281–290 of 458 posts
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Agreed. Also - one benefit of going remote is you can more easily avoid anyone you dislike! So that's a win over the office.
This can also backfire when it's easier to avoid confrontation which if resolved would be a net gain for everyone.
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An additional problem MBAs sometimes miss is that when you export jobs to contract orgs is that this accumulated institutional knowledge is lost—it’s no longer held in-house. Conversely it contributes to the expertise of the contract org. But not all orgs think long term. Or they get enthralled by “core competency”.
I don't think this is really missed by the MBAs, HN's favorite punching bag. These types of opportunity costs are absolutely a part of the make/buy decision process (but maybe undervalued?). I think it has much more to to with the "enthralled by core competency" aspect.
Institutional knowledge informs why a solution works better than a shiny. The contract org will push through what works best for them, more than what’s best for your org long term. Contract orgs like checking off Hundreds of NIST or CIS controls as if that in and of itself means anything substantive.
Yes, but with caveats. This is what happened with call centers in the US which broadly went to places like India with big outsourcing firms. That back-fired big time when the quality of service went to crap with companies rushing to bring these services back home. Similar stories with tech outsourcing. There are things that have been successfully outsourced some functions to places like India, but there’s also a reas…
Ofc now many of these have gone to crap again now with full automation.
It also means i can take someone else's job. It balances out.
You drive a car, I use a bus. You eat meat, I eat potatoes. You fly to Disneyworld, I take the train to the seaside. You live in a big house, I live in a small apartment. You pay American income taxes, I don't. You demand clean air and water, I tolerate pollution. There are some fundamental factors which make labour in other parts of the world much cheaper, and people willing to accept a much lower quality of life an…
For the last 12 years or so I've worked extensively in all arrangements and here's what you need to know.
Outsource: Generally this conflates 2 actions. One is paying for a cheaper labor market. The second is paying for less skilled people. Most of the projected cost savings come from the latter. Most of those projected cost savings don't appear. I remember folks hiring $10/hr DBAs in India and the result was about what you'd expect. India is full of great DBAs and they ain't charging $10/hr or at least they haven't for a long time. It is the case that you can access a cheaper labor pool. Most people do this and then negate that savings by not creating a remote-first culture and introducing massive language and time zone barriers and friction due to multiple companies interacting.
Offshoring: The key difference here is that these are part of your company. In the US it's totally possible to set up an office in central/south america in-timezone and staff it with amazing people and save some money. Well, except for most of those folks who are willing to relocate will eventually accept offers with FANG companies either locally or relocate. So it's a nice scheme while it works. (Hi to all my tico friends now at Google and Amazon)
Remote: this is what most people confuse for the above two things. Remote is about doing 2 things.
1) Expanding your hiring pool beyond a 30 minute commute from your office (turns out that the other 99.99% of the world's population also has some great folks).
2) Making your company culture remote-first. But that's synonymous with writing things down and documenting things.
Sure interpersonal relationships can be trickier to bootstrap and that's a real cost. But see #1, nobody talks about that cost.
The final thing to keep in mind is that for most big companies, there's no way to avoid the remote cost. As soon as you open up an office in another location you're a remote company. Hell, as many people can attest as soon as you ask people to attend meetings on another floor or an adjacent building you find out you're a remote company.
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Through projects? I'm working remotely and it's the same as in person. First few months is about everyone feeling each other out once you understand more you give people more trust in those areas.
First few months is often the duration of a project, especially for those working on a contract basis. Remote and in person can reach the same level of trust and productivity, but I do believe that people reach that level faster in person as opposed to oddly forced zoom happy hours.
For some reason, so many of these articles and blogposts only factor in the increased supply of applicants, and completely ignore the other side of the coin. I think this will lead to a new equilibrium that's beneficial to both parties.
Companies based in the bay area won't be forced to keep salaries in line with the astronomical cost of living there, while job seekers outside of the bay area who can't or don't want to move there, will now have access to high paying jobs that they previously didn't.
Let's fight against lower salaries once for all.
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> [...] what they outsourced were their bottom tier workers, the unproductive people. That might be true to some extent, but I think there's a problem with that line of thought. People are a "moving target". What may be a bottom-tier worker now, could very well be a valuable employee in 5-10 years. Many folks have built their career by starting at a low level and then getting promoted and upskilled over time through…
> People are a "moving target". What may be a bottom-tier worker now, could very well be a valuable employee in 5-10 years. Many folks have built their career by starting at a low level and then getting promoted and upskilled over time through hard work and commitment. Starting at a low position and advancing is becoming, sadly, a rare thing. I think the validity of this point depends on how you understand "bottom ti…