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I totally disagree. I have worked remotely for more than a decade and run a team that is 100% remote. The company I work for is remote first as well. For whi

I totally disagree. I have worked remotely for more than a decade and run a team that is 100% remote. The company I work for is remote first as well. For white collar work, there is no difference between remote and on-premise employees. There is a huge difference between remote and on-premise leadership, however. In my experience, remote workers are significantly more productive than on-site employees IF the culture is one of employee empowerment and trust. If you expect people to be mature, communicate effectively, and get things done AND you give them the tools and support to do it then being remote is absolutely no barrier. It just gives people an extra hour or two a day to think about things and do a little extra work because they are not commuting. The missing piece is that leaders need to plan, execute, and communicate effectively. They need to empathize with their teams and work with people as individuals, which means extra time and thought and attention. Face-to-face work covers up for a lot of incompetence because that person is standing in front of you. Remote employees can't hide behind a herd and remote leaders can't hide behind an org chart. You don't need to spend millions of dollars on a building to cover up for poor leadership and weak culture. For reference, I run a team of 10 remote employees and am responsible for highly technical engineers that support sales for a team that generates 8-figures of annual revenue on SaaS and on-prem software.

j0hnyl 3y ago
I agree with you. I find remote work infinitely more productive for ambiguous task as well. I have memories of being in an office and getting into conference rooms and dicking around for 30 minutes before the work actually begins. This doesn't happen with remote meetings.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Those conference rooms are often where you learn about unstated requirements. Or the real requirement that they assuemed was too hard to asked for so they put in something that would accept that they thought was easier (even though the real requirement is easier). That is also where you learn when the company is shifting directions and so you can start doing what the company really wants. All of the above can be avoided with remote work. However it is a lot easier to pick those things up in the office.
  - j0hnyl 3y ago
    I don't completely agree here, but there is some merit to what you are saying with regards to honing on some social cues, gossip, candor, etc. However, I'd still take being in the dark on some of this stuff in exchange for all the benefits of working from home.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      You can skip all that even when in the office. However you run into real danger of getting fired because you are producing things that they don't need.
      - LtWorf 3y ago
        That is when you point to the ticket description and ask "where does it diverge from this description?"
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I'm sure most would too. But this is more about worker efficiency than personal desires. People who say they lose zero productivity in every stage of work lose some credance when the underlying narrative incentivizes them to say that.
dcsommer 3y ago
> remote workers are significantly more productive than on-site employees That is what GP says, too. GP was saying the advantage of in-person is agility and course-correction, which require intense discussion. > The missing piece is that leaders need to plan, execute, and communicate effectively. Maybe with perfect leadership this is tenable, but when responding in a quickly evolving situation, I can see the advantage of in person. It just doesn't seem realistic to expect leadership to do all the planning. Engineers "at the bottom" often have better perspective and should be at the planning table. My personal perspective: I'm currently 100% remote and enjoy the improved throughput. I also have had to get better at planning, as you point out. But when I have to do heavy coordination, video conference fatigue gets real. I'd prefer to be in person for those days with >3 hours on video.
- starkparker 3y ago
  > GP was saying the advantage of in-person is agility and course-correction, which require intense discussion. I worked in-person for the first 7 years of my career and remote for most of the last 7. This was true until the pandemic. It's not true anymore. Even in-office workers at my current hybrid workplace are using huddles and threaded chats to meet and decide things faster than scheduling a room or walking up. The only thing that was consistently faster in-office was the espresso machine, and even that flipped around when the Bambino came out around 2019.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Have you really had zero issues with brainstorming and team design remotely? I find it way more efficient to jot down messy ideas on a whiteboard than mess around with a virtual mock. Those are great as a polishing step once we reach a general approach we agree on. But constantly shuffling, panning, and resetting a Mirio board ends up with utter chaos IME
    - starkparker 3y ago
      > Have you really had zero issues with brainstorming and team design remotely? Literally none. PMs are disciplined, there's top-down and bottom-up accountability, there's good transparency of work status and blockers, and people can take days off, miss meetings, and still contribute to decision making because all the work is done in a shared space that everyone in the company can see. We don't even need standups most weeks because everyone knows where everyone is just by looking at the related tickets. The closest things to "problems" are in bridging front-end design and back-end implementation collaboration because they use different tools, but that was at least as big of a problem when it was turning whiteboard mockups and Post-its into engineering tickets.
jayd16 3y ago
If worse leaders can be effective in office and not remote, isn't that a pro-office argument?
- happytiger 3y ago
  On identical logic: that on-prem companies don’t hire the best leaders because they aren’t needed.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    There are a lot more okay leaders than great leaders. And it is hard to developer new leaders.
  - jayd16 3y ago
    For that to follow, you'd have to assume that its irrelevant anyway because the best and not the best provide equal value. Conversely, if the best provides more value no matter the situation then companies are incentivized to hire the best and RTO.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  I'm confused by this too. What good is an in-office leader if everyone else is remote?
  - jayd16 3y ago
    The conversation is about remote or co-located leadership. If the lead is in-office and the team is not, it would be remote leadership in this context. The whole team needs to be in office to change that.
csomar 3y ago
> I totally disagree. You know both premises can be true at the same time, right?
smabie 3y ago
If you've been remote for a decade then what are you comparing it against?
nostrademons 3y ago
Have you worked in startups though? Organizations of 1-20 people where the whole company doesn't know who its customers are, why they would buy the product, or how to make money? In my experience it's basically impossible to "plan, execute, and communicate effectively" in these environments, because if people knew what the plan was or how to execute it, someone would already have done it. The company relies on quick and efficient feedback between employees, leadership, and potential customers. That's the part that's much harder with remote work. In a startup, if you tell an engineer to do something and it turns out it's impossible, you will see him grimace and cuss you out in person, and you can adjust the plan accordingly. With remote work, you don't get that body-language feedback, and he'll probably say yes while looking for other jobs and posting about how incompetent his manager is on Hacker News.
- vinnymac 3y ago
  It is especially true for startups to be open minded and flexible. If engineers aren’t having those kinds of conversations, perhaps they do not feel comfortable being open and honest. If we create an environment where engineers feel comfortable enough that body language isn’t required as the sole feedback indicator in this scenario, perhaps the entire workplace would benefit.
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    I agree with all that, but it's also significantly easier to build trust in an in-person environment where the employee can read the leader's body language and judge for themselves whether leaders authentically believe in the mission that they're having the employees execute, as well as their chances of success. There's a reason why generals who lead from a desk aren't really trusted, or why when executives skip off to New Zealand it corrodes morale in their organizations.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I don't think that most people are disputing that it can work either way. But enough people are invested in staying remote themselves (I'm one!) that it turns into remote is better in all circumstances and people who want to be in an office are just as well-off as well.
hot_gril 3y ago
"If you expect people to be mature, communicate effectively, and get things done" That's a big if
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  Alsi "communicate effectively" is easier said than done, esp. given it's a two way street and remote communications can be pretty challenging for the employees.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    I think the SWEs can really take a lesson from the semi-technical sales people. World of difference even in a casual convo with them. I've been reforming myself too.
    - LtWorf 3y ago
      Semi-techical sales people are less technical than non-technical everyone else.
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        That's the point
j4yav 3y ago
I think the difference is 100% remote. Hybrid is the worst of both worlds.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Hybrid is my ideal option. I don’t think there is any point coming in every day, just 2-3 days to get all meetings and collaboration done, and then a few days at home to grind out the work that requires no discussion.
  - j4yav 3y ago
    If all the same people are in or out on all the same days that could work.
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      That's how we do it. 2 days a week everyone I work with goes to the office, then the other days it's sales teams or whatever. Means you actually get a lot of value out of the time in.
winterplace 3y ago
Could you share about the way leaders plan, execute, and communicate effectively? Do you have an email address or a contact method?
xnx 3y ago
I love remote work, but there is no higher-bandwidth lower-latency medium than face-to-face meetings. Good online organization will handily beat a bad meeting, but a good meeting cannot be beat by anything yet. Google Starline looks like the tech that comes closest to face-to-face: https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline-prototype/ https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline-pro...

