5 ms·

I honestly don't know how this works. I mean it's really very difficult to get someone to work remotely with the same dedication and passion. I find collaborati

I honestly don't know how this works. I mean it's really very difficult to get someone to work remotely with the same dedication and passion. I find collaboration extremely difficult. I mean if there are 5 rockstars working on a project, then sure, remote working will do fine. But if we talk about a decent workforce, there is a lot of handholding required. I don't know how it's possible remotely.

xal 13y ago
It works great if everyone in the company is hugely accomplished and if the product of the company is in essentially permanent use by everyone who works there.
- speg 13y ago
  What is Shopify's policy on working remotely?
  - xal 13y ago
    Depends on the kind of work. Engineers and Designers generally work as teams on location.
fredoliveira 13y ago
Dedication and passion are most definitely not tied to where you are. If you're unhappy with your job, you won't be passionate; you won't be dedicated. You'll be miserable, looking at the clock, regardless of where the clock is. If you need handholding, you're hiring and working with B-players. Not everyone is going to be able to hold its own initially, but after a few weeks on a team, you should be independent enough that people don't need to look over your shoulder.
- allsystemsgo 13y ago
  I disagree. Most new employees need some sort of on boarding. When you join a new project, you'll need some sort of on boarding. Usually there's one or maybe two tech leads, and then a handful of junior devs. It's part of the companies responsibility to train them up. This isn't to say they're not dedicated or passionate, but when you're putting in 60 hour weeks bug fixing or implementing small features here and there, you run out of time to go read some books about your development language of choice. New employees ask lots of questions their first 6 months or so. It's just the way it is.
  - fredoliveira 13y ago
    I believe you need to re-read my comment. And man, if your new employees need 6 months of hand-holding, you're hiring the wrong employees.
jonathanjaeger 13y ago
That's a good point. I'm not arguing against 37Signals' philosophy, I love a lot about what they espouse. However we have to keep in mind that they are only 37 employees, give or take, right? This doesn't necessarily work when you have 1000 employees. I know we want every one of the 1000 employees to work 100% even when working remotely, but anecdotes don't necessarily translate into what actually works efficiently.
- dsleno 13y ago
  It's simple. Judge people by their results. Period. "we want every one of the 1000 employees to work 100% " What you're confused about is that you equate being at work with working. I hate to break it to you, but none of your 1000 employees are not working at 100 capacity, even if you can see that they are sitting in their ugly little cubicle. It doens't mean they're working, or that they're productive.
  - jonathanjaeger 13y ago
    No I'm not confused about it. I agree 100% that even at the office you can't work at full capacity. But it's a matter of relative terms. I run ad campaigns seven days a week (I don't work at full capacity on weekends, but it's 5-12 hours of some focus) and I've experienced working full days remotely too. I'm not saying you can't have the motivation to work at similar capacity at home, I'm just saying it doesn't work for everyone and it's harder even for motivated people like me. Companies with thousands of people don't have all A-players, we can't pretend that's the case, and for many I'm sure there's a noticeable difference between productivity in the office (due to a variety of factors) vs. working from home.
    - owenmarshall 13y ago
      >anecdotes don't necessarily translate into what actually works efficiently >I'm just saying it doesn't work for everyone and it's harder even for motivated people like me >for many I'm sure there's a noticeable difference between productivity in the office (due to a variety of factors) vs. working from home. So the only anecdotes you'll entertain are the ones that support the decision you've already made. Got it. Snark aside, I strongly believe the parent was right - people should be judged on the results they bring to the company, not how effective they are at turning the office's oxygen into carbon dioxide and their merit at weighing down their company assigned chair. Even if a company with one thousand employees doesn't have all A-players, why should we assume that even the B or C players can't effectively bring their B or C game outside the office? Shouldn't we structure the companies policies around the assumption that your employees are trustworthy and deserving of flexibility, and if they aren't maybe they shouldn't be an employee?
enjo 13y ago
I work at Gridium (http://www.gridium.com http://www.gridium.com). We're a 100% "virtual" company, meaning we have no central office. We work in several different timezones. Yet we've managed to build products that, by any measure, have been very successful. Good enough to see us named to this years Cleantech 100 (http://www.cleantech.com/global100/global-cleantech-100/ http://www.cleantech.com/global100/global-cleantech-100/)! The point being, we are a successful startup that has made the lack of a central office a part of our culture. This is my first foray into a virtual company like this, and it's been eye-opening. There are several efficiencies that come with remote work: 1. Our team members are thrilled. We have folks in basically every stage of their working lives. From fresh college graduates to parents of kids in college.. and everything in between. Everyone has expressed satisfaction with how our setup has given them the ability to easily balance their personal lives with work. I know that for me, simply eliminating the commute I have an extra hour or two in my day to spend time with my family. That alone makes me intensely loyal to the company. 2. It's the best hiring hack ever. Did you know that there are insanely talented engineers living in Boise Idaho? Milwaukee? Conway Arkansas? It turns out that when you are allowed to cast a very wide hiring net, the level of talent available to you simply goes through the roof. Instead of sniping talent from local companies and participating in the hiring arms-race you're seeing in the valley and in other startup hubs, we get to hire amazing people that those companies simply never consider. 3. We save real money. Since we don't have an office, we save on one of the biggest expenses a company can have. We do pay for co-working spaces, but most of our employees choose to work at home. It leaves money in the budget for us to have amazing quarterly meet-ups. Every three months we get together and work on the company, but we get to have an amazing time while doing so. 4. Management efficiencies abound as well. You learn to really trust other people when you can't look over their shoulder all of the time. Which creates a brilliant culture of self-managing teams. There are challenges. When do you have standup (DO you do standups)? How do you communicate? Thankfully tools like Google Hangouts, hipchat, and a variety of others help us cross that gap. I think the most surprising thing to me has been that our virtual company operates more like a traditional officed one than I would have thought. We still have meetings when necessary. We still collaborate. Hell we still whiteboard things out. Just the venue has changed and the manner in which we do things slightly altered. tldr; It can most definitely work.

