301–310 of 487 posts
There's no going back to the legacy reality. I don't know why some people can't seem to cope with the idea that reality is something that changes over time. I wrote about this a while ago: https://medium.com/management-matters/going-back-to-work-no-...
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This is an issue not just with Russians, but with differences between mainland Europe and Anglo-Saxon culture in general (UK too). Funny enough, it gets worse the better at English you get: if you're obviously not very good at English then people tend to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you're reasonably good at English in such a way that it's not obvious you're not a native speaker at a glance then people tend…
The Germans and people from eastern Europe are usually straightforward in their communications. There might have been a shift towards conflict-avoidance in younger generations (< 30 yo) though.
You guys are missing it. This leads straight to outsourcing.
People have been saying this for decades but it hasn’t come true. Remote work can’t make up for the significant challenges caused by differences in time zone and culture.
> ... There is a more intriguing possibility, however. Work that is largely done remotely may be more efficient compared with an office-first model. I don't think in-person real-time communication is always effective. No, I personally think it's one of the least method of communication that can happen in an office environment when the topic gets slightly complex (that is, if the topic is complex enough for you to wri…
Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…
I moved back when I reached a point where my skills were good enough that I could secure a job remotely due to social proof/references.
The thing people are missing here is that not everyone that is living everywhere in the world is equally good and those that are 10x as good get paid between 4-5x as much (it should be more but the world is inefficient, overpays for poor quality, underpays for high quality in many cases).
I'm not worried that increasing remote hiring will affect my compensation.
I see four main tiers: 1 - 9-5 in office (business as usual), 2 - semi-remote (part of week in the office), 3 - fully remote with fixed hours, 4 - fully remote outcomes-based (no fixed hours but may also be 'on call'). The title of this article perhaps indicates a move from 1 to 3 or 4 but its content discusses 2. All the information I've seen is that business are definitely moving more to 2 than 3 or 4, though some…
Define fixed hours? Fixed hours sucks when people live in 4 or more different timezones. I'm trying to figure out if my current remote job is fixed hours. Nobody has ever asked me or said anything about the hours I work, but I am expected to be present for meetings, which usually occur in the middle of the day for me. Is that tier 3 or 4?
Also of note: you can have in-office work with the same flexible hours schemes.
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> domestic management to realize where the cost savings could come from Management has been looking at off-shoring whatever they can for the past decades already. Having a bigger pool of talent willing to work remotely is a boon, but most of the new influx is not from lower level countries (they already were 99% ok with full remote), and more from places with high level salaries. Management will find cheaper people,…
>> Management will find cheaper people, but only marginally, and not that different from the people they already had. This is a dangerous assumption rooted in past failures. I can personally tell you that I have a lot of evidence that points to it no longer being true. Eastern European developers are good enough to do CRUD and basic work that is massively overpaid here in the US, and speak English quite well. I would…
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One reason I have found real-time communication ineffective is that it favors the narcissists and egoists in the conversation who are comfortable talking over everyone else. Guess what happens in this situation – Bob spends 40 minutes talking out of the hour's meeting about how his way is right, interrupts everyone, and by the end of the hour meeting the boss is saying “Well, why don't we do a proof of concept with B…
it puts an element of asynchronous communication when you have to think of the agenda ahead of time. Oh, the difficultly of getting people to think about things in advance. The number of meetings where it's clear that basically nobody has actually put any thought in, done any research, even read the entire meeting invitation. Meetings become a way to force people to spend time on a topic, and the act of being there w…
At very least my office is going to have to improve my working conditions for me to go back a significant portion of time. Crowded noisy open plan space with constant interruptions aint gonna cut it any more. Give me private space (office or not), stop interrupting me, and give me my 3-monitor setup I have at home and we can talk :-)
I have a cubicle which is much maligned in corporate buzz as "cubicle hell" but I have to say I really love it! It's big enough to do yoga inside and has high walls that you can't see over and also a sliding door. I love my cube. The ability to concentrate, take a quick meeting at your desk and take calls is so much better than open office. Also, I appreciate the ability to scratch my face or check if I have lettuce…
For everyone being compelled by their inner "Dog in the Manger" crying outsourcing to cheap countries. Outsourcing is already in play since 3 decades, but the actual salaries are kept in check by a stack of intermediaries. Hiring remote workers directly would greatly speed up the process of salary equalisation (adjusted for COL). This in turn would put pressure on other industries in these countries and accelerate te…
> Hiring remote workers directly would greatly speed up the process of salary equalisation (adjusted for COL). What makes you think that this adjustments for cost of living would persist? Competitive pressures are towards paying for productivity, not for cost of living. > In the end after some 1-2 decades we'd wake up in much flatter world with perhaps reasons to not impose limits on labour mobility across borders. I…
I think there is not a lot of competitive pressure, if there was, the salaries in Europe and Canada would already match the US ones. It's another thing that the COL is quickly converging, especially in big cities. Goods already cost pretty much the same (adjusted for local taxes), services and housing vary a lot and remote work allows to arbitrage them. So in medium term you'll have an option to work from Zurich at $$$ or from anywhere at XX % less (the option I'd pick).
I have yet to see a reasonable argument for restricting migration, perhaps this would be a good topic for ASK HN? All economic arguments show free movement would lead to better labour (and capital) allocation.