I've been working there for over a year and the company was already distributed - this was critical.
I've used https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job to find a new job
Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
51–60 of 123 posts
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#52This was the tactic I used successfully...
Firstly, ensure that you are always seen to be productive and delivering even when you're not being watched. The most important thing to build trust is for people to see that you can be trusted to do your work to a high standard without supervision.
Once this has been achieved, move to the next stage of your plan:
"I'm not coming in on Wednesday, I have an appointment I need to attend to a 11:45am and 4 hours of commute is unproductive so I'm going to get my work done from home."
Ensure that your deliverables are visible when you work from home - go the extra mile to ensure that your efforts are seen. Visibility is highly important here.
Do this periodically for a few months and eventually tell them that you will be working from home on Wednesdays from this point forward. This is much easier to do when you've got a reputation for delivering the goods. Continue to ensure that the work you deliver from home is visible.
After a little while of this, up it to two days a week and perhaps this will be okay. I find that 2-3 days a week from home is plenty for my sanity. I need to be in the office for the social aspect and to feel like I'm part of the team.
Completely cutting myself off from the camaraderie of the office doesn't do anything for my sense of wellbeing. So I usually try to be in the office a couple of days a week, just for my own sanity.
I worked over the summer for a company based out of Vancouver and never got to meet the team because it was work from home for 5 days a week. This was hard. I actually went so far as to get farm hands for my farm, as much so that I didn't feel alone as for farm labour. At the end of the summer, I negotiated a part time contract with them for another 6 months so I could take on a local client so I'd have a social outlet.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost of living adjusted pay is a fact of life and you will struggle to find a firm that does not do it. GitLab the company has a cool salary calculator so you can at least see exactly how they do it. No one wants to be paid less for the same work, but if you take a small pay cut and are putting more money in the bank every month, is it a pay cut? :)
> Cost of living adjusted pay is a fact of life So is most companies' unwillingness to allow full-time remote work. If it is possible to alter the mindset about the latter, it should certainly be so about the former.
Hey, I am with you. We (my company) are a remote first company that trends to merit based pay with minor COL adjustments at most. We have bands for each role and generally stick with them. Still, the idea isn’t bad. You want people to afford a certain quality of life and operate the business effectively. If everyone is happy with the arrangement the business and its employees win. If the business is doing it for a profit motive it shows up in employee satisfaction.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost of living adjusted pay is a fact of life and you will struggle to find a firm that does not do it. GitLab the company has a cool salary calculator so you can at least see exactly how they do it. No one wants to be paid less for the same work, but if you take a small pay cut and are putting more money in the bank every month, is it a pay cut? :)
I've been on the receiving end of Gitlab's calculator. The pay cut isn't small at all; I was offered less than half the equivalent SF salary. And I live in North America, just not in SF.
Their calculator can be a little harsh for sure, I just appreciate how up front it is. Still, rent in SF is crazy if you compare it to anywhere that isn’t near a coast. I wonder do you think the pay cut was unfair based on other offers? I am biased because we only do genuinely minor comp adjustments for location.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#55I just told my boss I was moving, and let them offer. Working for HP in Atlanta, I'd already proved myself during the '96 Olympics, when even the 12 miles to work was impossible. In 2000, our rent went out of sight; we owned 7 rural acres -- about 800 miles away -- so we just decided to move. I figured my boss would let me telecommute, but I didn't ask for it: I just told him, very honestly, that I was moving, and wh…
Same. I came back from a long work trip (3 mo in a foreign country) and said "I'm moving. I'm either moving and I'm going to keep working with you it I'm moving and I'm not. I'd like to keep working eih you." The reply was something like "Let us know when you get there." We a had no remote culture for a while but eventually started a couple small (3 people) remote offices. That opened the door and I've been working remote ever since.
I'm with a different company now. The original company didn't actually handle full remote well. Poor communication made everything difficult. The new job has a pretty strong remote culture. MKe sure you out in the effort of no one else does or you'll be unhappy.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been my experience thus far as well. It hasn't really mattered how well I could frame productivity or measurable improvements in my quality of life to an immediate manager or team - ultimately if the senior leadership dislikes the idea of remote work, each level beneath them will hesitate to fully embrace it. I've found that companies that promote work-life balance as one of their strengths are the best plac…
"It hasn't really mattered how well I could frame productivity or measurable improvements in my quality of life" First, your quality of life isn't really a selling point from employers point of view. To raise your odds at negotiations you should focus solely on the employers problems. The same applies when selling something - you should not focus on the benefits that you as a seller get (like money), but on the probl…
I don't necessarily disagree with the first point that you raised, but I would posit that if my quality of life sucks as an engineer, eventually that will become the employers problem when I update my cv and find work with a better quality of life, potentially too soon or at the wrong time.
Moreover, an employer is 'selling' their reputation to potential talent as well as selling their product.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#57I did it by violating company rules, proving that I was more effective at home, and then forcing them to either fire me or let me work remote. I had worked there for several years, and the rules were really stupid (nobody leaves until everyone is done with their work, and I had been there for 10 hours or so and had family obligations), so I wasn't really worried about explaining that to a future employer.
I don't recommend going that route, but I _really_ wanted to work from home and was ready to quit if I didn't get it. I had requested a trial period of working from home two days a week and didn't even get one day. I brought it up every few months, but no progress was made, so I stopped caring about their stupid rules and did what I had to in order to focus on my work (I even moved my computer to an abandoned room at the opposite side of the room to prove I was more productive away from distractions).
My boss has a weird phobia of people working remote despite everyone who does work remote getting more done than those who work in the office. It's weird, and your boss is probably not as bad as mine in this regard.
Honestly, I recommend asking your boss to give you a trial of working from home for 2 days/week and prove that you're able to get more done. Once that's done, push for more days until you're only coming in for meetings, and then start pushing for whatever other pieces you'll need to go fully remote (virtual meetings, move conversations to a digital format, etc). Even if they say no, they'll recognize your initiative if you keep the dialogue about you giving more value to the company.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost of living adjusted pay is a fact of life and you will struggle to find a firm that does not do it. GitLab the company has a cool salary calculator so you can at least see exactly how they do it. No one wants to be paid less for the same work, but if you take a small pay cut and are putting more money in the bank every month, is it a pay cut? :)
That's a good point, but looking at the other way, if a remote worker employed by a company in San Francisco moves from, say, Pecos, Texas to Manhattan, should he or she expect a significant salary increase? (edit: moving for reasons unrelated to employment with the San Francisco company)
I think so. That can be hard for smaller businesses to manage, but it should average out for a larger one. It might also mean the business can’t support you (afford to pay you a SF rate). So that is always a factor.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#59As the manager of a half remote team at a company that supports it, but isn't 100% remote...
To me, it comes down to a couple of things.
- Have you proven you are a good remote communicator (eg: if you're always doing private messages in Slack or don't communicate much at all, so everything that you do is only in your head, you might not be a good fit)
- Do you have plans to have a proper work area once you're remote. If you're going to be working from the middle of the living room with your significant other interrupting you to do the dishes or the kids screaming during video conference....NOPE. You need a plan.
- Your reasons for going remote won't interfere with productivity. It's totally ok if you're doing it for work life balance and take better care of your family. However if you're going to do strictly 9-5 (which is ok!) and be out half of the day on top of it (no longer ok) to take care of the kids and be constantly cancelling meetings and other obligation, then you just won't be meeting expectations anymore.
If you meet those criterias, it's a no brainer for me. I personally much prefer face to face interaction, but Ill fully support anyone who's serious about working remotely in my team. But they have to be serious about it.
Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?
#60reason with him about income-protection (about 75 USD a month)?