5 ms·

I have a feeling a lot of companies will follow suit. It saves up huge costs in real-estate by not having to provide seats to people. It also might just open up

I have a feeling a lot of companies will follow suit. It saves up huge costs in real-estate by not having to provide seats to people. It also might just open up more companies to hire from any time zone.

taurath 6y ago
Time zone is gonna be tougher. Going from sync to async requires a big shift and most big companies have enough trouble with communication. One other benefit to companies - maybe they won’t pay a premium anymore for people who live in expensive areas.
- moneil971 6y ago
  Twitter and other global companies have been managing the time zone factor and using online chat, video calls, etc. for some time now.
  - novok 6y ago
    It turns into early hour / late hour meetings that your dread and don't want to do. I bet as a result people silently start not working with those big time zone difference teams and it become bifurcated.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  If the time zone difference is San Francisco to London, sure. But I've lived in Pacific while working for a company in Central, and live in Eastern while working for a company in Pacific, and it's not a big deal. You just adjust your daily cycle by a couple of hours. Domestically, it only gets complicated when you have an entire office of people in a different zone. Then large meetings get hard to schedule around lunch and COB.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    5-6 hour differences (e.g. US ET to GMT/CET) mostly work OK. Much more than that and at least one side of the call is going to be inconvenienced.
  - taurath 6y ago
    Within continents it’s not much of a problem, just saying off continent can definitely be
dudul 6y ago
These advantages have always existed, and yet most of the FANG have resisted WFH policies until now. Personally, I find it pretty funny how this "work that can only be done well in person, in an office" can suddenly be done remotely no problem when the government mandates that everybody stays home.
- kelw22 6y ago
  Personally, I find it pretty funny how this "work that can only be done well in person, in an office" can suddenly be done remotely no problem when the government mandates that everybody stays home. You're spinning things toward your bias with your sentence. Who, exactly, is saying it can be done "no problem"? My experience is that any communication-intensive work is significantly harder and more time consuming. We just don't have a choice now, so we're doing it.
  - dudul 6y ago
    That's the usual argument, and honestly I'm not even gonna put a lot of effort into arguing. People work differently, fine, it's your XP, sorry it's not working that well for you. My XP is that remote communication is different, seem to take longer, but is also far superior. When you're forced to communicate via documents, diagrams, chat, etc you put more effort into your content. You try to anticipate questions to avoid wasting a few round trips. It forces you to think more about what you're saying, it forces you to think about edge cases, specific details, etc.
    - kelw22 6y ago
      That's the usual argument, and honestly I'm not even gonna put a lot of effort into arguing. That's fine. I would like to explicitly point out that calling something the "usual" argument doesn't make it any less valid. You are both claiming to not bother arguing while also taking a fairly dismissive posture. My feedback is to instead ask people why they feel a certain way. I'll answer as though you had: For your point about clarity and organization of written communication: I completely agree with you. I suspect you're an IC engineer without many non-technical responsibilities, though, because you're ignoring all things that exist outside of technical design and planning intended for technical audiences. Not everything is well suited to diagrammed or long-cycle asynchronous communication. At some point in your career, you might need to start handling things like working with lawyers on requirements where they have varying degrees of product understanding, nuanced feedback from a large sales team, tough and iterative product roadmap decisions in the face of revenue shortfalls, personnel issues as they come up, and so on. For conversations that span disciplines or involve career development or crucial feedback, having a high bandwidth pipe through which to quickly identify gaps in understanding or holes in communication is invaluable. That higher level coordination is vital to the success of most businesses, and it became significantly more challenging. We have to do it, though, because the alternative is much worse. My opinion is that remote work has been great for IC engineers. I generally support liberal use of remote work for IC engineers. The world doesn't work if everybody sits in that role, though.
poulsbohemian 6y ago
The interesting question is, why now? I mean on the surface sure - because we have a pandemic and state ordered quarantine. But the more interesting question is - why is this finally provoking companies and why do we think they will continue the trend in the future post-quarantine? I've been a remote worker since 2006. It's been obvious to me for a long time that companies could go all remote or some version of remote, and it would have all the positive effects we all know about: -- Reduction of commute, which is good for the environment and good for people's stress levels. -- Reduction/elimination of the cost of office space -- Ability to recruit across a wider geographic area -- Greater employee satisfaction as people can live where they choose And so on and so on. And yet in the face of this information, plus studies that show higher rates of productivity when employees / workers control their work environment (and schedule), companies have been resistant. I can speculate on the reasons for this (read: control, stuck in industrial era management practices, etc), but the question remains: why do we think companies will suddenly become enlightened and embrace this long-term?
- tannhauser23 6y ago
  Crises tend to accelerate existing trends. Makes sense to me that a forced quarantine would be the giant straw that breaks the camel’s back.
- dudul 6y ago
  I have the same speculations re: why, so far, they have been so reluctant to do so. As for why now? I believe it's simply because now that peons have had a taste of WFH and all its benefits (and realized everything you enumerated), it will become one of the most desired "benefit" in a job. It was a massive leap forward from WFH being a "nice to have" to a "must have" to even be considered by a lot of candidates.
- BryantD 6y ago
  I don't think all of them will -- it's probably significant that Twitter was already thinking about this. However, I know my CEO never would have run this experiment without the pandemic. Now, he has data he didn't have before, and he's publicly said that this changed his mind. The trigger event was the forced experiment. Studies convinced me, but I don't have to take responsibility for the health of a whole company so it's easier for me to advocate for risks. Seeing how your company actually behaves in a 100% WFH world is better evidence than a study.
tinyhouse 6y ago
Real-estate cost is not an issue for most companies. Also, all fully remote companies that I know have company "retreats" twice a year for all employees, which is expensive. It's not mandatory of course but very important. The bigger issue for me is what will happen to the US tech market. Why would Twitter hire people in the US if they can hire much cheaper people from Europa and other locations. The US government restricts immigration for the same reasons. They might need to intervene with remote work as well.
- VectorLock 6y ago
  Real-estate and cost of living drives compensation which is a main issue for most companies. Biannual "retreats" for companies that are fully remote sounds like a good idea, and I wonder if there is somewhere between "biannual retreats" and "butts in seats 5 days a week" that companies will meander towards.
- anticensor 6y ago
  > They might need to intervene with remote work as well. Do you mean all boundary gateways should censor all information and knowledge, that are past without prior authorisation or a heavy tax, by default? Because that is how customs IRL work.
  - tinyhouse 6y ago
    I mean something like tax incentives to companies that hire most of their employees in the US.