xal 13y ago

It works great if everyone in the company is hugely accomplished and if the product of the company is in essentially permanent use by everyone who works there.

speg 13y ago
What is Shopify's policy on working remotely?
- xal 13y ago
  Depends on the kind of work. Engineers and Designers generally work as teams on location.

fredoliveira 13y ago

Dedication and passion are most definitely not tied to where you are. If you're unhappy with your job, you won't be passionate; you won't be dedicated. You'll be miserable, looking at the clock, regardless of where the clock is. If you need handholding, you're hiring and working with B-players. Not everyone is going to be able to hold its own initially, but after a few weeks on a team, you should be independent enough that people don't need to look over your shoulder.

allsystemsgo 13y ago
I disagree. Most new employees need some sort of on boarding. When you join a new project, you'll need some sort of on boarding. Usually there's one or maybe two tech leads, and then a handful of junior devs. It's part of the companies responsibility to train them up. This isn't to say they're not dedicated or passionate, but when you're putting in 60 hour weeks bug fixing or implementing small features here and there, you run out of time to go read some books about your development language of choice. New employees ask lots of questions their first 6 months or so. It's just the way it is.
- fredoliveira 13y ago
  I believe you need to re-read my comment. And man, if your new employees need 6 months of hand-holding, you're hiring the wrong employees.

jonathanjaeger 13y ago

That's a good point. I'm not arguing against 37Signals' philosophy, I love a lot about what they espouse. However we have to keep in mind that they are only 37 employees, give or take, right? This doesn't necessarily work when you have 1000 employees. I know we want every one of the 1000 employees to work 100% even when working remotely, but anecdotes don't necessarily translate into what actually works efficiently.

