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I found that almost everyone quickly got used to working remotely - at least within the first few months. We hired more on the senior end, so that might also be

I found that almost everyone quickly got used to working remotely - at least within the first few months. We hired more on the senior end, so that might also be a factor. Managing performance and setting expectations is probably a little more important than in-office work. Learning how to "yield the floor" for more extroverted team members and how to find a quiet moment to pop in for more introverted members is something that remote workers _need_ to learn quickly. Offering remote employees a stipend for a co-working space is something we do today at FullStory. Some of my team members choose to make use of that to get more socialization. Others will just occasionally work from coffee shops. I think that managers are the ones who struggle most in the conversion - you need to trust that people are getting work done and that can be difficult.

numbsafari 7y ago
The stipend for co-working is a good one. In general, if you are hiring remote, it’s good to plan to do things like this, plus have stipends for office supplies / equipment (buy people a nice chair and/or standing desk, send them good headphones). Replace the “free lunch and beer” budget with things like that. It helps with retention and a sense of belonging and team identity... eg, if you send a “branded gift box” with AirPods Pro to each team member unannounced, they’ll probably really appreciate that, plus you can toss in some swag, like a branded case or bag, t-shirts. Just because folks are remote doesn’t mean you should treat them any less like an employee. Retention is key.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Agreed. It’s a nice touch to receive swag as remote worker. At my company they often forget the remote people with stuff like this. But most people are onsite and only a few are remote.
  - dvtrn 7y ago
    At my company they often forget the remote people with stuff like this. This is my biggest fear having recently been asked to make a few infrastructure changes to allow remote workers. My company is beginning to allow support staff to work and connect to key systems remotely, and while I can’t say how effective the individual workers will be, after a few years here (and soon about to depart) I have to place a vote of no confidence in my leadership to actually put any meaningful weight behind their words of “we are now supporting remote workers”. the reality is they’re now allowing remote workers in a part of the company that sees the most attrition, has the lowest promotion numbers and historically has not received near the same treatment as other departments. I don’t have confidence they’ll be well supported judging from how other remote teams are “supported”, mine included.
nickbauman 7y ago
Matches my experience. Except I operate a tech co-op; the employees are owners or potential owners. Management serves at the pleasure of the owners. Really increases the trust factor. This way management is just another skill, not a rank. That also sets those expectations properly.
- vsareto 7y ago
  How many tech co-ops have you run into? This is a rare thing from my experience and I need to read more about it
  - nickbauman 7y ago
    There are a couple I've run into. Technically any ESOP company has some degree of employee ownership, but is actually just a company with a different sort of pension plan. I believe in full employee ownership. You really have to believe in the owner-worker model and commit to it. And you can't have owner-workers who are only there because of the benefits: there's a burden in running a company. Management works for you, not the other way around. So you have to be really responsible. Everyone is counting on you. You don't abdicate any decisions.
- yurishimo 7y ago
  Super curious to hear about your co-op experience and any docs you may have about getting started. If I ever come up with an idea that gains traction I would like to run a co-op model.
  - nickbauman 7y ago
    I read the book "The Company We Keep" by John Abrams, about creating employee-owned company because I was interested in taking my software engineering skills to something other than the Startup/VC or consulting firm model of getting people to work together for a common purpose and still be profitable. I also wanted to run a business where I'm not screwing the people that work for me. Whether that's a founder taking a few (hundred) million and everyone else losing their jobs eventually or a "staff augmentation" consulting firm where you have someone taking 3 out of seven dollars per hour from you for processing a check. Then I discovered the Mondragon Corporation, the largest co-operative in the world, with 13 billion in revenues per year. MC has launched and average of 3 startups every year in an 80+ year track record. Only two have ever failed. So far the co-op shows both promise and pitfalls in ways I didn't anticipate. I think the promise overrides the pitfalls so far. I get to work with people whose little kids I want to see go to college.
cosmodisk 7y ago
Your last sentence pretty much summarises 90% of reasons why some companies won't go remote route. As a manager, one needs to understand what his team is working on and how they do it. If a person can't understand underlying work or processes,then hi shouldn't be a manager.Also,while one doesn't necessarily need to be a dev to be able to manage devs, ability to understand problems and time required to solve them is crucial.
- dmos62 7y ago
  > one needs to understand what his team is working on and how they do it A project I'm working on is solving this with regular check-ins, where everyone summarizes what they were+are+will be doing. I'm interested in how others approach this.
  - house9-2 7y ago
    Right, standard _agile_ daily stand up should help. My team does daily video stand up (it is good to see the team face to face each day) but if too many timezones involved slack channel updates can work just fine. Remote teams are ideally communicating with each other throughout each day.
    - hackinthebochs 7y ago
      >My team does daily video stand up Imagine forcing remote people to get presentable just for a 10 minute daily standup
      - ptcampbell 7y ago
        Only one half of you needs to be.
        dmos62 7y ago
        Also you only care about optics. You can wing olfaction.
throwaway2765 7y ago
Managing is very hard. We had a remote worker that we’re 90% sure took a second job and did very little for us for a month before we let him go. He seemed very honest - guess the work was boring and he thought he could double-dip?
- muratk 7y ago
  Curious—didn't that go fairly well? You noticed that the one thing that matters—outcomes—wasn't there, and you ended it. If that person had been co-located, they'd have pretended to work and otherwise browsed facebook when no one is watching. You might have liked them, because such a nice guy to talk to and so on, and had given them a second chance and eventually decided that … outcomes are not there. I did bad hires, remote and otherwise. I don't think there is a way to avoid that. Our insight from interviewing is just so limited. You give your best when screening, and then you gotta make a leap. And deal with crap when it happens, as it always will.