taurath 6y ago

Time zone is gonna be tougher. Going from sync to async requires a big shift and most big companies have enough trouble with communication. One other benefit to companies - maybe they won’t pay a premium anymore for people who live in expensive areas.

moneil971 6y ago
Twitter and other global companies have been managing the time zone factor and using online chat, video calls, etc. for some time now.
- novok 6y ago
  It turns into early hour / late hour meetings that your dread and don't want to do. I bet as a result people silently start not working with those big time zone difference teams and it become bifurcated.
reaperducer 6y ago
If the time zone difference is San Francisco to London, sure. But I've lived in Pacific while working for a company in Central, and live in Eastern while working for a company in Pacific, and it's not a big deal. You just adjust your daily cycle by a couple of hours. Domestically, it only gets complicated when you have an entire office of people in a different zone. Then large meetings get hard to schedule around lunch and COB.
- ghaff 6y ago
  5-6 hour differences (e.g. US ET to GMT/CET) mostly work OK. Much more than that and at least one side of the call is going to be inconvenienced.
- taurath 6y ago
  Within continents it’s not much of a problem, just saying off continent can definitely be

dudul 6y ago

These advantages have always existed, and yet most of the FANG have resisted WFH policies until now. Personally, I find it pretty funny how this "work that can only be done well in person, in an office" can suddenly be done remotely no problem when the government mandates that everybody stays home.

