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Would working totally remote, but paying for quarterly tickets and accommodation to gather all staff (from all over the world) for a week to meet and brainstorm
by ryzvonusef 4y ago
Would working totally remote, but paying for quarterly tickets and accommodation to gather all staff (from all over the world) for a week to meet and brainstorm, be cheaper than hiring locally and renting?
I know someone who worked for a danish company, they has a similar scheme but every six months... worked really well for the most part. The company would hold retreats all over Europe, and since it combined both business and employee perks (stay at a nice resort), worked like a charm for them.
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But it also highlighted an interesting issue, that might act as a counterpoint for the whole thing.
The problem was my acquaintance was a Pakistani citizen like me... and visa for us is a really big headache.
Not a big deal for an EU company to announce only a week or two before where the retreat would be held this time, and most of their workforce, who all had relatively strong passports, also didn't face major issues.
But the earliest he himself could get any form of schengen visa was like 3 months after the retreat, so too late for the first one and too early for the second one, whenever and wherever that would be decided.
I think it worked out for him after sometime, but remote work is not all sunshine and roses.
- detaro 4y agoEven if you are in the EU, 1-2 weeks notice for something like that is bonkers. And as soon as company has more than a handful of employees, this is something you want to have booked with hotel and such earlier anyways. From what I've seen in other companies, time and location of such things gets announced months in advance.
- ryzvonusef 4y agoApologies if I am remembering the anecdote incorrectly, it might have been more than two weeks. (We were in a chat group and he was bemoaning his visa headaches, I forget the exact mechanics of his company policy, since that wasn't the crux of the issue) The point was, however earlier they had given their employees the notice, his visa was going to arrive much later than that. Visa for us is extremely difficult, someone on twitter shared a screenshot, the Canadian website told to expect a wait of "580 days" or something absurd like that. So you can hire remote workers cheaply from other countries (and no employment visa headaches), but if you expect to call them for a quick visit, plan absurdly early.
- izacus 4y agoI've lead remote teams and gathering the team 1x or 2x per year was absolute necessity to have everyone working well together. Obviously you do this in a sensible manner (a lot of heads up, locked down dates so people can plan vacation around it, full expenses paid).
- selimthegrim 4y agoCan’t they schedule anything in Dubai?
- ryzvonusef 4y agoI decided to hit him up again, and he told me he had moved to another (European ) company, one which would sponsor a work visa, so he didn't have to go through all these headaches so I guess remote didn't end up being suitable for him. Dubai isn't suitable for most Euros, tbh.
- kemayo 4y agoI've seen this with some Nigerian coworkers. The sheer difficulty of getting them a visa to attend any sort of gathering outside of Africa is intense.
- 908B64B197 4y ago> The problem was my acquaintance was a Pakistani citizen like me... and visa for us is a really big headache. Passport travel freedom is caused by security and fraud risk. This can be fixed by countries simply by making sure fraud and security risks can't end-up abroad.