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I'd argue that that doesn't have to be the case. The companies that are failing their junior employees and new hires are doing so not because they are remote/WF

by bink 4y ago

I'd argue that that doesn't have to be the case. The companies that are failing their junior employees and new hires are doing so not because they are remote/WFH, but because those companies did not invest the energy and resources necessary to be good at remote/WFH. There are plenty of companies that focus on remote work and have no issues with onboarding or failing performance.

RestlessMind 4y ago
> There are plenty of companies that focus on remote work and have no issues with onboarding or failing performance. Can you please name a few of those? Mine has gone all in and sincerely trying to make it work. And it still sucks. So curious to know some successful examples.
- doktorhladnjak 4y ago
  A couple of well-known ones are Automattic (WordPress.com) and Gitlab. Gitlab even has its employee handbook publicly available https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
  - shadow28 4y ago
    Airbnb is another one - https://news.airbnb.com/airbnbs-design-to-live-and-work-anywhere/ https://news.airbnb.com/airbnbs-design-to-live-and-work-anyw...
  - morelisp 4y ago
    I have no problem admitting GitLab is doing a better job than we are, but they also have orders of magnitude more investment and have been doing it since their inception vs. since the pandemic. Any examples from a) non-unicorns, b) who have successfully transitioned to remote work?
    - bink 4y ago
      That last example is the tough one. IMHO most companies that tried to transition to remote work during the pandemic did so half-heartedly and then blamed the failure on remote work instead of their own decisions. It'd be like deciding to open an office in another country and then not bothering to learn the culture, language, work habits, etc. Or opening an office in another city that was completely inadequate compared to your other offices and then blaming the new city. To make remote work function you really need to follow a model like GitLab has provided with their handbook. You need to document everything and use practices that favor asynchronous work. You need to adjust your training, benefits, communications tools, management techniques, etc. You can't just "allow" half of your people to work remotely and expect things to work out. In fact, the hybrid model is often said to be the worst of all worlds as the people who work in the office often ignore the remote workers and make everyone's job more difficult.
      - morelisp 4y ago
        > To make remote work function you really need to follow a model like GitLab has provided with their handbook. Right, and this requires resources (time and money) that VC hyperscalers maybe can afford to blow but the 8yo+ 50-100 person company whose HR "department" consists of maybe three people and whose non-technical sides don't understand the need to change everything because they don't need such intensive education, is going to grind to a halt for months if you try to roll this out. I don't "blame remote work" or anything, but it seems practically impossible to steer a mid-sized ship in this direction - big enough you've got fiefdoms and you'll never get 100% buy-in from the comfortable ones without a CEO going in and knocking a few heads, small enough you can't put together a task force specifically to eat the shit to manage the transition. So either we go back to the office a significant amount of the time, or we slowly die.

by bink 4y ago

RestlessMind 4y ago

> There are plenty of companies that focus on remote work and have no issues with onboarding or failing performance. Can you please name a few of those? Mine has gone all in and sincerely trying to make it work. And it still sucks. So curious to know some successful examples.

doktorhladnjak 4y ago
A couple of well-known ones are Automattic (WordPress.com) and Gitlab. Gitlab even has its employee handbook publicly available https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
- shadow28 4y ago
  Airbnb is another one - https://news.airbnb.com/airbnbs-design-to-live-and-work-anywhere/ https://news.airbnb.com/airbnbs-design-to-live-and-work-anyw...
- morelisp 4y ago
  I have no problem admitting GitLab is doing a better job than we are, but they also have orders of magnitude more investment and have been doing it since their inception vs. since the pandemic. Any examples from a) non-unicorns, b) who have successfully transitioned to remote work?
  - bink 4y ago
    That last example is the tough one. IMHO most companies that tried to transition to remote work during the pandemic did so half-heartedly and then blamed the failure on remote work instead of their own decisions. It'd be like deciding to open an office in another country and then not bothering to learn the culture, language, work habits, etc. Or opening an office in another city that was completely inadequate compared to your other offices and then blaming the new city. To make remote work function you really need to follow a model like GitLab has provided with their handbook. You need to document everything and use practices that favor asynchronous work. You need to adjust your training, benefits, communications tools, management techniques, etc. You can't just "allow" half of your people to work remotely and expect things to work out. In fact, the hybrid model is often said to be the worst of all worlds as the people who work in the office often ignore the remote workers and make everyone's job more difficult.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      > To make remote work function you really need to follow a model like GitLab has provided with their handbook. Right, and this requires resources (time and money) that VC hyperscalers maybe can afford to blow but the 8yo+ 50-100 person company whose HR "department" consists of maybe three people and whose non-technical sides don't understand the need to change everything because they don't need such intensive education, is going to grind to a halt for months if you try to roll this out. I don't "blame remote work" or anything, but it seems practically impossible to steer a mid-sized ship in this direction - big enough you've got fiefdoms and you'll never get 100% buy-in from the comfortable ones without a CEO going in and knocking a few heads, small enough you can't put together a task force specifically to eat the shit to manage the transition. So either we go back to the office a significant amount of the time, or we slowly die.