j0hnyl 3y ago

I agree with you. I find remote work infinitely more productive for ambiguous task as well. I have memories of being in an office and getting into conference rooms and dicking around for 30 minutes before the work actually begins. This doesn't happen with remote meetings.

bluGill 3y ago
Those conference rooms are often where you learn about unstated requirements. Or the real requirement that they assuemed was too hard to asked for so they put in something that would accept that they thought was easier (even though the real requirement is easier). That is also where you learn when the company is shifting directions and so you can start doing what the company really wants. All of the above can be avoided with remote work. However it is a lot easier to pick those things up in the office.
- j0hnyl 3y ago
  I don't completely agree here, but there is some merit to what you are saying with regards to honing on some social cues, gossip, candor, etc. However, I'd still take being in the dark on some of this stuff in exchange for all the benefits of working from home.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    You can skip all that even when in the office. However you run into real danger of getting fired because you are producing things that they don't need.
    - LtWorf 3y ago
      That is when you point to the ticket description and ask "where does it diverge from this description?"
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I'm sure most would too. But this is more about worker efficiency than personal desires. People who say they lose zero productivity in every stage of work lose some credance when the underlying narrative incentivizes them to say that.

dcsommer 3y ago

> remote workers are significantly more productive than on-site employees That is what GP says, too. GP was saying the advantage of in-person is agility and course-correction, which require intense discussion. > The missing piece is that leaders need to plan, execute, and communicate effectively. Maybe with perfect leadership this is tenable, but when responding in a quickly evolving situation, I can see the advantage of in person. It just doesn't seem realistic to expect leadership to do all the planning. Engineers "at the bottom" often have better perspective and should be at the planning table. My personal perspective: I'm currently 100% remote and enjoy the improved throughput. I also have had to get better at planning, as you point out. But when I have to do heavy coordination, video conference fatigue gets real. I'd prefer to be in person for those days with >3 hours on video.

