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Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

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Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#141

Post by edoceo »

ohjeez wrote: post #104
edoceo wrote: post #36

Our management wants onsite for better control. I think it's all feelings based. We want to hire in Seattle. We had some remote not work out, therefore all remote is "bad". I think BS. We just got a new remote QA team and they are doing great. We have two remote devs also who are doing good work. I interpret the evidence to show that remote does work. I still get push back on it but the rationale is based on words li…

In what way did the remote employees not work out? (I'm looking for examples to include, so details are helpful!)

We called it a quality issue. IMO we didn't provide a good environment. One remote QA team promised things they didn't deliver. But we found out in two months

Edit: good environment means clear direction, open communication. Which is necessary onsite as well

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#142

Post by snuxoll »

mountaineer22 wrote: post #68
snuxoll wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what we do, we have 3 senior developers, 2 intermediate level developers and 3 juniors on our team. Even before we hired the juniors we ALWAYS had GoToMeeting up and conversed throughout the day and worked together on projects, it's more imperative with the Jr's so we'll usually pair someone up 1:1 with them on a separate call to mentor them on a project. We haven't felt a need for a physical office except as…

So you do remote pair programming? I have found this to be quite productive. Real-time communication with voice, but also the visually shared WIP. Is this your experience?

Yes, everyone on our team has a GoToMeeting license, throughout the day most of our team is pair programming using the screen sharing functionality or talking with our users about issues or doing UAT before deploying a new build.

Personally I'm not a fan of pair programming, I don't like shoulder surfing, but it's an invaluable tool for mentoring the juniors so I still participate when I'm not working on one of my more niche responsibilities I don't share with the rest of the team as much (DevOps, Salesforce developer, DB developer, business analyst, etc.)

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#143

Post by BerislavLopac »

jedberg wrote: post #14

Not exactly what you are asking for, but I'll throw it in here: I run a fully remote company, and most of the objections I've heard from others we've found workaround for. The biggest unsolved problem is whiteboarding - there is no good collaborative online whiteboarding solution that doesn't require a lot of expensive equipment to be deployed to everyone.

Here: https://www.awwapp.com/

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#144

Post by eeZah7Ux »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #132
ohjeez wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay: So how would you advise someone to create that "real management for it"? Any references or suggestions you would recommend a well-meaning manager to gain the wisdom and skills necessary? (Because I also will be writing, separately, about how to do remote work well, and this is exactly the kind of info I want to impart.)

I've both hired and advised people hiring. This is beginning to look like the blind men and the elephant. The inside joke on remote/distributed work is "You know, if we just had 1) better managers, 2) better specs, 3) better tools" We have been trying all of this for 30 years or so. At some point a reasonable person would look around and see that most all startups are colocated, physically in the same room having to…

> You sitting in a room and getting into flow-state and cranking out code is nowhere near as important as you interacting minute-by-minute with messy humans and trying to determine the nature of the problem you're solving.

Are you implying that "interacting minute-by-minute with messy humans" requires physical presence?

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#145

Post by eeZah7Ux »

aurelianito wrote: post #4

It is quite weird that we have all these up-votes (including my own) but no answers. I think that the real answer might be something quite embarrassing, and politically incorrect.

Spot on. Many companies try experimenting with remote working by hiring cheap and not skilled enough labor from countries with low average salaries and then blame remote working itself, or "cultural and language barriers" for the failures.

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#146

Post by dragonwriter »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #144
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've both hired and advised people hiring. This is beginning to look like the blind men and the elephant. The inside joke on remote/distributed work is "You know, if we just had 1) better managers, 2) better specs, 3) better tools" We have been trying all of this for 30 years or so. At some point a reasonable person would look around and see that most all startups are colocated, physically in the same room having to…

> You sitting in a room and getting into flow-state and cranking out code is nowhere near as important as you interacting minute-by-minute with messy humans and trying to determine the nature of the problem you're solving. Are you implying that "interacting minute-by-minute with messy humans" requires physical presence?

It doesn't require it, but in my experience is vastly more effective; teleconferencing (even with all the wiz-bang tech aids available) is vastly lower bandwidth and reduced options for interaction, and a lot more opportunity for distraction/interruption, either physically at any of the involved locations or because of tech failures.

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#147

Post by eeZah7Ux »

r2dnb wrote: post #90
stevecalifornia wrote: post #38

I am a remote worker and if I ever ran a company I wouldn't allow telecommuting. Here is why: When I was at the office for a decade, 90% of the insight and productivity came from informal conversations in the hallway, lunches and things I overheard in passing. As a remote worker, nearly all communication is very deliberate so I am not exposed to those ad-hoc conversations. Everything is very deliberate: I receive an…

>When I was at the office for a decade, 90% of the insight and productivity came from informal conversations in the hallway, lunches and things I overheard in passing The issue is not remote working, the very thing you wrote is the issue. Virtually every time, remote working doesn't create new issues but reveals and - embarassingly - exposes existing ones. You can no longer take a chance by letting things such as hal…

> Virtually every time, remote working doesn't create new issues but reveals and - embarassingly - exposes existing ones.

Indeed remote working exposes poor communication e.g. relying on random water cooler conversations instead of having proper communication channels - and many companies prefer to kill the messenger.

Re: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

#148

Post by anotheryou »

doozy wrote: post #118
gorbachev wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language barrier thin is very real. I'm not a native English speaker and have very hard time understanding people with heavier accents. It's especially bad over phone/web conference. Also it's really amazing how crappy many companies' web conferencing setup is. They break down regularly, have poor sound quality and are generally really flaky. I know this is getting better with Hangouts and alike, but still, they…

> - less language barrier. I find it really hard to understand non-native speakers over a bad skype connection (high quality headsets would fix this I believe) > The language barrier thin is very real. I'm not a native English speaker and have very hard time understanding people with heavier accents. It's especially bad over phone/web conference. Solution: Hire only people who speak good English (yes, you should test…

Fine english, just with a foreign accent. No problem face to face.
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