numbsafari 7y ago

The stipend for co-working is a good one. In general, if you are hiring remote, it’s good to plan to do things like this, plus have stipends for office supplies / equipment (buy people a nice chair and/or standing desk, send them good headphones). Replace the “free lunch and beer” budget with things like that. It helps with retention and a sense of belonging and team identity... eg, if you send a “branded gift box” with AirPods Pro to each team member unannounced, they’ll probably really appreciate that, plus you can toss in some swag, like a branded case or bag, t-shirts. Just because folks are remote doesn’t mean you should treat them any less like an employee. Retention is key.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Agreed. It’s a nice touch to receive swag as remote worker. At my company they often forget the remote people with stuff like this. But most people are onsite and only a few are remote.
- dvtrn 7y ago
  At my company they often forget the remote people with stuff like this. This is my biggest fear having recently been asked to make a few infrastructure changes to allow remote workers. My company is beginning to allow support staff to work and connect to key systems remotely, and while I can’t say how effective the individual workers will be, after a few years here (and soon about to depart) I have to place a vote of no confidence in my leadership to actually put any meaningful weight behind their words of “we are now supporting remote workers”. the reality is they’re now allowing remote workers in a part of the company that sees the most attrition, has the lowest promotion numbers and historically has not received near the same treatment as other departments. I don’t have confidence they’ll be well supported judging from how other remote teams are “supported”, mine included.

nickbauman 7y ago

Matches my experience. Except I operate a tech co-op; the employees are owners or potential owners. Management serves at the pleasure of the owners. Really increases the trust factor. This way management is just another skill, not a rank. That also sets those expectations properly.

vsareto 7y ago
How many tech co-ops have you run into? This is a rare thing from my experience and I need to read more about it
- nickbauman 7y ago
  There are a couple I've run into. Technically any ESOP company has some degree of employee ownership, but is actually just a company with a different sort of pension plan. I believe in full employee ownership. You really have to believe in the owner-worker model and commit to it. And you can't have owner-workers who are only there because of the benefits: there's a burden in running a company. Management works for you, not the other way around. So you have to be really responsible. Everyone is counting on you. You don't abdicate any decisions.
yurishimo 7y ago
Super curious to hear about your co-op experience and any docs you may have about getting started. If I ever come up with an idea that gains traction I would like to run a co-op model.
- nickbauman 7y ago
  I read the book "The Company We Keep" by John Abrams, about creating employee-owned company because I was interested in taking my software engineering skills to something other than the Startup/VC or consulting firm model of getting people to work together for a common purpose and still be profitable. I also wanted to run a business where I'm not screwing the people that work for me. Whether that's a founder taking a few (hundred) million and everyone else losing their jobs eventually or a "staff augmentation" consulting firm where you have someone taking 3 out of seven dollars per hour from you for processing a check. Then I discovered the Mondragon Corporation, the largest co-operative in the world, with 13 billion in revenues per year. MC has launched and average of 3 startups every year in an 80+ year track record. Only two have ever failed. So far the co-op shows both promise and pitfalls in ways I didn't anticipate. I think the promise overrides the pitfalls so far. I get to work with people whose little kids I want to see go to college.

cosmodisk 7y ago

Your last sentence pretty much summarises 90% of reasons why some companies won't go remote route. As a manager, one needs to understand what his team is working on and how they do it. If a person can't understand underlying work or processes,then hi shouldn't be a manager.Also,while one doesn't necessarily need to be a dev to be able to manage devs, ability to understand problems and time required to solve them is crucial.

dmos62 7y ago
> one needs to understand what his team is working on and how they do it A project I'm working on is solving this with regular check-ins, where everyone summarizes what they were+are+will be doing. I'm interested in how others approach this.
- house9-2 7y ago
  Right, standard _agile_ daily stand up should help. My team does daily video stand up (it is good to see the team face to face each day) but if too many timezones involved slack channel updates can work just fine. Remote teams are ideally communicating with each other throughout each day.
  - hackinthebochs 7y ago
    >My team does daily video stand up Imagine forcing remote people to get presentable just for a 10 minute daily standup
    - ptcampbell 7y ago
      Only one half of you needs to be.
      - dmos62 7y ago
        Also you only care about optics. You can wing olfaction.

throwaway2765 7y ago

Managing is very hard. We had a remote worker that we’re 90% sure took a second job and did very little for us for a month before we let him go. He seemed very honest - guess the work was boring and he thought he could double-dip?

muratk 7y ago
Curious—didn't that go fairly well? You noticed that the one thing that matters—outcomes—wasn't there, and you ended it. If that person had been co-located, they'd have pretended to work and otherwise browsed facebook when no one is watching. You might have liked them, because such a nice guy to talk to and so on, and had given them a second chance and eventually decided that … outcomes are not there. I did bad hires, remote and otherwise. I don't think there is a way to avoid that. Our insight from interviewing is just so limited. You give your best when screening, and then you gotta make a leap. And deal with crap when it happens, as it always will.