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Companies would love to encourage remote work if it would work out well for them. They would save tons of money by reducing their office space, and they could l

Companies would love to encourage remote work if it would work out well for them. They would save tons of money by reducing their office space, and they could lower their salaries because they wouldn't need to support the big-city cost of living. So, why don't more companies encourage remote work, and why are some companies rolling back remote-work policies? Because they learned from experience that it doesn't work out well. Maybe some of them are just being stupid, but others are well-established companies that have been very good at running their businesses. I've worked at a company that had very flexible working hours and a generous work-from-home policy, and now I work somewhere that doesn't. I much prefer the situation I'm in now -- my coworkers are much more responsive when there is a problem, it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, etc. Ever worked at a company that has office locations across the country (or the world), and tried to conduct important meetings with people in those other offices over Skype or the phone, or even expensive telepresence equipment? It kinda sucks. Imagine that every meeting, and every interaction with your coworkers, and every "whiteboarding" session was like that. That's not a world in which business is easy to conduct -- in fact, it's so difficult that companies are willing to forgo the massive cost savings they could realize by encouraging remote work.

jcoffland 9y ago
The perceived need to continually conduct meeting is itself a problem.
ghthor 9y ago
I think part of the in presence problems can be fixed with better virtual spaces. If slack was more like an mmorpg with buildings and rooms that you physically navigated in then teams could start building better camaraderie by having an avatar and a space that's there's. VR tech will take this to the next level and we'll have virtual offices where remote workers can all meet, collaborate, and build there own spaces to work together within. Part of me hopes that valve is working on this already, bigscreen already is an example of the beginnings of a virtual office space.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  What is hard to escape are time zones. In practice what happens is you have a few offices in your continental timezones, and a bunch in other continents timezones, and because of team purpose churn, different continents will have to start working with each other. It doesn't matter how fancy the equipment is when you are asleep and awake at different times. You get 1 day (vs 10 minute) response times and nobody really wants to schedule a meeting because you have to get up very early or stay up very late, well out of working hours. Something that would be 1 day of back and forth becomes 1 week. It starts becoming very frustrating. On top of that with tech, the tech worker hotspots are north america, europe and india/china. And each band have big differences in timezones. It's difficult to say 'we will only hire in the american timezones', because there are barely any tech workers south of the USA.
  - imtringued 9y ago
    I don't understand the timezone argument. If your employer wants you to work from 9 to 5 in the timezone of the employer then you either don't take the job or you adjust your schedule to the timezone of the employer. This may rule out australian employees working for an american company but it doesn't rule out NYC employees working for a Washington DC company.
    - twblalock 9y ago
      Why would high-quality employees be willing to do that, when they can get jobs at other companies that operate during normal working hours in their timezones? You can either be flexible about working hours for people in different timezones, or you can end up with people who couldn't do any better than take hours they don't want to work.
chmaynard 9y ago
I have a sense that remote employment works best for everyone concerned when the company workforce is entirely distributed (no offices anywhere). A level playing field avoids the "remote workers are second-class citizens" problem.
Tehchops 9y ago
> it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, etc. That's a lot less a problem with telecommuting work and a lot more a problem with your company not being able to hire effectively. If employees are incapable of being responsive, or even productive, without someone over their shoulder, I'm really not seeing where that is any issue but one of personal responsibility/capability, and if that's a question mark in enough employees to render a telecommute policy ineffective, I have to wonder how these people make it through the door.
- jandrese 9y ago
  Even if your company was able to hire only people who work well from home, all of those other people have to work somewhere. Plus, how is a recruiter supposed to measure someone's productivity at home?
  - Tehchops 9y ago
    > Even if your company was able to hire only people who work well from home, all of those other people have to work somewhere. Well sure. I don't think going completely decentralized is something most larger orgs can embrace yet. But there's no reason that some engineering staff could not perform their work remotely. If on-site staff complain it hampers their productivity, then I ask why productivity is predicated on the "drive-by" model of engagement, which is universally disruptive to programming flow. Most companies are paying for a combination of Slack/HipChat and WebEx/Zoom/Bluejeans, and you should make use of them liberally. > Plus, how is a recruiter supposed to measure someone's productivity at home? They're not. Their job is to ingress a pool of potentially suitable candidates into the hiring process based on experience, acumen, and career interests. The job of determining productivity, and ultimately fit into the environment, is up to the hiring manager/s and the interview process. If you're already conceding that you can't determine whether an employee will be a productive contributor in their potential employment environment, remote or otherwise, that's a problem with your hiring process.