starkparker 3y ago
> GP was saying the advantage of in-person is agility and course-correction, which require intense discussion. I worked in-person for the first 7 years of my career and remote for most of the last 7. This was true until the pandemic. It's not true anymore. Even in-office workers at my current hybrid workplace are using huddles and threaded chats to meet and decide things faster than scheduling a room or walking up. The only thing that was consistently faster in-office was the espresso machine, and even that flipped around when the Bambino came out around 2019.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Have you really had zero issues with brainstorming and team design remotely? I find it way more efficient to jot down messy ideas on a whiteboard than mess around with a virtual mock. Those are great as a polishing step once we reach a general approach we agree on. But constantly shuffling, panning, and resetting a Mirio board ends up with utter chaos IME
  - starkparker 3y ago
    > Have you really had zero issues with brainstorming and team design remotely? Literally none. PMs are disciplined, there's top-down and bottom-up accountability, there's good transparency of work status and blockers, and people can take days off, miss meetings, and still contribute to decision making because all the work is done in a shared space that everyone in the company can see. We don't even need standups most weeks because everyone knows where everyone is just by looking at the related tickets. The closest things to "problems" are in bridging front-end design and back-end implementation collaboration because they use different tools, but that was at least as big of a problem when it was turning whiteboard mockups and Post-its into engineering tickets.

jayd16 3y ago

If worse leaders can be effective in office and not remote, isn't that a pro-office argument?

happytiger 3y ago
On identical logic: that on-prem companies don’t hire the best leaders because they aren’t needed.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There are a lot more okay leaders than great leaders. And it is hard to developer new leaders.
- jayd16 3y ago
  For that to follow, you'd have to assume that its irrelevant anyway because the best and not the best provide equal value. Conversely, if the best provides more value no matter the situation then companies are incentivized to hire the best and RTO.
hot_gril 3y ago
I'm confused by this too. What good is an in-office leader if everyone else is remote?
- jayd16 3y ago
  The conversation is about remote or co-located leadership. If the lead is in-office and the team is not, it would be remote leadership in this context. The whole team needs to be in office to change that.

csomar 3y ago

> I totally disagree. You know both premises can be true at the same time, right?

smabie 3y ago

If you've been remote for a decade then what are you comparing it against?

nostrademons 3y ago

Have you worked in startups though? Organizations of 1-20 people where the whole company doesn't know who its customers are, why they would buy the product, or how to make money? In my experience it's basically impossible to "plan, execute, and communicate effectively" in these environments, because if people knew what the plan was or how to execute it, someone would already have done it. The company relies on quick and efficient feedback between employees, leadership, and potential customers. That's the part that's much harder with remote work. In a startup, if you tell an engineer to do something and it turns out it's impossible, you will see him grimace and cuss you out in person, and you can adjust the plan accordingly. With remote work, you don't get that body-language feedback, and he'll probably say yes while looking for other jobs and posting about how incompetent his manager is on Hacker News.

vinnymac 3y ago
It is especially true for startups to be open minded and flexible. If engineers aren’t having those kinds of conversations, perhaps they do not feel comfortable being open and honest. If we create an environment where engineers feel comfortable enough that body language isn’t required as the sole feedback indicator in this scenario, perhaps the entire workplace would benefit.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  I agree with all that, but it's also significantly easier to build trust in an in-person environment where the employee can read the leader's body language and judge for themselves whether leaders authentically believe in the mission that they're having the employees execute, as well as their chances of success. There's a reason why generals who lead from a desk aren't really trusted, or why when executives skip off to New Zealand it corrodes morale in their organizations.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I don't think that most people are disputing that it can work either way. But enough people are invested in staying remote themselves (I'm one!) that it turns into remote is better in all circumstances and people who want to be in an office are just as well-off as well.

hot_gril 3y ago

"If you expect people to be mature, communicate effectively, and get things done" That's a big if

The_Colonel 3y ago
Alsi "communicate effectively" is easier said than done, esp. given it's a two way street and remote communications can be pretty challenging for the employees.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  I think the SWEs can really take a lesson from the semi-technical sales people. World of difference even in a casual convo with them. I've been reforming myself too.
  - LtWorf 3y ago
    Semi-techical sales people are less technical than non-technical everyone else.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      That's the point

j4yav 3y ago

I think the difference is 100% remote. Hybrid is the worst of both worlds.

Gigachad 3y ago
Hybrid is my ideal option. I don’t think there is any point coming in every day, just 2-3 days to get all meetings and collaboration done, and then a few days at home to grind out the work that requires no discussion.
- j4yav 3y ago
  If all the same people are in or out on all the same days that could work.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    That's how we do it. 2 days a week everyone I work with goes to the office, then the other days it's sales teams or whatever. Means you actually get a lot of value out of the time in.

winterplace 3y ago

Could you share about the way leaders plan, execute, and communicate effectively? Do you have an email address or a contact method?

xnx 3y ago

I love remote work, but there is no higher-bandwidth lower-latency medium than face-to-face meetings. Good online organization will handily beat a bad meeting, but a good meeting cannot be beat by anything yet. Google Starline looks like the tech that comes closest to face-to-face: https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline-prototype/ https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline-pro...