dsleno 13y ago
It's simple. Judge people by their results. Period. "we want every one of the 1000 employees to work 100% " What you're confused about is that you equate being at work with working. I hate to break it to you, but none of your 1000 employees are not working at 100 capacity, even if you can see that they are sitting in their ugly little cubicle. It doens't mean they're working, or that they're productive.
- jonathanjaeger 13y ago
  No I'm not confused about it. I agree 100% that even at the office you can't work at full capacity. But it's a matter of relative terms. I run ad campaigns seven days a week (I don't work at full capacity on weekends, but it's 5-12 hours of some focus) and I've experienced working full days remotely too. I'm not saying you can't have the motivation to work at similar capacity at home, I'm just saying it doesn't work for everyone and it's harder even for motivated people like me. Companies with thousands of people don't have all A-players, we can't pretend that's the case, and for many I'm sure there's a noticeable difference between productivity in the office (due to a variety of factors) vs. working from home.
  - owenmarshall 13y ago
    >anecdotes don't necessarily translate into what actually works efficiently >I'm just saying it doesn't work for everyone and it's harder even for motivated people like me >for many I'm sure there's a noticeable difference between productivity in the office (due to a variety of factors) vs. working from home. So the only anecdotes you'll entertain are the ones that support the decision you've already made. Got it. Snark aside, I strongly believe the parent was right - people should be judged on the results they bring to the company, not how effective they are at turning the office's oxygen into carbon dioxide and their merit at weighing down their company assigned chair. Even if a company with one thousand employees doesn't have all A-players, why should we assume that even the B or C players can't effectively bring their B or C game outside the office? Shouldn't we structure the companies policies around the assumption that your employees are trustworthy and deserving of flexibility, and if they aren't maybe they shouldn't be an employee?

enjo 13y ago

I work at Gridium (http://www.gridium.com http://www.gridium.com). We're a 100% "virtual" company, meaning we have no central office. We work in several different timezones. Yet we've managed to build products that, by any measure, have been very successful. Good enough to see us named to this years Cleantech 100 (http://www.cleantech.com/global100/global-cleantech-100/ http://www.cleantech.com/global100/global-cleantech-100/)! The point being, we are a successful startup that has made the lack of a central office a part of our culture. This is my first foray into a virtual company like this, and it's been eye-opening. There are several efficiencies that come with remote work: 1. Our team members are thrilled. We have folks in basically every stage of their working lives. From fresh college graduates to parents of kids in college.. and everything in between. Everyone has expressed satisfaction with how our setup has given them the ability to easily balance their personal lives with work. I know that for me, simply eliminating the commute I have an extra hour or two in my day to spend time with my family. That alone makes me intensely loyal to the company. 2. It's the best hiring hack ever. Did you know that there are insanely talented engineers living in Boise Idaho? Milwaukee? Conway Arkansas? It turns out that when you are allowed to cast a very wide hiring net, the level of talent available to you simply goes through the roof. Instead of sniping talent from local companies and participating in the hiring arms-race you're seeing in the valley and in other startup hubs, we get to hire amazing people that those companies simply never consider. 3. We save real money. Since we don't have an office, we save on one of the biggest expenses a company can have. We do pay for co-working spaces, but most of our employees choose to work at home. It leaves money in the budget for us to have amazing quarterly meet-ups. Every three months we get together and work on the company, but we get to have an amazing time while doing so. 4. Management efficiencies abound as well. You learn to really trust other people when you can't look over their shoulder all of the time. Which creates a brilliant culture of self-managing teams. There are challenges. When do you have standup (DO you do standups)? How do you communicate? Thankfully tools like Google Hangouts, hipchat, and a variety of others help us cross that gap. I think the most surprising thing to me has been that our virtual company operates more like a traditional officed one than I would have thought. We still have meetings when necessary. We still collaborate. Hell we still whiteboard things out. Just the venue has changed and the manner in which we do things slightly altered. tldr; It can most definitely work.