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Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

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Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#71

Post by majewsky »

yaseer wrote: post #39
majewsky wrote: post #32

My boss is in a different office in a different city anyway, so it doesn't matter much to him whether I'm in the local office or at home or wherever, as long as work gets done. It helps that my company, SAP, has a strong home-office culture: A lot of employees are consultants, who spend most of Friday doing time-recording and other administrative activities, so Friday is traditionally home-office day (for those who w…

I spent 3 months in Germany regularly interacting with SAP. I was impressed at just how well they treat their employees. Kinda reminded me of the Simpson's episode where the Germans take over the power plant.

It's not just an SAP thing, it's got to do with German culture and German law. For example, the US concept of "sick days" looks really bizarre to Germans. When someone is sick, they get a doctor's note and stay at home until fully recovered. When someone goes into work sick, their colleagues and managers tell them to go see a doctor. There is a shared understanding that sick employees working regardless are a liability to everyone involved.

That said, it helps that IT is a white-collar industry. I have a few friends in blue-collar jobs, and working conditions sound worse over there, esp. for temp jobs where workers are considered fungible.

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#72

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

kstenerud wrote: post #2

Remote has to be baked into the company culture, otherwise you'll forever be the outsider, and be the first to be let go when the company hits tough times. Find a job that already offers remote.

Agreed. I’ve worked remote for over 10 years but mostly all 100% remote companies.

My recent experience with a company that allowed remote work but was 95% in-office was absolutely miserable. They won’t accomodate any change in communication style, tools, and they’ll regularly have important discussions in the office without you. And you’ll never change their culture. Plus as others have said, those kind of places will never give senior positions to remote workers.

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#73

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

souprock wrote: post #70
ddelt wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

Remote work goes against having the best work-life balance. When you walk out the door of the office, work should be over and done with until you return. Taking work home should be impossible. Paid overtime helps greatly. It discourages the employer from trying to get free work out of you. Having a non-zero commute doesn't have to mean commuting for 2 hours in urban traffic. You can pick a location where a tiny commu…

Huh? I work 40 hours a week remote in my office. After 5pm I close my office door and I’m done.

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#74

Post by jiggliemon »

I’ve been remote for 7 years. A lot of people seem to reference company culture as the seed for wether or not being remote will be successful. I disagree.

The company doesn’t care about you. And the company culture certainly doesn’t care about where you are. Success in being remote depends solely on your managers preference for keeping watch – and wether or not the majority of your teams talents and productivity takes place remote as well.

If your manager doesn’t like work happening outside of arms reach, you won’t be successful. If 60-70% of progress happens within reach of your managers arms, you won’t be successful.

The only other major impediment is top level company policy. Read: Yahoo and IBM.

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#75

Post by meuk »

I sometimes work remotely, but most days I wasn't very productive. This is partially my own fault for not having a dedicated room to work in (so I sit in the living room, which is full of distractions). But it's also an infrastructure problem (my remote connection has stopped for multiple times, which means that I can't reach infrasupport anymore), and a culture problem (there is literally no documentation for the project I work on, the best strategy so far is to ask around if something isn't clear to you).

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#77

Post by meuk »

balabaster wrote: post #52

This 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…

As an introvert, visibility has always been an issue for me. Last week I had a big task for which I put in well over 10 hours a day. When people see it's done sooner than expected they just assume that is was easier. Meanwhile, other people get a lot of credits for some things because they are apt at subtly (or not so subtly) mentioning it. Maybe it's something I still have to learn.

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#78

Post by davewasthere »

I needed to go to the other side of the world for three events spaced over a couple of months. My company wasn't a remote working company though. I suggested my three options were:

* travel to each event separately (my least preferred)

* have a couple of months off without pay

* work remotely for the couple of months while I was away

I'd earned a good rep at my company by smashing out the previous project on time/budget, so the working remotely was approved and all went well.

I liked it so much (escaping the northern hemisphere Winter), that I started my own consultancy and did the annual migration for the next 8 years. Most of that work was remote, so as long as I managed timezones, all was good.

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#79

Post by hectormalot »

As someone who has been the manager in those discussions I see four things to help your manager be supportive:

1. The company policy: of the company has a no-remote policy this will be very difficult. If the company has a limited-remote policy, it’s already much easier, it means asking for additional remote days on top of existing policy and provides you an opportunity to show that you are productive working remote

2. Your productivity and mutual trust: on the individual level I like to believe everybody can be productive remote. On the aggregate it didn’t work that way though. Some people would use the remote time for personal matters and chalk up a day with limited output to ‘I was doing research’, others would have twice the output they had at the office. It’s difficult to know up front where someone will fall on that scale. If you can show with 1-2 days remote that you can be productive, it’s a huge help in this decision

3. Spill-over effects. If others in your team are (possibly) not productive remote it might be difficult to give you a full remote opportunity. Others will expect the same privileges and it might be easier to limit it for everybody rather than explaining individuals that I dont trust them remote yet.

4. Interactions: if the office has a weekly townhall, or if we have a quarterly long-term planning session, can you join these, or do we need to setup video and mics for that? It helps if you can be in person on these moments (even if you’re not convinced they’re always useful)

Re: Ask HN: How Would You or Did Convince Your Boss That You Can Work Remote?

#80

Post by Existenceblinks »

3 years of remote work experience here:

1) Report frequently

2) Ask for paring if boss likes or whenever you need non-trivial discussion (it's better than chat obviously)

3) Tell boss what you will do today, your expectation on results

4) When problems occurs, let him know immediately or within 4 hours

I did all of these just for less than a year. After that he doesn't give a shit what I do anymore. It's kind of lonely now lol

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