

Even quantitative metrics like cost of turnover and time-to-hire are generally overlooked. There are just a few more dots to connect between people metrics and revenue. It's undoubtedly worth the effort, but there's enough friction that companies often can't be bothered.

If companies are ignoring easy quantitative metrics, it's not surprising to see that they are doing even worse about tracking qualitative things like culture. Sometimes it feels like they don't even want to know—as if they don't actually have a culture problem if they never give employees a forum to vent.

REMOTE Score asks: "Is this environment designed for people to do their best work?"

Until now, the only way to answer that question was to waste your time applying, interviewing, and then working for a company that doesn't deserve you.

We built REMOTE Score to cut through that fog.

The Six Dimensions

Retention

What it measures: The likelihood of employees to stay with an organization over time. Your Retention Score reflects how effectively your organization adds value to the lives of your employees.

Why it matters:

The cost of replacing an employee typically ranges from 50% to 200% of their annual salary. Yet most companies don't know what to do with retention information. They recognize it's important but see those jaw-dropping turnover numbers and choose to bury their heads in the sand.

If you've ever gotten a higher offer from another company and your employer failed to match it—that's exhibit A. If you actually do the math, it is almost always cheaper to retain talent. But no one is doing the math.

What we look for:

• Compensation alignment — Are employees paid fairly relative to market?
• Career growth — Is there a visible path forward?
• Cultural fit — Do employees feel they belong?
• Work-life integration — Does the job enhance or drain their life?
• Leadership trust — Do employees believe in where the company is going?

Engagement

What it measures: The commitment of an individual or team to helping the organization achieve its goals. Your Engagement Score measures how invested employees are in supporting their team, the broader business, and their own professional objectives.

Why it matters:

• Only 21% of employees globally are engaged in their work
• In the U.S., that number is slightly better at 31%, but it's at a 10-year low
• Disengaged employees cost the global economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity annually

Being disengaged for a month is a bad week at work. Being disengaged for years is how people wake up one day and realize they've built a career they don't even like.

In low-engagement companies, the few people who are engaged get punished for it. They pick up dropped balls, smooth over conflicts, and quietly absorb the emotional labor their disengaged teammates won't touch.

Top-quartile engaged teams see 23% higher profitability, 51% lower turnover, and 68% better employee wellbeing.

What we look for:

70% of team engagement is determined by the manager. Not the CEO. Not company culture initiatives. Your direct manager.

• Role clarity — Knowing exactly what's expected
• Connection to purpose — Understanding how your work impacts others
• Growth opportunities — Seeing a path forward
• Recognition — Feeling seen for contributions
• Autonomy — Having control over how you work

Morale

What it measures: The capacity to maintain belief in the organization and its goals, even in the face of opposition or hardship. Organizations with truly great morale can endure moments of low spirits without stakeholders losing faith in the mission.

Why it matters:

A team can be "happy" and still have low morale.

• Happy: "Today was easy."
• High morale: "Even if today is hard, we're still headed somewhere worth going."

Morale is the story your team tells itself when information is missing—and in distributed teams, the "story gap" fills fast. The best remote-first companies make transparency the default, eliminating the opportunity for everyone to come up with their own theory for what's going on behind the curtain.

People can handle hard realities. They can't handle mystery.

The people most responsible for holding the line—middle managers—are themselves running on empty. 71% report burnout, more than any other group. When manager morale breaks, it cascades. Research shows that manager well-being directly transfers to their teams.

What we look for:

• Transparency — Clear, honest communication from leadership
• Work-life balance — Sustainable pace without chronic overwork
• Psychological safety — Freedom to speak up without fear
• Shared values — Alignment on what the company stands for
• Team connection — Genuine relationships with colleagues

Onboarding

What it measures: The process of integrating new employees into the organization. This is critical in any organization but particularly in remote environments, where new hires can easily fall through the cracks and feel isolated without intentional support.

Why it matters:

• 20% of employee turnover happens within the first 45 days
• 33% of new hires start looking for a new job within six months
• Only 12% of employees say their company does a great job of onboarding
• Remote-only onboarding trails hybrid by 10 percentage points in satisfaction

By the time most companies notice someone's struggling, they've already mentally quit.

Orientation is logistics: "Here's your laptop, here's Slack, here's the employee handbook."

