6 ms·

Take it from someone working in a remote office. This only works so long as everyone is remote. Once the majority of folks are back in an office suddenly those

Take it from someone working in a remote office. This only works so long as everyone is remote. Once the majority of folks are back in an office suddenly those not there are seen as “other” and not part of the core team.

devilduck 6y ago
It's a good thing this will not be as normal as it used to be. The rest of us who think it's poor quality operation will get to be more picky with who we choose to work for.
manojlds 6y ago
This is exactly what I have been thinking. The hybrid models don't feel like they will work very well. (with existing level of training and adhoc adoptions) Also things like you have a meeting and someone is late - when everyone is remote, it is very easy to expect and accommodate it. But when most or many are in office and in a room and one person that is remote is late - probably won't be as well received.
- detaro 6y ago
  General rule: if you have remote participants, everyone participates in the meeting remote unless there is a good reason otherwise.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    Yep we have done this even before lockdowns. If even just one person is remote, we ask everyone to call in rather than going to a meeting room, to force the meeting to be run in an accommodative manner. You need these practices if you collaborate with teams in different offices anyways.
    - jovdg 6y ago
      Sounds like a terrible thing.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        If it's a terrible thing for all, why is it not a terrible thing for the minority? The field is levelled.
        uxp100 6y ago
        Is that good? Doesn’t that breed resentment? “Oh, since there is a remote person in the meeting we all have to deal with poor audio, lag, and no eye-contact?” I should say I was remote for 5 years and the meetings where everyone was remote were much longer, extra overhead, slower responses, and less engagement. They were bad. I’d rather be not an equal participant in a good meeting than fully equal in a bad meeting.
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        Fair enough. Though to be clear, the question is whether the benefits of treating the entire team uniformly outweigh the disadvantages of imposing telecoms frictions on all members, rather than just a portion.
    - sidibe 6y ago
      On the other hand this is rough on the people who aren't in the meeting who now have neighbors talking at their desks instead of in meeting rooms
  - manojlds 6y ago
    Oh that's a good rule, been thinking about it as a solution, so good to know that people do do this.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  Remote first has to be the culture for it to work. GitLab is pretty good at this. We have worked hard at our little 20 person consultancy to have a nice remote work culture. It takes effort and sticking to enabling remote first.
  - manojlds 6y ago
    Yeah which is why I mentioned existing level of training and adoption.
spockz 6y ago
I’ve actually already experienced this. Once part of the team is in the office they will have quick informal conversations to decide how to do things. Only the decision is recorded and not the reasoning. Now with everyone remote everything is done in writing and everyone is included. I think hybrid setups will be the worst for employee happiness and productivity over time.
detaro 6y ago
Not everyone, but it certainly is a cultural thing that needs to be managed, and a group being mostly in-person and a few remote is indeed problematic. Best-working example I know wildly combines people from different offices - so while many "go to the office" and have a local group of colleagues there, the work is always done mostly remote and not in-person. And even then, you need to pay attention to include remote people in the informal information flows.
avip 6y ago
Second that. When critical mass is in physical proximity, oral communication (fast, enjoyable, efficient - and dangerous) creeps in, and you're left to collect the leftovers of discussions.
biztos 6y ago
I did it for about 10 years, as the only one officially remote in the team, ending now. It worked OK, but part of the trick was that I was very senior, and the rest of the team was split across several time zones with me sitting basically in the middle. Another part was everyone knew I was remote because the team was far from where I lived, not because I wanted to WFH per se. That's also the case with some senior people in adjacent teams: the people who are truly "core" get to live where they want, or at least that's been my experience over the last 20-ish years. I definitely wouldn't advise it as a career strategy, mostly for the reason you cite.
- slickrick216 6y ago
  Yeah I think your point on being senior is important here however senior can mean varying things in different circumstances management or tech senior if your company divides things that way. The other thing I’ve seen that effects the balance is time zones. It’s not as bad as being remote but it factors in to a general availability / can be relied on to be there aspect.
bitxbit 6y ago
Totally agree. I imagine work politics will take over and people will be more or less forced to come back into office. To be fair, I think it’s a big part of work culture that will be very hard to formulate in virtual settings.
zerr 6y ago
The majority wants to continue working remotely, right?
- slickrick216 6y ago
  I hope so but I do think there is merit to an office sometimes as well. Hybrid model may be doable but expensive and likely requires more discipline then either or.
- higeorge13 6y ago
  I bet the majority will beg to return to the offices as soon as the world returns to normal.
  - polotics 6y ago
    Not my experience, most colleagues agree that two days per week in the office is plenty enough. Too many meetings anyways...
    - higeorge13 6y ago
      Ι confirm and i also enjoy the hybrid (2-3) model, but i don't think companies will keep it in the long run. When it's going to be fully remote for some of these, the majority of old-school employees will beg to return to the office or switch jobs.
  - devilduck 6y ago
    If they do it's because they're tired of being forced to stay home, not because going to the office is inherently better.
  - loco5niner 6y ago
    Not me and my team...
Gibbon1 6y ago
I spent a couple of years as field service as part of my job. What I came to appreciate was every form of communication has it's uses. Sometimes there is no good substitute for face to face. And once you'd been to a site and dealt with the people face to face it was a lot easier dealing with them remotely.
RestlessMind 6y ago
Biggest advantage of being in an office over being fully remote is that a non-trivial portion of work includes things which should not be documented - convincing some stakeholders, navigating inter-/intra-team politics, catching your VP for a quick 2 min resolution while he is walking to the cafe to quickly grab his lunch between his back-to-back-to-back meetings, observing body language to infer what your colleagues are thinking about but NOT saying etc. This is particularly true when you become more senior and replicating that over Zoom is nearly impossible. There are things you simply don't want to put in writing or say over Zoom which are most certainly monitored by the company. And if there are some colleagues who are in office and some who are remote, the ones in office have a massive advantage when everything else is the same.
- ry454 6y ago
  This matters for senior management only, i.e. those who make decisions. This doesn't matter for middle management (even though they act as if they are senior managers) and that's completely irrelevant for line workers who don't need to "read body language" to get their linear work done.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Line engineers totally need to read body language. Presenting a paper or design? You need to read when your audience is drifting. Discussing a contentious code review? Body language can tell you loads about how much they are committed to their approach. Mentoring other engineers? Running an ops review? Asking for approval for something? There's a million scenarios where understanding body language makes you a more successful line engineer.
    - dimnsionofsound 6y ago
      Another great reason I want to continue working remote: Why would I want to leak any information in my body language to coworkers or management? I have no idea what they are going to do with said information, and the fact that I'm not already saying whatever it is my body language is communicating means that I would not like to supply it.
onion2k 6y ago
Once the majority of folks are back in an office suddenly those not there are seen as “other” and not part of the core team. If sitting on a specific chair is how people know you're a member of the core team, or if people forget you exist because you're not in the office, then your work isn't very high impact or noticeable, and people don't respect your knowledge enough to actively seek your input. That is the problem you need to fix, and it's a very a different problem to whether or not people see your face every day.

