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These companies might be able to continue operations running on fumes, but I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human cont

These companies might be able to continue operations running on fumes, but I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction. What would make more sense is simply to move the office to the Midwest, and interact with other branches or businesses remotely. This would seem to give the best of both worlds - cheaper cost of living, and physical interaction.

adrianN 6y ago
FWIW we have onboarded several people since March without any in person contact. There haven't been any major problems.
kube-system 6y ago
> I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction. Presumably, they'd do it the same way fully-remote companies have always done it. Either you onboard people remotely, or you travel to meet up in person for onboarding. You don't need an office to do that.
juniper_strong 6y ago
>> I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction The company laptop shows up at your front door and you get on the phone with the hiring manager who tells you how to log in. I started in April and I've never met any of the people I work with in person. On my team, only one of the people was ever in the actual office. It isn't a problem. Takes a little longer to build trust with people, that's about it.
- ardy42 6y ago
  >> I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction > It isn't a problem. Takes a little longer to build trust with people, that's about it. It is a problem, because there's more to being on a team than getting a laptop and doing assigned work. Losing workplace human contact may be find for some people, but for me the loss has been palpable. The change is necessary given the circumstances, but that doesn't mean it's fine. This gets at some of it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/opinion/work-from-home-loneliness.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/opinion/work-from-home-lo....
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
People like to downplay this by saying you can be entirely remote with no problems. Probably true if what you're doing is CRUD app stuff that most people on the team have a good idea of how to do, but I'm skeptical that it works for other types of project/product. I work with hardware and being able to have someone physically look at a schematic with me or explain something to me in person greatly shortens the amount of time it takes me to understand them. Edit: I also think we don't know the long term effects being remote has on innovation. It seems like people congregate in cities because the rewards to being near people are greater than the costs. Is technology really so good now that it can offset all the years of evolution we've gone through to make us into the social animals we are?
- Inthenameofmine 6y ago
  Hardware is tricky. Anything hands on really. For anything abstract I would argue that the people who are able to onboard and form teams and ideas remotely are inherently the best for the job and likely produce a disproportionate percentage of any teams output. In my experience when you remove middle management (as it happens when you go remote), you want to only hire those people adapted to remote and self-directed work. I would argue that location based and remote teams are fundamentally different companies. Similar to how tech first and tech-second companies are fundamentally different. I can't think of a single tech-second company that was able to move into the tech-first world. Some local companies might be able to morph themselves into remote companies, but as we see today, they will both lose a lot of staff, and even change their product eventually.
  - delfinom 6y ago
    I work with hardware that either I do it at our facility. Or I risk making a few hundred people homeless if the hardware goes up at flames at home because it'll take a good day to put out the...volatile fuel source :D The ultimate WFH experience.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  I also deeply miss access to the occasional second set of hands to hold the probes while I drive the scope. I'm lucky in that I have an office that's open so I can still have access to the fancy microscopes etc (as well as to more able sets of soldering hands/equipment), but being largely remote has definitely made distributing prototypes across the team for development and QA much more difficult (not to mention if mods to those prototypes are necessary).
RegBarclay 6y ago
I changed jobs to join a remote team. Equipment was shipped to my home. I've never met any of my team in person and won't until COVID limitations are resolved and the home office goes back to bringing everybody in for team building. My wife was WFH before COVID and has been onboarding people too. It's new to a lot of people, but companies are working through the issues and adding people with zero human contact all the time.
jmcqk6 6y ago
I've worked remotely now for years, across multiple teams. This reads to me like someone saying "we'll never go faster than sound" because you can't imagine it. Just because you can't see how it could work doesn't mean it can't. I know from experience it can. That doesn't mean that it will work in every situation for every person, but there is literally nothing in the world that fits those requirements. Some things work for some people, and not for others. EVERYTHING in life is like that. Remote working is no different.

adrianN 6y ago

FWIW we have onboarded several people since March without any in person contact. There haven't been any major problems.

kube-system 6y ago

> I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction. Presumably, they'd do it the same way fully-remote companies have always done it. Either you onboard people remotely, or you travel to meet up in person for onboarding. You don't need an office to do that.

juniper_strong 6y ago

>> I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction The company laptop shows up at your front door and you get on the phone with the hiring manager who tells you how to log in. I started in April and I've never met any of the people I work with in person. On my team, only one of the people was ever in the actual office. It isn't a problem. Takes a little longer to build trust with people, that's about it.

ardy42 6y ago
>> I'm not sure how new teams can be formed and new staff onboarded with zero human contact or office interaction > It isn't a problem. Takes a little longer to build trust with people, that's about it. It is a problem, because there's more to being on a team than getting a laptop and doing assigned work. Losing workplace human contact may be find for some people, but for me the loss has been palpable. The change is necessary given the circumstances, but that doesn't mean it's fine. This gets at some of it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/opinion/work-from-home-loneliness.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/opinion/work-from-home-lo....

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

People like to downplay this by saying you can be entirely remote with no problems. Probably true if what you're doing is CRUD app stuff that most people on the team have a good idea of how to do, but I'm skeptical that it works for other types of project/product. I work with hardware and being able to have someone physically look at a schematic with me or explain something to me in person greatly shortens the amount of time it takes me to understand them. Edit: I also think we don't know the long term effects being remote has on innovation. It seems like people congregate in cities because the rewards to being near people are greater than the costs. Is technology really so good now that it can offset all the years of evolution we've gone through to make us into the social animals we are?

Inthenameofmine 6y ago
Hardware is tricky. Anything hands on really. For anything abstract I would argue that the people who are able to onboard and form teams and ideas remotely are inherently the best for the job and likely produce a disproportionate percentage of any teams output. In my experience when you remove middle management (as it happens when you go remote), you want to only hire those people adapted to remote and self-directed work. I would argue that location based and remote teams are fundamentally different companies. Similar to how tech first and tech-second companies are fundamentally different. I can't think of a single tech-second company that was able to move into the tech-first world. Some local companies might be able to morph themselves into remote companies, but as we see today, they will both lose a lot of staff, and even change their product eventually.
- delfinom 6y ago
  I work with hardware that either I do it at our facility. Or I risk making a few hundred people homeless if the hardware goes up at flames at home because it'll take a good day to put out the...volatile fuel source :D The ultimate WFH experience.
InitialLastName 6y ago
I also deeply miss access to the occasional second set of hands to hold the probes while I drive the scope. I'm lucky in that I have an office that's open so I can still have access to the fancy microscopes etc (as well as to more able sets of soldering hands/equipment), but being largely remote has definitely made distributing prototypes across the team for development and QA much more difficult (not to mention if mods to those prototypes are necessary).

RegBarclay 6y ago

I changed jobs to join a remote team. Equipment was shipped to my home. I've never met any of my team in person and won't until COVID limitations are resolved and the home office goes back to bringing everybody in for team building. My wife was WFH before COVID and has been onboarding people too. It's new to a lot of people, but companies are working through the issues and adding people with zero human contact all the time.

jmcqk6 6y ago

I've worked remotely now for years, across multiple teams. This reads to me like someone saying "we'll never go faster than sound" because you can't imagine it. Just because you can't see how it could work doesn't mean it can't. I know from experience it can. That doesn't mean that it will work in every situation for every person, but there is literally nothing in the world that fits those requirements. Some things work for some people, and not for others. EVERYTHING in life is like that. Remote working is no different.