jcoffland 9y ago

The perceived need to continually conduct meeting is itself a problem.

ghthor 9y ago

I think part of the in presence problems can be fixed with better virtual spaces. If slack was more like an mmorpg with buildings and rooms that you physically navigated in then teams could start building better camaraderie by having an avatar and a space that's there's. VR tech will take this to the next level and we'll have virtual offices where remote workers can all meet, collaborate, and build there own spaces to work together within. Part of me hopes that valve is working on this already, bigscreen already is an example of the beginnings of a virtual office space.

woolvalley 9y ago
What is hard to escape are time zones. In practice what happens is you have a few offices in your continental timezones, and a bunch in other continents timezones, and because of team purpose churn, different continents will have to start working with each other. It doesn't matter how fancy the equipment is when you are asleep and awake at different times. You get 1 day (vs 10 minute) response times and nobody really wants to schedule a meeting because you have to get up very early or stay up very late, well out of working hours. Something that would be 1 day of back and forth becomes 1 week. It starts becoming very frustrating. On top of that with tech, the tech worker hotspots are north america, europe and india/china. And each band have big differences in timezones. It's difficult to say 'we will only hire in the american timezones', because there are barely any tech workers south of the USA.
- imtringued 9y ago
  I don't understand the timezone argument. If your employer wants you to work from 9 to 5 in the timezone of the employer then you either don't take the job or you adjust your schedule to the timezone of the employer. This may rule out australian employees working for an american company but it doesn't rule out NYC employees working for a Washington DC company.
  - twblalock 9y ago
    Why would high-quality employees be willing to do that, when they can get jobs at other companies that operate during normal working hours in their timezones? You can either be flexible about working hours for people in different timezones, or you can end up with people who couldn't do any better than take hours they don't want to work.

chmaynard 9y ago

I have a sense that remote employment works best for everyone concerned when the company workforce is entirely distributed (no offices anywhere). A level playing field avoids the "remote workers are second-class citizens" problem.

Tehchops 9y ago

> it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, etc. That's a lot less a problem with telecommuting work and a lot more a problem with your company not being able to hire effectively. If employees are incapable of being responsive, or even productive, without someone over their shoulder, I'm really not seeing where that is any issue but one of personal responsibility/capability, and if that's a question mark in enough employees to render a telecommute policy ineffective, I have to wonder how these people make it through the door.

jandrese 9y ago
Even if your company was able to hire only people who work well from home, all of those other people have to work somewhere. Plus, how is a recruiter supposed to measure someone's productivity at home?
- Tehchops 9y ago
  > Even if your company was able to hire only people who work well from home, all of those other people have to work somewhere. Well sure. I don't think going completely decentralized is something most larger orgs can embrace yet. But there's no reason that some engineering staff could not perform their work remotely. If on-site staff complain it hampers their productivity, then I ask why productivity is predicated on the "drive-by" model of engagement, which is universally disruptive to programming flow. Most companies are paying for a combination of Slack/HipChat and WebEx/Zoom/Bluejeans, and you should make use of them liberally. > Plus, how is a recruiter supposed to measure someone's productivity at home? They're not. Their job is to ingress a pool of potentially suitable candidates into the hiring process based on experience, acumen, and career interests. The job of determining productivity, and ultimately fit into the environment, is up to the hiring manager/s and the interview process. If you're already conceding that you can't determine whether an employee will be a productive contributor in their potential employment environment, remote or otherwise, that's a problem with your hiring process.