4 ms·

We’re getting there, I’ve been in your spot and have some tips after fighting for a better remote culture for months: 1. In-person events must happen. Best case

We’re getting there, I’ve been in your spot and have some tips after fighting for a better remote culture for months: 1. In-person events must happen. Best case scenario, once per quarter. Even once per year is phenomenal though. This will put out a lot of remote culture failure fires. 2. Team-only social hour with games, works much better after an in person event. 3. My newest experiment win: opening up a casual zoom room to the team for anyone who wants to join. Once again, much easier and more desired by people after an in person event. We’ll work together, shoot the shit, etc. It’s really nice, and non-social people love not being obligated to join them. That’s as good as it’s gotten, and I really like where it’s at. It took months to get there. A lot of people wanted these things, but the convenience of not doing them keeps it from happening quickly. Persisting when support is present is super key to building it up. Honestly, making it happen is just as political as vying for anything else is. Alignment on wanting a good remote culture takes time even when multiple people really, desperately want it.

Tijdreiziger 4y ago
> In-person events must happen. Best case scenario, once per quarter. Even once per year is phenomenal though. This sounds pretty terrible environmentally, as remote-first implies geographically distributed, which implies air travel with its associated externalities.
- eightysixfour 4y ago
  Do the math on the comparison to a daily driving commute for all of the employees.
- phamilton 4y ago
  It'd be interesting to see how a daily commute compares to a once a quarter flight. I used to drive 40 miles a day in my commute. Roughly 10k miles/yr. A flight to a centrally located place in the US will be about 3k round trip if everyone lives on the coasts (worst case scenario). Are 3k air miles better or worse than 10k car miles?
  - slaw 4y ago
    Long haul airplane uses on average per passenger 3.2l/100km which is 73.5 US mpg. So 3k air miles are 1k 25mpg car miles. https://blog.openairlines.com/how-much-fuel-per-passenger-an-aircraft-is-consuming https://blog.openairlines.com/how-much-fuel-per-passenger-an...
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    Hmm, that’s an interesting viewpoint. I guess there is a significant share of people that would otherwise commute by internal combustion vehicle. For a true comparison you’d also have to take into account the transport mix (walking/transit/EV/ICE) and average distance travelled. Someone in Paris might be likely to commute by transit, but someone in northern Finland might be more likely to use a car.
bognition 4y ago
This is great, thanks!
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Only a fraction of your employees enjoys your mandatory fun, but no one is going to feel comfortable telling you that. It will simply add to their pile of silent grievances that eventually cause them to leave.
- betterthanlast 4y ago
  The problem is that this works both ways. I hate mandatory fun with a fiery passion. I absolutely dread these events (I’d do a happy hour any time, but these artificial things kill me). Having said that, I’ve had several people on my team ask me for them. Because of how I feel I know that others will hate them too and won’t be comfortable skipping the social event, but if I don’t organize something retention still drops. It’s gotten more complex with remote work since we can’t do a quick thing “after work” but actually leave the office early that day so people still go home on time and because Zoom socials are awkward and unsatisfying compared to in person events and we have people on the team half a continent away now. I think we’re headed towards a “retreat” type strategy where we either bring the people who are far away into the primary location for a week, or we all go somewhere. I don’t like either one of those options.
- compacct27 4y ago
  None of these are mandatory.
smohare 4y ago

Tijdreiziger 4y ago

> In-person events must happen. Best case scenario, once per quarter. Even once per year is phenomenal though. This sounds pretty terrible environmentally, as remote-first implies geographically distributed, which implies air travel with its associated externalities.

eightysixfour 4y ago
Do the math on the comparison to a daily driving commute for all of the employees.
phamilton 4y ago
It'd be interesting to see how a daily commute compares to a once a quarter flight. I used to drive 40 miles a day in my commute. Roughly 10k miles/yr. A flight to a centrally located place in the US will be about 3k round trip if everyone lives on the coasts (worst case scenario). Are 3k air miles better or worse than 10k car miles?
- slaw 4y ago
  Long haul airplane uses on average per passenger 3.2l/100km which is 73.5 US mpg. So 3k air miles are 1k 25mpg car miles. https://blog.openairlines.com/how-much-fuel-per-passenger-an-aircraft-is-consuming https://blog.openairlines.com/how-much-fuel-per-passenger-an...
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  Hmm, that’s an interesting viewpoint. I guess there is a significant share of people that would otherwise commute by internal combustion vehicle. For a true comparison you’d also have to take into account the transport mix (walking/transit/EV/ICE) and average distance travelled. Someone in Paris might be likely to commute by transit, but someone in northern Finland might be more likely to use a car.

bognition 4y ago

This is great, thanks!

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Only a fraction of your employees enjoys your mandatory fun, but no one is going to feel comfortable telling you that. It will simply add to their pile of silent grievances that eventually cause them to leave.

betterthanlast 4y ago
The problem is that this works both ways. I hate mandatory fun with a fiery passion. I absolutely dread these events (I’d do a happy hour any time, but these artificial things kill me). Having said that, I’ve had several people on my team ask me for them. Because of how I feel I know that others will hate them too and won’t be comfortable skipping the social event, but if I don’t organize something retention still drops. It’s gotten more complex with remote work since we can’t do a quick thing “after work” but actually leave the office early that day so people still go home on time and because Zoom socials are awkward and unsatisfying compared to in person events and we have people on the team half a continent away now. I think we’re headed towards a “retreat” type strategy where we either bring the people who are far away into the primary location for a week, or we all go somewhere. I don’t like either one of those options.
compacct27 4y ago
None of these are mandatory.

smohare 4y ago