Onboarding is integration: "Here's how we actually work. Here's who to ask when you're stuck. Here's what success looks like in your role—not in the job description, but in practice."

Remote companies that get onboarding right engineer what in-office companies get for free: context, connection, and clarity.

What we look for:

• Structured buddy programs — Microsoft research found onboarding buddies increase satisfaction by 23% at one week and 36% at 90 days
• Front-loaded human connection — Scheduled facetime with key teammates in week one
• Explicit documentation — Not just what people do, but how decisions get made and where real conversations happen
• Clear success criteria — Defined 30/60/90 day expectations
• Manager investment — Dedicated time for new hire development

Technology & Support

What it measures: Satisfaction with existing software tools and support processes. This is crucial for understanding overall productivity and has a major impact on job satisfaction—especially for remote teams where technology is the workplace.

Why it matters:

91% of employees report being frustrated with their workplace technology. Not "mildly annoyed." Frustrated.

Most companies measure technology like a utility (uptime, system status, ticket volume). But employees don't experience "uptime." They experience friction.

For remote companies, technology IS the workplace:

• The conference room is Zoom
• The hallway is Slack
• The filing cabinet is your knowledge base
• The front desk is your ticketing system

When any of it fails, you're not inconvenienced—you're stranded.

The data is stark: 57% of employees say their software makes them less productive, 49% say it causes stress, and 48% say it's negatively impacted their mental health.

Bad tech doesn't just slow work down. It lowers the ceiling on how good the job can feel.

What we look for:

• Modern, integrated tools — Systems that work together, not against each other
• Responsive IT support — Help when you need it, not days later
• Appropriate complexity — Tools that match the team's needs without overwhelm
• Boundary respect — Technology that doesn't invade personal time
• Continuous improvement — Willingness to adopt better solutions

Equity

What it measures: Whether opportunity, compensation, and success are distributed fairly across the organization. Equity is infrastructure: transparent rules, fair compensation, shared success, and equal access to opportunity for everyone.

Why it matters:

• 62% of employees don't know how their compensation is calculated
• Only 54% say they're paid fairly (49% for women vs. 59% for men)
• 96% of executives notice in-office employees' contributions more than remote employees
• Only 18% of U.S. employees have any ownership stake in their employer

Remote work makes inequity brutally visible. In-office employees pick up context by proximity. Remote employees only get what's explicitly shared. The question isn't whether your company has flexible work policies—it's who can use them without paying a career tax.

McKinsey's research found women who work remotely three or more days per week are less likely to be promoted than men in similar arrangements. Flexibility isn't a perk for everyone—it's often a necessity.

Equity reveals whether your other investments compound... or cancel out.

• Retention without equity just means people stay stuck.
• Engagement without equity burns into resentment.
• Morale without equity is not evenly distributed.
• Onboarding without equity becomes a fast tour of "how things really work here."
• Technology without equity turns into surveillance.

What we look for:

• Pay transparency — Clear compensation philosophy, visible levels, understood criteria for increases
• Access equity — Documented decisions, rotating visibility, structured mentorship
• Flexibility equity — Policies everyone can use without career penalty
• Recognition equity — Visibility for all contributions, including "glue work"
• Ownership stake — Profit sharing, equity grants, or meaningful participation in success

How Scores Are Calculated

Each company's REMOTE Score is derived from multiple data sources:

1. Public Data — Employee reviews, LinkedIn insights, news coverage
2. Company Documentation — Published policies, career pages, benefits information
3. Certification Data — Companies pursuing REMOTE Certification provide detailed evidence

Scores are reviewed regularly to reflect changes in company practices and employee sentiment.

Using REMOTE Score

For Job Seekers

• Filter by score to find companies that prioritize distributed work
• Compare dimensions to find what matters most to you
• Ask better questions in interviews based on score insights

For Companies

• Benchmark against industry peers
• Identify gaps in your remote culture
• Earn certification to stand out to top talent

Help Us Improve REMOTE Scores

Work at a company you'd like to see rated? Your feedback helps us calculate accurate REMOTE Scores and helps other job seekers find great remote companies.

Submit a Company Review

Start Exploring

Ready to find companies that match your remote work values?

Browse Remote Jobs

Explore Top Companies

The REMOTE Score framework was developed by Remotivated based on research originally published in the Work is a Verb newsletter.