devilduck 6y ago

It's a good thing this will not be as normal as it used to be. The rest of us who think it's poor quality operation will get to be more picky with who we choose to work for.

manojlds 6y ago

This is exactly what I have been thinking. The hybrid models don't feel like they will work very well. (with existing level of training and adhoc adoptions) Also things like you have a meeting and someone is late - when everyone is remote, it is very easy to expect and accommodate it. But when most or many are in office and in a room and one person that is remote is late - probably won't be as well received.

detaro 6y ago
General rule: if you have remote participants, everyone participates in the meeting remote unless there is a good reason otherwise.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Yep we have done this even before lockdowns. If even just one person is remote, we ask everyone to call in rather than going to a meeting room, to force the meeting to be run in an accommodative manner. You need these practices if you collaborate with teams in different offices anyways.
  - jovdg 6y ago
    Sounds like a terrible thing.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      If it's a terrible thing for all, why is it not a terrible thing for the minority? The field is levelled.
      - uxp100 6y ago
        Is that good? Doesn’t that breed resentment? “Oh, since there is a remote person in the meeting we all have to deal with poor audio, lag, and no eye-contact?” I should say I was remote for 5 years and the meetings where everyone was remote were much longer, extra overhead, slower responses, and less engagement. They were bad. I’d rather be not an equal participant in a good meeting than fully equal in a bad meeting.
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        Fair enough. Though to be clear, the question is whether the benefits of treating the entire team uniformly outweigh the disadvantages of imposing telecoms frictions on all members, rather than just a portion.
  - sidibe 6y ago
    On the other hand this is rough on the people who aren't in the meeting who now have neighbors talking at their desks instead of in meeting rooms
- manojlds 6y ago
  Oh that's a good rule, been thinking about it as a solution, so good to know that people do do this.
bitexploder 6y ago
Remote first has to be the culture for it to work. GitLab is pretty good at this. We have worked hard at our little 20 person consultancy to have a nice remote work culture. It takes effort and sticking to enabling remote first.
- manojlds 6y ago
  Yeah which is why I mentioned existing level of training and adoption.

