Few workplaces are fond of remote workers. The major reason a lot of people remain employed is so they have a purpose to wake up, leave their houses, and spend the day occupied by the relative comfort of an office building, surrounded by reasonably-intelligent coworkers, as a faux-family. And it's a slap in their face that you don't want to spend your time basking in their physical proximity.
>it's a slap in their face that you don't want to spend your time basking in their physical proximity
That's slightly self-centered. Nobody cares about you or their co-workers so much that they are offended if you don't want to work (or bask) in the team's presence.
People are tribal by nature, and one of the ways humans feel a sense of belonging is through overcoming common conflict (i.e. Tuckman's stages). While not impossible, it's much harder to have common conflicts if you're just not there.
That said the company success will depend on how frequently the information can be mixed up. That said, some roles do not need as much communication as others, especially in mature business and niche positions.
This is absolutely true also, but it is generally easier to address than the need for physical interaction often felt by people in management. (I'm not trying to be derogatory here, as good physical interaction is often closely tied to a manager's success, so it's natural that they would be wary of removing that aspect of their relationships.)
with modern software, it's only hard to do right if they're not at their laptop/workstation. which means they're doing some other shit other than working.
our entire team is remote. it's really obvious when someone isn't at their computer. it's basically the only hard requirement of the job beyond the work product - be at your computer when you say you are going to be at your computer.
The thing is, the skill level required to properly manage remote employees, especially in a mixed remote / non-remote office is higher. When you are large corporation and have to start looking at employees in a statistical manner, you might choose 'no remote' because it's cheaper / more possible to find managers that can do 'no remote' vs. 'mixed remote'. There is almost no large company that is remote only right now.
It's the same reason why almost every company programs in blub vs. lisp, haskell, erlang, etc. The skill level of employee can be hard to find who can do those things. Companies already feel supply constrained with engineers, now imagine you add the haskell requirement and you need to hire 1000 of them.
Startups can leverage this disadvantage sometimes by not having a statistical management requirement and start with a foundational advantage. There is also the case of using haskell killing your startup although because of tool problems, and big companies being able to make small special R&D type teams that can use Haskell, so it's definitely a balance.
Really? some times the crucial part of the job is done away from the computer.
I remember doing a quick fix for one of the attractions at the melenium dome - the core part of the work was working out on paper all the permutations and what should happen the coding at a terminal was the trivial part.
BTW the program correctly run first time and was delivered in less than a day.
Management isn't just about who's working or not. There's a lot of what makes a successful team that requires careful consideration to replicate when everyone is remote. Yes, modern technology makes much of this easier, but it still requires effort to identify and address, whereas it is somewhat automatic at physical offices.
For example, "water cooler" conversations. In a physical office these happen because people are conditioned to make small talk. That is not the case virtually, as it's easy to spend an entire day in a chat room with a co-worker and never interact with them.
You can wake up, leave your house and go to a confortable office building surrounded by people working in the same industry by going to a coworking space.
As a remote worker I actually want to have this routine, meet people, this is why I go to a coworking space.
The benefit of remote work is that you can have much more choice in the company you work for, without having to move to SF/NY/London/Paris/<some other crowded and overpriced area>.
> The benefit of remote work is that you can have much more choice in the company you work for
That would be true if most companies allowed remote work. In my experience, only a few do. Even fewer have a "remote first" culture, where you don't miss important discussions if you're not in the office.
Interesting way of putting that perspective. I have been trying to put my finger on the whole remote working issue for a while. What you expressed is one aspect to the issue, but I also think that it is probably just an intermediary symptom, a phantom / false cause if you will. Personally I think we would see a lot more remote working and even a social revolution if at very least the incentives for physical office space were removed from tax and accounting policy. Remote working is really a difficult nut to crack that has a significant cleft between it's potential and present reality.
I guarantee that the company that can scale up effective remote working that has severed the tether to co-located organizational structure will be wildly successful. Unfortunately, I think it will also have major social repercussions similar to the impact that autonomous transportation has the potential for causing.
For me, it's a combination of things... I'm far more distracted at home, and it's much easier to communicate face-to-face when you can have, for example a white board to draw out discussions on.
Aside from that, hangouts, lync and the like do make communicating remotely very nice. I've wanted for years the ability to actually share a project session with someone via Visual Studio (or something similar)... so that you can work in the same visual space... if you're on the same file, you can see eachother's edits/changes real time... if you're in other files, you can just flow...
I don't think it all requires that people be in physical proximity, but there are advantages to being a closer team. I often find that 3-4 developers in the same room can dramatically outperform teams that are disconnected from each other. But then again, I think that if your project can't be distilled into units of work/services worked on by 3-4 developers you're doing something wrong.
Could you explain what you mean about the incentives from tax and accounting policy? Are you saying that tax benefits for having office space are richer than the actual expense of renting that office space?
Essentially, there seem to be significant tax, accounting, and general financial incentives associated with office space and expenditures that come with it. Take, for example, during the recession, special corporate tax rules were set in place that rewarded and essentially subsidized capital expenditures and allowed for accelerated write-downs.
Those are not necessarily solely financial incentives, but they function to compound and combine with already established systems of corporate organization, personnel structures, and general status quo operations and processes. In that scenario, the co-located work paradigm was not only supported and strengthened where remote working was not, but it also set an expectation that thar be government breast milk in tumultuous times.
I am no corporate tax, accounting, or financial expert; but what I can say is that it seems to be the forest that can't be seen for all the trees.
In the USA, you can deduct your business expenses (including building rental) from your profits for tax purposes. This creates a huge incentive to rent, as it's basically free - the company is basically paying part of their tax payment to their landlord.
Google doesn't like workers who always work remotely, but periodically working from home (or the bus, or hotel, or coffeeshop, or the lobby at the auto mechanic, etc.) for a day is common for all employees.
Fair enough, but that still limits potential employees to a certain physical proximity to Google offices. While there are a number of those, and I aim to bring one here eventually, it is still a limitation.
But why would anyone not be willing to leave their family, friends, and life behind and move to one of the most expensive cities in the world in order to work at Google? Isn't work important to you?
It isn't just corporations that are not fond of remote work. As a lay-employee, I am not fond of remote work either. I would much rather have all my teammates in the same room.
- lots of information is ambient at the team place
- because not all people are that concentrated at home
- because working alone is difficult sometimes (especially when you're under stress)
- because you're harder to contact (yes, some people are afraid to call a colleague at home)
- because people don't like to have 4 simultaneous chat sessions with colleagues
So a day of remote work certainly help, but I'd venture to say that's a maximum for many. Of course there are people who a re remote 100% of the time, but not everybody can do that. You have to love your work for that, and many people don' t /love/ their work...
It's hard to fully trust a person that is remote. Are they keeping your data safe?
Another solution is the idea of Amazons virtual workspaces for remote workers, this allows the company to have more control over the computer that the employee is using.
My work has required daily VPN use over most of the past 7 years, and I have yet to find one that is reliable. I'm certain this has more to do with properly setting them up then an inherent flaw in the concept, but it still means when I can avoid them, I do.
Of course, there's a certain irony that Google isn't fond of remote workers. :)