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Mixed onsite/remote doesn't work because the remote folks become second class citizens. Missing out on conversations that happen in person prevents them from wo

Mixed onsite/remote doesn't work because the remote folks become second class citizens. Missing out on conversations that happen in person prevents them from working as effectively. Fully remote takes more explicit focus on making sure necessary communication happens. It's harder to make work than in person. But I don't think it's impossible. Also, in my opinion, remote work works better when team members have met in person. It's easier to pick up on certain ways that they communicate, which help understanding in online communications.

dagmx 5y ago
Mixed can work if either some higher up employees are remote or some meaningful percentage of employees are remote (even if a minority). It's about the communication paradigm. If people consider communication to be only local, then it falls apart when people are in multiple locations (including multi site offices). However if people default to remote compatible communication, it scales really well to people working from home and multi site offices.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  Depends on the type of company. At a sufficient size you end up with offices worldwide and where you are matters less
  - dagmx 5y ago
    I think that largely depends on the location of leadership. If all leadership is in one location, yes, it'll get one sided. If leadership are spread out, I think it works out fine. I've spent the last decade working with large multi site companies in the "lesser" location, and was able to move up from a junior to senior/supervisor roles at each company. Obviously my anecdote doesn't scale out uniformly, but I've seen it work out fine for many employees as long as leadership was adequately spread out.
danenania 5y ago
Does anyone have thoughts on hybrid? Like 1-2 days per week in the office. You lose the geographic flexibility, but apart from that, it seems like it could potentially offer the best of both worlds?
- dagmx 5y ago
  Hybrid can be great or completely useless depending on the person and their locality. If you're hybrid, you can't really live further away in cheaper areas, but you now have to set up office space at home for the WFH days. So it's potentially worse than fully WFH or fully on site. You still need to maintain having a vehicle or commute. Of course there are advantages, like spending more time with family and reduced sum commute. But it doesn't allow for people to have a meaningful change in lifestyle that they're seeking.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    > If you're hybrid, you can't really live further away in cheaper areas While I haven't done this (yet?), I've had coworkers who have, and they've successfully lived farther away in cheaper areas. :) What I've seen happen is one of two things: (1) They live far enough away that the commute is hellacious (say, Sacramento to San Francisco, which can run 2+ hours by car each way and 3+ each way via transit), but they're willing to put up with it one or two days a week. (2) They live far enough away that daily commutes are simply infeasible and just come in for a few days to a week every 4–8 weeks, staying in a hotel. This may or may not be paid for by the company, depending on what they've negotiated. (N.B.: I'm aware that there are people who have done daily commutes via plane from, say, LA to SF, but that sort of thing seems to be pretty rare below the executive level.)
    - dagmx 5y ago
      So I think those would work if the hybrid day layout was more flexible. In this case, Apple is two days of WFH (Wednesday/Friday I believe) so your second suggestion wouldn't work (honestly some folk I've spoken to have even considered car camping). If it were contiguous blocks perhaps.
slavapestov 5y ago
> Mixed onsite/remote doesn't work because the remote folks become second class citizens. Having been on both sides of the equation at two different tech companies, this hasn’t been my experience.
- smichel17 5y ago
  I'd be interested to hear more. Specifically, how did you keep the remote folks in the loop with conversations that happened onsite?
UncleMeat 5y ago
This depends on what you mean by "doesn't work". Can this happen? Sure. It is possible that remote work limits career growth. But employees should still be able to choose that.
- smichel17 5y ago
  "Doesn't work" would be a significant loss of efficiency compared to colocation. I'm not going to try to define "significant" rigorously. Something like, "if you adjust everyone's salary to compensate for it, nobody wants to work there any more." Whereas fully remote would be a small enough hit (if any) that people would choose it for the other benefits. There's a few people who have experience in successful mixed environments. I'm curious how, so I hope to hear more from them.

dagmx 5y ago

Mixed can work if either some higher up employees are remote or some meaningful percentage of employees are remote (even if a minority). It's about the communication paradigm. If people consider communication to be only local, then it falls apart when people are in multiple locations (including multi site offices). However if people default to remote compatible communication, it scales really well to people working from home and multi site offices.

calvinmorrison 5y ago
Depends on the type of company. At a sufficient size you end up with offices worldwide and where you are matters less
- dagmx 5y ago
  I think that largely depends on the location of leadership. If all leadership is in one location, yes, it'll get one sided. If leadership are spread out, I think it works out fine. I've spent the last decade working with large multi site companies in the "lesser" location, and was able to move up from a junior to senior/supervisor roles at each company. Obviously my anecdote doesn't scale out uniformly, but I've seen it work out fine for many employees as long as leadership was adequately spread out.

danenania 5y ago

Does anyone have thoughts on hybrid? Like 1-2 days per week in the office. You lose the geographic flexibility, but apart from that, it seems like it could potentially offer the best of both worlds?

dagmx 5y ago
Hybrid can be great or completely useless depending on the person and their locality. If you're hybrid, you can't really live further away in cheaper areas, but you now have to set up office space at home for the WFH days. So it's potentially worse than fully WFH or fully on site. You still need to maintain having a vehicle or commute. Of course there are advantages, like spending more time with family and reduced sum commute. But it doesn't allow for people to have a meaningful change in lifestyle that they're seeking.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  > If you're hybrid, you can't really live further away in cheaper areas While I haven't done this (yet?), I've had coworkers who have, and they've successfully lived farther away in cheaper areas. :) What I've seen happen is one of two things: (1) They live far enough away that the commute is hellacious (say, Sacramento to San Francisco, which can run 2+ hours by car each way and 3+ each way via transit), but they're willing to put up with it one or two days a week. (2) They live far enough away that daily commutes are simply infeasible and just come in for a few days to a week every 4–8 weeks, staying in a hotel. This may or may not be paid for by the company, depending on what they've negotiated. (N.B.: I'm aware that there are people who have done daily commutes via plane from, say, LA to SF, but that sort of thing seems to be pretty rare below the executive level.)
  - dagmx 5y ago
    So I think those would work if the hybrid day layout was more flexible. In this case, Apple is two days of WFH (Wednesday/Friday I believe) so your second suggestion wouldn't work (honestly some folk I've spoken to have even considered car camping). If it were contiguous blocks perhaps.

slavapestov 5y ago

> Mixed onsite/remote doesn't work because the remote folks become second class citizens. Having been on both sides of the equation at two different tech companies, this hasn’t been my experience.

smichel17 5y ago
I'd be interested to hear more. Specifically, how did you keep the remote folks in the loop with conversations that happened onsite?

UncleMeat 5y ago

This depends on what you mean by "doesn't work". Can this happen? Sure. It is possible that remote work limits career growth. But employees should still be able to choose that.

smichel17 5y ago
"Doesn't work" would be a significant loss of efficiency compared to colocation. I'm not going to try to define "significant" rigorously. Something like, "if you adjust everyone's salary to compensate for it, nobody wants to work there any more." Whereas fully remote would be a small enough hit (if any) that people would choose it for the other benefits. There's a few people who have experience in successful mixed environments. I'm curious how, so I hope to hear more from them.