spockz 6y ago

I’ve actually already experienced this. Once part of the team is in the office they will have quick informal conversations to decide how to do things. Only the decision is recorded and not the reasoning. Now with everyone remote everything is done in writing and everyone is included. I think hybrid setups will be the worst for employee happiness and productivity over time.

detaro 6y ago

Not everyone, but it certainly is a cultural thing that needs to be managed, and a group being mostly in-person and a few remote is indeed problematic. Best-working example I know wildly combines people from different offices - so while many "go to the office" and have a local group of colleagues there, the work is always done mostly remote and not in-person. And even then, you need to pay attention to include remote people in the informal information flows.

avip 6y ago

Second that. When critical mass is in physical proximity, oral communication (fast, enjoyable, efficient - and dangerous) creeps in, and you're left to collect the leftovers of discussions.

biztos 6y ago

I did it for about 10 years, as the only one officially remote in the team, ending now. It worked OK, but part of the trick was that I was very senior, and the rest of the team was split across several time zones with me sitting basically in the middle. Another part was everyone knew I was remote because the team was far from where I lived, not because I wanted to WFH per se. That's also the case with some senior people in adjacent teams: the people who are truly "core" get to live where they want, or at least that's been my experience over the last 20-ish years. I definitely wouldn't advise it as a career strategy, mostly for the reason you cite.

slickrick216 6y ago
Yeah I think your point on being senior is important here however senior can mean varying things in different circumstances management or tech senior if your company divides things that way. The other thing I’ve seen that effects the balance is time zones. It’s not as bad as being remote but it factors in to a general availability / can be relied on to be there aspect.

bitxbit 6y ago

Totally agree. I imagine work politics will take over and people will be more or less forced to come back into office. To be fair, I think it’s a big part of work culture that will be very hard to formulate in virtual settings.

zerr 6y ago

The majority wants to continue working remotely, right?

slickrick216 6y ago
I hope so but I do think there is merit to an office sometimes as well. Hybrid model may be doable but expensive and likely requires more discipline then either or.
higeorge13 6y ago
I bet the majority will beg to return to the offices as soon as the world returns to normal.
- polotics 6y ago
  Not my experience, most colleagues agree that two days per week in the office is plenty enough. Too many meetings anyways...
  - higeorge13 6y ago
    Ι confirm and i also enjoy the hybrid (2-3) model, but i don't think companies will keep it in the long run. When it's going to be fully remote for some of these, the majority of old-school employees will beg to return to the office or switch jobs.
- devilduck 6y ago
  If they do it's because they're tired of being forced to stay home, not because going to the office is inherently better.
- loco5niner 6y ago
  Not me and my team...

Gibbon1 6y ago

I spent a couple of years as field service as part of my job. What I came to appreciate was every form of communication has it's uses. Sometimes there is no good substitute for face to face. And once you'd been to a site and dealt with the people face to face it was a lot easier dealing with them remotely.

RestlessMind 6y ago

Biggest advantage of being in an office over being fully remote is that a non-trivial portion of work includes things which should not be documented - convincing some stakeholders, navigating inter-/intra-team politics, catching your VP for a quick 2 min resolution while he is walking to the cafe to quickly grab his lunch between his back-to-back-to-back meetings, observing body language to infer what your colleagues are thinking about but NOT saying etc. This is particularly true when you become more senior and replicating that over Zoom is nearly impossible. There are things you simply don't want to put in writing or say over Zoom which are most certainly monitored by the company. And if there are some colleagues who are in office and some who are remote, the ones in office have a massive advantage when everything else is the same.

ry454 6y ago
This matters for senior management only, i.e. those who make decisions. This doesn't matter for middle management (even though they act as if they are senior managers) and that's completely irrelevant for line workers who don't need to "read body language" to get their linear work done.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Line engineers totally need to read body language. Presenting a paper or design? You need to read when your audience is drifting. Discussing a contentious code review? Body language can tell you loads about how much they are committed to their approach. Mentoring other engineers? Running an ops review? Asking for approval for something? There's a million scenarios where understanding body language makes you a more successful line engineer.
  - dimnsionofsound 6y ago
    Another great reason I want to continue working remote: Why would I want to leak any information in my body language to coworkers or management? I have no idea what they are going to do with said information, and the fact that I'm not already saying whatever it is my body language is communicating means that I would not like to supply it.

onion2k 6y ago

Once the majority of folks are back in an office suddenly those not there are seen as “other” and not part of the core team. If sitting on a specific chair is how people know you're a member of the core team, or if people forget you exist because you're not in the office, then your work isn't very high impact or noticeable, and people don't respect your knowledge enough to actively seek your input. That is the problem you need to fix, and it's a very a different problem to whether or not people see your face every day.