kelw22 6y ago
Personally, I find it pretty funny how this "work that can only be done well in person, in an office" can suddenly be done remotely no problem when the government mandates that everybody stays home. You're spinning things toward your bias with your sentence. Who, exactly, is saying it can be done "no problem"? My experience is that any communication-intensive work is significantly harder and more time consuming. We just don't have a choice now, so we're doing it.
- dudul 6y ago
  That's the usual argument, and honestly I'm not even gonna put a lot of effort into arguing. People work differently, fine, it's your XP, sorry it's not working that well for you. My XP is that remote communication is different, seem to take longer, but is also far superior. When you're forced to communicate via documents, diagrams, chat, etc you put more effort into your content. You try to anticipate questions to avoid wasting a few round trips. It forces you to think more about what you're saying, it forces you to think about edge cases, specific details, etc.
  - kelw22 6y ago
    That's the usual argument, and honestly I'm not even gonna put a lot of effort into arguing. That's fine. I would like to explicitly point out that calling something the "usual" argument doesn't make it any less valid. You are both claiming to not bother arguing while also taking a fairly dismissive posture. My feedback is to instead ask people why they feel a certain way. I'll answer as though you had: For your point about clarity and organization of written communication: I completely agree with you. I suspect you're an IC engineer without many non-technical responsibilities, though, because you're ignoring all things that exist outside of technical design and planning intended for technical audiences. Not everything is well suited to diagrammed or long-cycle asynchronous communication. At some point in your career, you might need to start handling things like working with lawyers on requirements where they have varying degrees of product understanding, nuanced feedback from a large sales team, tough and iterative product roadmap decisions in the face of revenue shortfalls, personnel issues as they come up, and so on. For conversations that span disciplines or involve career development or crucial feedback, having a high bandwidth pipe through which to quickly identify gaps in understanding or holes in communication is invaluable. That higher level coordination is vital to the success of most businesses, and it became significantly more challenging. We have to do it, though, because the alternative is much worse. My opinion is that remote work has been great for IC engineers. I generally support liberal use of remote work for IC engineers. The world doesn't work if everybody sits in that role, though.

poulsbohemian 6y ago

The interesting question is, why now? I mean on the surface sure - because we have a pandemic and state ordered quarantine. But the more interesting question is - why is this finally provoking companies and why do we think they will continue the trend in the future post-quarantine? I've been a remote worker since 2006. It's been obvious to me for a long time that companies could go all remote or some version of remote, and it would have all the positive effects we all know about: -- Reduction of commute, which is good for the environment and good for people's stress levels. -- Reduction/elimination of the cost of office space -- Ability to recruit across a wider geographic area -- Greater employee satisfaction as people can live where they choose And so on and so on. And yet in the face of this information, plus studies that show higher rates of productivity when employees / workers control their work environment (and schedule), companies have been resistant. I can speculate on the reasons for this (read: control, stuck in industrial era management practices, etc), but the question remains: why do we think companies will suddenly become enlightened and embrace this long-term?

tannhauser23 6y ago
Crises tend to accelerate existing trends. Makes sense to me that a forced quarantine would be the giant straw that breaks the camel’s back.
dudul 6y ago
I have the same speculations re: why, so far, they have been so reluctant to do so. As for why now? I believe it's simply because now that peons have had a taste of WFH and all its benefits (and realized everything you enumerated), it will become one of the most desired "benefit" in a job. It was a massive leap forward from WFH being a "nice to have" to a "must have" to even be considered by a lot of candidates.
BryantD 6y ago
I don't think all of them will -- it's probably significant that Twitter was already thinking about this. However, I know my CEO never would have run this experiment without the pandemic. Now, he has data he didn't have before, and he's publicly said that this changed his mind. The trigger event was the forced experiment. Studies convinced me, but I don't have to take responsibility for the health of a whole company so it's easier for me to advocate for risks. Seeing how your company actually behaves in a 100% WFH world is better evidence than a study.

tinyhouse 6y ago

Real-estate cost is not an issue for most companies. Also, all fully remote companies that I know have company "retreats" twice a year for all employees, which is expensive. It's not mandatory of course but very important. The bigger issue for me is what will happen to the US tech market. Why would Twitter hire people in the US if they can hire much cheaper people from Europa and other locations. The US government restricts immigration for the same reasons. They might need to intervene with remote work as well.

VectorLock 6y ago
Real-estate and cost of living drives compensation which is a main issue for most companies. Biannual "retreats" for companies that are fully remote sounds like a good idea, and I wonder if there is somewhere between "biannual retreats" and "butts in seats 5 days a week" that companies will meander towards.
anticensor 6y ago
> They might need to intervene with remote work as well. Do you mean all boundary gateways should censor all information and knowledge, that are past without prior authorisation or a heavy tax, by default? Because that is how customs IRL work.
- tinyhouse 6y ago
  I mean something like tax incentives to companies that hire most of their employees in the US.