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> The #1 complaint of full time remote workers is they feel we all agree on designs and decisions and they just get to see a doc that 4/6 have already signed of

by u801e 3y ago

> The #1 complaint of full time remote workers is they feel we all agree on designs and decisions and they just get to see a doc that 4/6 have already signed off on verbally and they feel not involved. I have no idea how to "make them feel involved" nor do I care tbh. Suppose instead of just two people who are 100% remote, you have 8 people who are remote out of a team of 12 (the rest come into the office regularly). The 8 people who are remote find a problem, hash out the design in chat/video, write up a document and the 4 people in the office get to see a document that 8 out of 12 have signed off on. The remote people have no idea how to get the in office people feel involved, nor do they honestly care.

nightpool 3y ago
The problem is that this just doesn't happen like that. Instead, 1 person of 8 will write a document, 1 or 2 people will review it, and then either 1) you'll have to schedule a meeting to finish the review with everybody else (in which case you're paying a high synchronization tax), 2) you just give up and go ahead with no review or 3) you'll have to keep bugging people to review it async and it won't get done. What we're saying is just "remote work pays a higher coordination tax". That's a tax you can maybe decide is worth paying for various reasons (talent pool, work-life balance, etc), but acting like the tradeoffs don't exist is just wishful thinking.
TapWaterBandit 3y ago
> The remote people have no idea how to get the in office people feel involved, nor do they honestly care. This is a strange example because for a remote worker every other worker is "remote" so why would they ever exclude other workers from a group email? Remote workers have only one style of communication available (digital) whereas in-house have two styles (in-person & digital). There is no functional difference for the remote workers in communicating with all other workers but for the office workers there is.
- eddythompson80 3y ago
  Exactly. Pick a lane. 100% remote or 100% in office. Long before the pandemic, we were 100% in office but we had one 100% remote team member. We never had any problems because Robert understood that he was the only remote person. There was a distinct section of "Robert update" in the team weekly meetings just to recap what we all agreed on and to update Robert. Robert knew that and worked around it. We also knew that any decision we made didn't involve Robert and that we had to minimize impact on him whenever possible. If it wasn't possible, then we needed to update him as soon as possible. Luckily Robert never worked on core components with many fuzzy interfaces to other component. Both him and us agreed long ago that it wasn't feasible. If we all decided the whole team is remote, we could work with that. If we all decided the whole team is in-office, we too can work with that. Having a split team inherently dictated split responsibilities.
  - TapWaterBandit 3y ago
    > Exactly. Pick a lane. 100% remote or 100% in office. I don't entirely agree, I think hybrid can work well. It's just that like your colleague Robert the remote workers need to realise that there is a trade-off. You might save on commute etc but the price you pay is that in-office staff might make more decisions etc without you especially if there is a critical mass of workers in-office. People who prefer the office shouldn't force their preferences on those who prefer remote but remote workers shouldn't try and force the company to be structured around them. Life is all about trade-offs and so long as people go in with eyes wide open it can work well for everyone (in that more people get to work in ways more closely aligned with their preferences).
    - ghaff 3y ago
      The parent comment is essentially that if we have small remote contingent we'll treat them as outliers/second-class citizens and so long as everyone is fine with that we'll get along. I guess. Doesn't sound great for the remote person but as long as it works for them, OK? As you say, tradeoffs. I'll take being sort out of the workflow a lot of the time for not commuting/living in a cheaper area. I've also known teams that basically had a rule that as long as anyone was remote you worked from a work perspective as if everyone were. But it sounds as if that wasn't acceptable in this case to the majority.
- u801e 3y ago
  > This is a strange example because for a remote worker every other worker is "remote" so why would they ever exclude other workers from a group email? It's possible if all team members in the office went out for lunch and didn't see the messages and emails in time. The remote members wouldn't exclude them, but the in person team members wouldn't be able to provide their input in a timely manner.
- oytis 3y ago
  > This is a strange example because for a remote worker every other worker is "remote" so why would they ever exclude other workers from a group email? That's the point. Remote workers normally don't exclude the ones who go to the office, and office workers should not exclude remote workers either. That's how inclusivity works in many other cases too - you don't rely on spoken communication if you have a deaf colleague, you don't send your blind colleague architecture diagram in PNG, you don't require attendance to after-work beers, because people have all the kind of circumstances that require them to be present for their families etc. There is a small price of convenience for in-office workers, but the total result is better documentation of decision making, less influence from office politics, decisions being taken more rationally - and that is not even considering that you can employ people from different cities, countries and timezones.

