Pilar Orti, All the World's A Workplace (Pre-Order)

To work from home, or not to work from home — that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of the commute,
Or to take arms against a sea of distractions,
And by working at home, end them.

Remote work burst into the public eye during the pandemic, as millions began working from home almost overnight. Its possibilities came into view, but so did its difficulties. Many organisations changed where people worked without having time to rethink how they worked together.

Now the debate often begins and ends with a question about location: home or office? Pilar Orti asks us to look further. What happens to trust when we can’t see each other working? How do we balance autonomy with connection, or flexibility with the need to switch off? And how can we make room for the different ways people think, communicate and contribute?

For over a decade, Pilar Orti has worked with remote teams and explored the possibilities of online collaboration. For this book, she brings in her background in theatre and running an ensemble, turning to playful reworkings of Shakespeare’s words to explore the human experience of remote work. Drawing on her years in consulting, first-hand experience of remote collaboration, research and endless podcast conversations about the future of work, she looks beyond the office-versus-home debate to the human tensions beneath it: autonomy and connection, flexibility and boundaries, visibility and trust.

From meetings and asynchronous communication to loneliness, leadership and the places we choose to work, Pilar shows how familiar tensions take on new forms when colleagues are apart. Along the way, she offers practical advice on making teamwork visible, managing technology overwhelm and building a sense of connection across distance.

All the World’s a Workplace invites us to move beyond the office-versus-home argument and design ways of working that help people and teams thrive, wherever they are.

Praise for All the World's A Workplace:

Jack Nilles

“If first hand accounts of working anywhere are what you’re after, look no further than All the World’s a Workplace. Pilar Orti has the depth and breadth of experiences to cover what you’re after, nuts and bolts included. With a sense of humor along the way.”

— Jack Nilles, Father of telecommuting/telework

Tim Burgess

“Through the words of Shakespeare, Pilar has created a refreshingly timeless lens to explore how remote work can be done well. Packed with advice and practical tips, she draws upon a unique blend of personal experience, best practices and insights accumulated from hundreds of conversations with industry experts.”

— Tim Burgess, Co-founder Shield GEO

David Burkus

“All the World's a Workplace is genuinely entertaining and extremely useful. Pilar Orti blends Shakespearean wit with practical wisdom and gives remote leaders a real framework for improving their team that they can put to work the very same day.”

— Dr. David Burkus, author of Best Team Ever

Mark Kilby

“All the World's a Workplace does something I didn't expect: it made me remember why I was attracted to the subject of remote work in the first place: it challenges how we think about all aspects of work. As a decade-long reflection of how work has shifted, it's thorough and honest. And weaving Shakespearean themes throughout wasn't just clever; it reminds us that work is human.”

— Mark Kilby, distributed agile leadership and career coach and co-author of From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver

Sumeet Gayathri Moghe

“All the World's a Workplace takes a genuine risk: it reads remote work through Shakespeare, and it earns that risk. Pilar Orti isn't forcing a gimmick. She's found a lens that strips away the tooling debates and gets at what's actually at stake — autonomy, connection, identity — the same tensions Hamlet and Helena wrestled with, just relocated to a Zoom call. Most books about remote work stop at defining and recommending processes. This one doesn't. It treats the loneliness, the performative presence, the return-to-office anxiety as human problems first, technical ones second. That ordering is correct, and it's rare. Read this if you lead a remote team and are tired of being told the answer to your distribution challenges is a better app.”

— Sumeet Gayathri Moghe, Principal Product Manager at Thoughtworks, Author of The ASync-First Manifesto

Eva Rimbau-Gilabert

“A thoughtful, well-grounded book. Using Shakespeare as a lens, Orti examines autonomy, identity, and connection as the real challenges of remote work. What I valued most is that she sidesteps the tired ‘remote good, office bad’ argument, instead drawing on a decade of hands-on experience to view remote, hybrid, and office work as genuine human dilemmas.”

— Eva Rimbau-Gilabert, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)

Jordi Serrano

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Remote, hybrid, distributed or flexible: Pilar Orti invites us to look beyond the labels and rethink what collaboration, autonomy, trust and being together really mean. All the World’s a Workplace is a thoughtful and refreshingly different reminder that work has changed much more than the people who do it.”

— Jordi Serrano, Co-founder, Future for Work Institute

Lisette Sutherland

“All the World’s a Workplace is a playful, creative masterpiece - a book written with such love and joy for remote work, theatre, learning, and the possibilities that open up when we work differently. Pilar brings the professionalism of an experienced trainer, the ear of a gifted podcaster, and the curiosity of someone who genuinely believes remote work can help us improve ourselves and the world. It’s an absolutely fun way to think more deeply about remote work; and you’ll learn something about Shakespeare along the way.”

— Lisette Sutherland, author of Work Together Anywhere and founder of Collaboration Superpowers

Wayne Turmel

“If to be remote or not to be remote is the question, this book contains the answers. Pilar Orti repurposes Shakespeare’s knowledge of humans to help you make good choices.”

— Wayne Turmel, Remote & Hybrid Leadership Expert and author

Nadia Vatalidis

“Pilar weaves timeless literary wit with profound wisdom into an effortless masterpiece. She did it again!”

— Nadia Vatalidis, Head of People at Todoist

Simon Wilson

“Remarkable in how this book moves the story on post-pandemic and fills out the picture. The structure really works, and the Shakespeare brings a fun, playful energy to a book that laces the personal with deep knowledge.”

— Simon Wilson, Certified Professional Facilitator (Master) and co-author of Virtual Meetings: A Practical Guide