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In a way, we should be thrilled that the perception is that in-office work is better: less outsourcing. If i can work remove from Indiana, I can work remote f

by rhelz 3y ago

In a way, we should be thrilled that the perception is that in-office work is better: less outsourcing. If i can work remove from Indiana, I can work remote from India. I'm very surprised that the takeaway from COVID wasn't just to have people work remotely from the lowest-wage countries in the world.

glimshe 3y ago
In general this is not the case and that's exactly why it hasn't happened significantly for companies that embrace remote. This is one more of the remote work myths that keep getting repeated. As someone who works in a very remote team, it's much harder to collaborate with people in very distant time zones. You can do remote work and have PLENTY of interaction over video, chat, audio etc. But you lose all of that when all the interactions are very slow and fully asynchronous. Additionally - and that's a separate problem - doing remote work with people in other countries has an entire different set of problems. Work culture, legislation restricting hours, language barrier (even with India), etc. These problems are unrelated to remote work in general are related to outsourcing work.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  > In general this is not the case and that's exactly why it hasn't happened significantly for companies that embrace remote. Anecdote of one, but my company is fully embracing Canada and UK. We had multiple rounds of layoffs and all the new headcount is in those 2 countries. > timezones, Work culture, legislation restricting hours, language barrier None of that applies to Canada. And I can tell you first hand that Canadian salaries are lower than even the cheapest parts of the US. Canada is also rolling out red carpets to IT people around the world including H1B refugees, so worker supple is not an issue. Even for UK, only the timezone matters. It is very much compatible with the and work culture.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    Canada offers limited outsourcing opportunities from the US perspective. Population is only a bit over one tenth of the US and there is already a significant brain drain to the US due to higher salaries and ease of moving. Canada also has strict labor regulations and a "union problem" which aren't very appealing to US companies. The UK suffers from similar problems on top of the timezone issue. The company where I work has an office in both of these countries, but they only have a fraction of the US-based employees (and not growing in either). Most of the growth in the company is happening in the cheaper parts of the US instead.
    - RestlessMind 3y ago
      Hmm, anecdotally in my company, we have no problem recruiting as many Canadians as we want.

by rhelz 3y ago

glimshe 3y ago

In general this is not the case and that's exactly why it hasn't happened significantly for companies that embrace remote. This is one more of the remote work myths that keep getting repeated. As someone who works in a very remote team, it's much harder to collaborate with people in very distant time zones. You can do remote work and have PLENTY of interaction over video, chat, audio etc. But you lose all of that when all the interactions are very slow and fully asynchronous. Additionally - and that's a separate problem - doing remote work with people in other countries has an entire different set of problems. Work culture, legislation restricting hours, language barrier (even with India), etc. These problems are unrelated to remote work in general are related to outsourcing work.

RestlessMind 3y ago
> In general this is not the case and that's exactly why it hasn't happened significantly for companies that embrace remote. Anecdote of one, but my company is fully embracing Canada and UK. We had multiple rounds of layoffs and all the new headcount is in those 2 countries. > timezones, Work culture, legislation restricting hours, language barrier None of that applies to Canada. And I can tell you first hand that Canadian salaries are lower than even the cheapest parts of the US. Canada is also rolling out red carpets to IT people around the world including H1B refugees, so worker supple is not an issue. Even for UK, only the timezone matters. It is very much compatible with the and work culture.
- glimshe 3y ago
  Canada offers limited outsourcing opportunities from the US perspective. Population is only a bit over one tenth of the US and there is already a significant brain drain to the US due to higher salaries and ease of moving. Canada also has strict labor regulations and a "union problem" which aren't very appealing to US companies. The UK suffers from similar problems on top of the timezone issue. The company where I work has an office in both of these countries, but they only have a fraction of the US-based employees (and not growing in either). Most of the growth in the company is happening in the cheaper parts of the US instead.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Hmm, anecdotally in my company, we have no problem recruiting as many Canadians as we want.