by u801e 3y ago

nightpool 3y ago

The problem is that this just doesn't happen like that. Instead, 1 person of 8 will write a document, 1 or 2 people will review it, and then either 1) you'll have to schedule a meeting to finish the review with everybody else (in which case you're paying a high synchronization tax), 2) you just give up and go ahead with no review or 3) you'll have to keep bugging people to review it async and it won't get done. What we're saying is just "remote work pays a higher coordination tax". That's a tax you can maybe decide is worth paying for various reasons (talent pool, work-life balance, etc), but acting like the tradeoffs don't exist is just wishful thinking.

TapWaterBandit 3y ago

> The remote people have no idea how to get the in office people feel involved, nor do they honestly care. This is a strange example because for a remote worker every other worker is "remote" so why would they ever exclude other workers from a group email? Remote workers have only one style of communication available (digital) whereas in-house have two styles (in-person & digital). There is no functional difference for the remote workers in communicating with all other workers but for the office workers there is.

eddythompson80 3y ago
Exactly. Pick a lane. 100% remote or 100% in office. Long before the pandemic, we were 100% in office but we had one 100% remote team member. We never had any problems because Robert understood that he was the only remote person. There was a distinct section of "Robert update" in the team weekly meetings just to recap what we all agreed on and to update Robert. Robert knew that and worked around it. We also knew that any decision we made didn't involve Robert and that we had to minimize impact on him whenever possible. If it wasn't possible, then we needed to update him as soon as possible. Luckily Robert never worked on core components with many fuzzy interfaces to other component. Both him and us agreed long ago that it wasn't feasible. If we all decided the whole team is remote, we could work with that. If we all decided the whole team is in-office, we too can work with that. Having a split team inherently dictated split responsibilities.
- TapWaterBandit 3y ago
  > Exactly. Pick a lane. 100% remote or 100% in office. I don't entirely agree, I think hybrid can work well. It's just that like your colleague Robert the remote workers need to realise that there is a trade-off. You might save on commute etc but the price you pay is that in-office staff might make more decisions etc without you especially if there is a critical mass of workers in-office. People who prefer the office shouldn't force their preferences on those who prefer remote but remote workers shouldn't try and force the company to be structured around them. Life is all about trade-offs and so long as people go in with eyes wide open it can work well for everyone (in that more people get to work in ways more closely aligned with their preferences).
  - ghaff 3y ago
    The parent comment is essentially that if we have small remote contingent we'll treat them as outliers/second-class citizens and so long as everyone is fine with that we'll get along. I guess. Doesn't sound great for the remote person but as long as it works for them, OK? As you say, tradeoffs. I'll take being sort out of the workflow a lot of the time for not commuting/living in a cheaper area. I've also known teams that basically had a rule that as long as anyone was remote you worked from a work perspective as if everyone were. But it sounds as if that wasn't acceptable in this case to the majority.
u801e 3y ago
> This is a strange example because for a remote worker every other worker is "remote" so why would they ever exclude other workers from a group email? It's possible if all team members in the office went out for lunch and didn't see the messages and emails in time. The remote members wouldn't exclude them, but the in person team members wouldn't be able to provide their input in a timely manner.
oytis 3y ago
> This is a strange example because for a remote worker every other worker is "remote" so why would they ever exclude other workers from a group email? That's the point. Remote workers normally don't exclude the ones who go to the office, and office workers should not exclude remote workers either. That's how inclusivity works in many other cases too - you don't rely on spoken communication if you have a deaf colleague, you don't send your blind colleague architecture diagram in PNG, you don't require attendance to after-work beers, because people have all the kind of circumstances that require them to be present for their families etc. There is a small price of convenience for in-office workers, but the total result is better documentation of decision making, less influence from office politics, decisions being taken more rationally - and that is not even considering that you can employ people from different cities, countries and timezones.