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Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

management.fortune.cnn.com

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Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#91

Post by proexploit »

bconway wrote: post #89
jasonkester wrote: post #75

I've been working a remote contract these last 6 month, and one thing that surprises me is how I bill a lot less hours than I would if I were on site. If I boot up in the morning, spend 30 minutes trying to get into something, fail and end up back here on HN, I don't bill any time. If I did the same thing sitting in a cube, I'd get paid for it. The end result is that the client gets a much better deal by having me of…

If I did the same thing sitting in a cube, I'd get paid for it. Why? I bill for work done regardless of my location, I never thought it might be out of the ordinary.

I think he's attempting to explain that he hasn't actually done anything (maybe loading up some programs, getting reference material together, etc.) and then does something unrelated. I wouldn't bill for that either unless it took a significant portion of time AND I wouldn't have to do it again later.

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#92

Post by mgkimsal »

zem wrote: post #66
mgkimsal wrote: post #16

Posting another thought here. I have a suspicion that there's enough people in the SF area (and a couple of the the other "big" markets) that will actively fight against telecommuting, specifically because it will lower wages in those areas. As someone else posted, yes, I understand the value of a team being in the same room. But that value comes at a premium price, and it's one which may not always be worth paying.…

how does that work? the people paying the salaries would surely love to get someone who can do the same work for less, and the people receiving the salaries aren't the ones who make the decision as to whether a new hire can telecommute or not.

The majority of those mid-level workers are going to be mid-level workers at another company in the next couple of years. Encouraging ease-of-replaceability via telecommuting (which also will likely be a lower-cost for the org) isn't in their interest, because when they go for their next position, the culture of the area may be more open to remote workers, making it harder to get a job, or make as much as you were making before.

From an investors standpoint, of course they'd like to spend less, but many no doubt get a thrill out of bragging about how they're able to attract the top-paid talent, stealing person X away from company Y, etc. Few investors would likely be bragging about how they've achieved 20% cost savings by introducing a culture of remote US workers.

Similar to most dept managers, if you show you can get the same results with less money, you'll get less money in your budget next year. No one likes to do that, so while there's incentives to save money, there's also incentives not to save money.

I don't think this is something most people there obsess and strategize about day after day. I do suspect some of the savvier ones do understand that the easier they make it to bring in remote workers, the easier they will be to replace. When you stress the whole culture of the region as being 'the place to be', you make it harder to justify remote workers because "they're not here, they don't 'get it'".

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#93

Post by shareme »

Harkins wrote: post #79

Anecdote: I've been traveling for the last three months, but most of my network is in Chicago. I hear from recruiters and hiring managers every couple days and, despite the consensus that Chicago has a "developer crisis" (to use the words of an Obtiva blog post), every single job has onsite only.

MY linkedin profile reads Greater ChicagoLand and yet I always get recruiter emails from jobs in every place except Chicago

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#94

Post by russell »

udp wrote: post #76
edw519 wrote: post #41

In the past 4 hours I have exchanged ones and zeros with people and computers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, California, Germany, Singapore, and India. And got 3 "office days" worth of work done. And I haven't even brushed my teeth yet. :-) You know what telecommuters say, "Once you've deployed a killer app in your pajamas, you can never go back."

Don't you find it gets a bit lonely after a while? I've been working as a full-time programmer from home for about a year and a half now, and it's beginning to get a bit weird. Aside from not having physical coworkers, I don't leave work, go home and do something else, because work is always all around me. There's this never-ending pattern of 9-5 quickly becoming 2 PM - 8 AM, until I finally pull an all nighter and i…

I worked for more than 10 years from home in the mountains above SV with a client in Chicago. I had a wife and 3 school age kids. We had rules and a discipline: when I was in my office, I was not available for chatting, discipline, or other home things. I worked mainly 8 to 5 and the personalities of the family members were such that it worked. If I wanted a hacker fix, I would go to some meeting in the valley,

I was the last survivor of a 30 person development office. That in itself was eerie.

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#95

Post by krschultz »

dekayed wrote: post #61

I think it is also important for in-office workers be allowed to telecommute when needed. Having that flexibility offers a lot of freedom as there are times where you need to be out of the office but can still work. I currently have a family situation where I try and be at my parents' home a week a month and having the option to work from there has been a huge help. It is definitely a big factor in why I would stick…

I actually would prefer that to an all-telecommute gig. Be in the office 16-18 days a month out of 20, but those 2 or 4 days a month you want to work from home you can.

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#96

Post by andrewcooke »

akmiller wrote: post #77
drblast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you have a family you might get by owning a single car instead of two. I used to live within walking distance of work and we had one car for two years. That's a huge savings.

On top of that you usually can cut out quite a bit on child care costs. I left a job I had for 5 years that allowed me to telecommute for contracting where I was expected to be in the office but made about 160% of what my full time salary was. After about a year of that I returned to my previous job and much lower salary to get the benefit of telecommuting once again. With a family, the benefits of telecommuting (at…

Heck, you can even move to a different country where the cost of living is lower :o)

[Posted from Santiago, Chile....]

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#98

Post by mgarfias »

bphogan wrote: post #78
mgarfias wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been telecommuting for almost six years now and the thought of going back to an office is terrifying. I would end spending 2+ hours in traffic, be separated from the things that matter to me most (wife, 2yro, two German shepherds) that also provide a bit of refresher when things aren't going well. Good luck playing ball with your dog in an office. Having been at an all-telecommute shop i can say that we ended up…

That's a bit of a worry for me... if you are having those 10pm conversations, how do you draw a line between work and life?

Easy, get up, do a bit of work. Have breakfast, spend it with the family. Do some more work. Play with dog. More work, then lunch. Another task, then break time with the boy. A bit more work, then dinner. Family time, kid/wife goto bed, stay up and do a bit more work.

I found it far easier to do that, than to veg out in the office when I needed a break to go out, see the sky, walk around, breathe, etc.

Also, this was fairly early on, sphere was a new company and we were having growing pains. And its not like it was a nighlty thing, more along the lines of often enough to not be weird, but it wasn't often.

Also, before we were quasi-detelecommuted (meaning hires in NYC that went to the office) when something broke, everyone would pitch into fix regardless of hour. After the original peeps (well, most of us) left, the replacements (in the office) had an office mentality. That is, anything that happened after hours wasn't their problem.

Maybe that works better for them, but not for me. Doing things my way got more of my awake/alert time for actually doing things, and the flexibility it imparted helped keep me sane. Offices and rigid schedules drive me batshit insane.

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#99

Post by adnam »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #73
adnam wrote: post #35

I recently quit my job because they wanted me to telecommute.

Care to share the reason why?

I figured working from home would be great for the first month, and then I would start going mad. And when I asked who was going to pay for my chair, desk and computer, and who would pay the heating, lighting, ADSL and air-conditioning ... it looked like I was going to be out of pocket too.

Re: Want to attract top tech talent? Offer telecommuting

#100

Post by adyacplus »

I have never earned a dollar in IT, but in other fields I got a lot of success, so I consider IT a hobby. Perhaps I could be a top tech talent if enough money and flexible conditions were around, anyway I think programmers are mere pawns in game of business, so it seems better to devote time and energy to develop better strategies.
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