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"...strong, rational and tangible reasons why an employee needs to be based on-site, rather than intangibles like culture, narrative or norms." What. This sen
by trjordan 11y ago
"...strong, rational and tangible reasons why an employee needs to be based on-site, rather than intangibles like culture, narrative or norms."
What.
This sentiment is exactly what's wrong with trying to push for more remote work. I don't think we have the tools, either technical or managerial, to build fully-remote companies that are as effective as in-person companies. There are niches where this is true, but they're not particularly fun places to work: call centers come to mind. Companies are living, breathing, organic organizations.
The fundamental assumption that I'd challenge is that productivity towards a goal is what's hold back most organizations (or divisions / teams). I think productivity can be a bottleneck, but most of what makes companies successful is doing the right thing, not the most things. (Otherwise, startups could never compete.) As of 2015, I don't believe we have ways to get everybody in a company aligned in ways to make that happen. One of the most powerful ways of getting people working on the right things is to have them hang out with each other. Sitting next to each other, getting coffee with each other, BSing with each other before / after meetings, etc. There's a lot of unstructured communication that's simply lost, even with tools like Slack.
If that direction is there, then you can start to complain about things like lost productivity and commutes. But if there's isn't a strong sense of direction and consensus on where we're going, it doesn't matter how fast everybody is running.
(FWIW, I put my money where my mouth is on this one. I did a 3.5 hour daily commute for 2.5 years, in spite of an office 5 minutes away, because it made things better for me team.)
- chuckcode 11y agoI would love to see better tools to help people collaborate remotely, or even just from a different building on the same campus. Certainly the rise of applications like slack and github show that the demand is there. Personally I'm surprised that most businesses haven't invested more time in collaboration tools since labor is such a big portion of the service economy's expenses. I do think that remote work requires some culture and managerial changes as well but the success of many popular open source projects with remote teams shows that it certainly is possible.
- BjoernKW 11y ago> One of the most powerful ways of getting people working on the right things is to have them hang out with each other There are blatant examples to the contrary: Just look at most large organizations. Getting people to work on the right things isn't a matter of spending time together, it's a matter of company culture! In a company that's constrained by processes and pointless bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake hardly anything ever will get done, much less so the right things. Long commutes are not a sustainable way of living and working. If we don't have the tools for making remote work a realistic option for most companies we simply need better tools.
- ladzoppelin 11y agoYou cant have people drive 2.5 hours to work however that does not make the parent comment incorrect. Working together is the better option and we need better tools for remote workers.
- joesmo 11y agoI think the many successful businesses and open source projects that exist prove that not only do we have the right tools, but that real, successful, big projects can be and are completed with some or all of the contributors being remote.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]