5 ms·

Another subtle reason telecommuting gets dismissed is that a lot of startups are looking for people who will grow into different leadership roles (architects, m

Another subtle reason telecommuting gets dismissed is that a lot of startups are looking for people who will grow into different leadership roles (architects, mentors, team leads, process drivers and hiring managers to name a few) and it's just much easier to identify those specific strengths in person. You can call that laziness on management's part but managing remote team members also requires a different kind of discipline that many startups probably don't have yet.

vailripper 15y ago
I disagree. My company is a 100% remote workforce, and identifying standouts isn't terribly difficult. I would argue that the fact that everyone is working remotely makes the entire process much more objective, as you don't fall into the standard judgement traps that are well known in face to face interactions. When I'm trying to decide whether a team member should be moved into a team lead role, I'm evaluating them solely on their communication skills, code quality (by looking at commit history), and their effectiveness during meetings. I don't honestly feel like I miss anything by not having onsite interactions.
- jianshen 15y ago
  Great points. Management decisions should be supported by objective data as much as possible but, management can't always get the data it needs to make those decisions and there will always be some uncertainty/subjectivity that requires extra digging to be resolved (and my favorite managers always dig extra hard for the data). My point is just that many startups don't come from virtual team backgrounds and as such won't even begin to know how to fill in the gaps when there isn't perfect information in managing remote teams. This is particularly exacerbated if there is already a local team with a specific communication culture built that clashes with the way the remote team prefers to communicate and neither party recognizes the incongruity.

vailripper 15y ago

I disagree. My company is a 100% remote workforce, and identifying standouts isn't terribly difficult. I would argue that the fact that everyone is working remotely makes the entire process much more objective, as you don't fall into the standard judgement traps that are well known in face to face interactions. When I'm trying to decide whether a team member should be moved into a team lead role, I'm evaluating them solely on their communication skills, code quality (by looking at commit history), and their effectiveness during meetings. I don't honestly feel like I miss anything by not having onsite interactions.

jianshen 15y ago
Great points. Management decisions should be supported by objective data as much as possible but, management can't always get the data it needs to make those decisions and there will always be some uncertainty/subjectivity that requires extra digging to be resolved (and my favorite managers always dig extra hard for the data). My point is just that many startups don't come from virtual team backgrounds and as such won't even begin to know how to fill in the gaps when there isn't perfect information in managing remote teams. This is particularly exacerbated if there is already a local team with a specific communication culture built that clashes with the way the remote team prefers to communicate and neither party recognizes the incongruity.