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I'm glad you included that last line. I agree with you that managing a remote team or running a remote business has challenges that an in-person one doesn't. (

I'm glad you included that last line. I agree with you that managing a remote team or running a remote business has challenges that an in-person one doesn't. (I've been running AutoTempest with an all-remote team for almost 14 years now.) Managers who rely on the 'butts in seats' heuristic will struggle a lot with managing remote employees. However, the opportunities are also massive. For one thing, the owners/managers get to work from home too, which I certainly wouldn't give up! You can also hire from anywhere, which is huge in terms of finding talented people. Most importantly though, I think, all the things you need to do to manage a remote team effectively are things you really should be doing anyway. Yes, maybe some of the communication would be face to face instead of Slack or whatever, but for the most part if you're managing well, it's not going to be too hard to translate that to a remote environment. It's about actually knowing what people are working on, not just making sure they're putting in the hours. Knowing the goals of the team, and the individual goals of the team members. Fostering communication and collaboration (whatever the medium). And then continuously reviewing and refining the processes by which you do all those things.

midoridensha 4y ago
>You can also hire from anywhere, which is huge in terms of finding talented people. This is a negative for many businesses: their employees can get poached by competitors far away that offer better pay or benefits or working conditions.
- tempestn 4y ago
  True, but it's still a net benefit for good companies. And it's not like it means you're competing with FAANG on every hire. There are far more developers out there (including very good ones) than those companies can employ. Especially now when most are looking to downsize instead!
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >True, but it's still a net benefit for good companies. Yes, but what about the crappy companies? It's a big net negative for them, so they're going to oppose it. They don't want to compete with companies around the nation; they want to be the only employer in town so their employees feel locked in and unable to change jobs without selling their home and moving.
matwood 4y ago
You're spot on. One big ones you missed is the cost savings of not needing an office. Years before covid, I pushed my company out of an office to full remote for many of the reasons you listed. It allowed us to keep a few great employees who wanted to live elsewhere, and save substantial money on office space (which matters a lot for a small company). At the time Slack had just become big and we embraced the async, transparent communication style fully. Early on one of the other owners asked me, 'if no one is in the office how do we know they are working?', and I responded 'how do we know they are working now?' That's when he 'got' it. We had never relied butts in seats, but it can still be a little scary going into an unknown. Remote/in-person both have unique challenges, they are just different. After years of remote, I think the advantages outweigh the challenges vs in-person.
- tempestn 4y ago
  Good point. We've always been all remote, so I forget about that one, but I'm sure it's significant! When I started it was just me, and then just me and a friend of mine, so obviously didn't make sense to get an office just for us. Then we hired a third person, but again it was easy enough to make it work. For a long time I assumed that at some point I'd eventually have to get serious and get a real office. But then one day I realized... no one was going to make me do that. It's certainly been a continuous process learning how to effectively manage a remote team (and manage in general), but agreed that at least for us the advantages definitely outweigh the drawbacks. It's actually been nice as remote work has caught on elsewhere, because though it means more competition, it also means much better tools as well as a broader knowledge base to draw on.

midoridensha 4y ago

>You can also hire from anywhere, which is huge in terms of finding talented people. This is a negative for many businesses: their employees can get poached by competitors far away that offer better pay or benefits or working conditions.

tempestn 4y ago
True, but it's still a net benefit for good companies. And it's not like it means you're competing with FAANG on every hire. There are far more developers out there (including very good ones) than those companies can employ. Especially now when most are looking to downsize instead!
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >True, but it's still a net benefit for good companies. Yes, but what about the crappy companies? It's a big net negative for them, so they're going to oppose it. They don't want to compete with companies around the nation; they want to be the only employer in town so their employees feel locked in and unable to change jobs without selling their home and moving.

matwood 4y ago

You're spot on. One big ones you missed is the cost savings of not needing an office. Years before covid, I pushed my company out of an office to full remote for many of the reasons you listed. It allowed us to keep a few great employees who wanted to live elsewhere, and save substantial money on office space (which matters a lot for a small company). At the time Slack had just become big and we embraced the async, transparent communication style fully. Early on one of the other owners asked me, 'if no one is in the office how do we know they are working?', and I responded 'how do we know they are working now?' That's when he 'got' it. We had never relied butts in seats, but it can still be a little scary going into an unknown. Remote/in-person both have unique challenges, they are just different. After years of remote, I think the advantages outweigh the challenges vs in-person.

tempestn 4y ago
Good point. We've always been all remote, so I forget about that one, but I'm sure it's significant! When I started it was just me, and then just me and a friend of mine, so obviously didn't make sense to get an office just for us. Then we hired a third person, but again it was easy enough to make it work. For a long time I assumed that at some point I'd eventually have to get serious and get a real office. But then one day I realized... no one was going to make me do that. It's certainly been a continuous process learning how to effectively manage a remote team (and manage in general), but agreed that at least for us the advantages definitely outweigh the drawbacks. It's actually been nice as remote work has caught on elsewhere, because though it means more competition, it also means much better tools as well as a broader knowledge base to draw on.