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Remote startups will win the war for top talent

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Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#121

Post by kwanbix »

bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

>I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. Productivity, with the right mindset, tools, support, can probably be as good as in person.

Now, I rather go see my friends in person than setup a Zoom meeting and be all virtually together. I rather go see my father and talk to him over WhatsApp. I rather go to Paris than watching a video of paris from my room. I no doubt doubt that socializing is much, much better in person.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#123

Post by wpietri »

ghettoCoder wrote: post #107
rngname22 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that those of your view and those espousing that remote is more difficult might have different personalities, levels of need of social interaction, or lifestyles? Have you considered that your company is self-selecting for those who flourish in remote, but that those whose personalities differ are self-selecting for working in an office environment? It's OK for there to not be a one size fits all…

Throughout my career it's been my experience that the type of people you describe are never the top performers, and seldom average performers. The ones craving social interactions often are just looking for distractions (like spending too long at the water cooler chatting) cause either they hate their job, hate the work, can't do the actual work or view work (exchange of labour/time for money) as a predominantly soci…

I think you've conflated two things.

People can be productive or slackers. And they can be social or antisocial. You personally noticed the social slackers. But I doubt you noticed the antisocial ones, because they're not visibly doing nothing; they're distracting themselves in quieter ways.

I know plenty of people who are both productive and social. Indeed, given that both software and business are mostly team sports, some of the most productive people I know are very social.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#124

Post by mingusrude »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #52
bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

I sort of agree. We (small startup) went fully remote with COVID and remain so. Work communication is fine, but socializing doesn't happen the way it did at the office. It works okay because most of us had already been working together at the office, but it's harder for new hires, and especially for young junior-level engineers without much experience (i.e., fresh out of college). Hasn't worked well for interns eithe…

In the book "A year without pants" by Scott Berkun where he spends a year with Wordpress and their then somewhat unique remote model, he emphasizes that it's still important for many to meet, it's just not necessary every day. I've worked remotely for almost 20 years and I believe quite strongly that remote companies often underestimate the importance of actually meeting occasionally, maybe every 3-6 months. Maybe importance is too strong, maybe it's just fun to meet up every now and then and share some adventures.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#125

Post by tpankaj »

ghettoCoder wrote: post #107
rngname22 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that those of your view and those espousing that remote is more difficult might have different personalities, levels of need of social interaction, or lifestyles? Have you considered that your company is self-selecting for those who flourish in remote, but that those whose personalities differ are self-selecting for working in an office environment? It's OK for there to not be a one size fits all…

Throughout my career it's been my experience that the type of people you describe are never the top performers, and seldom average performers. The ones craving social interactions often are just looking for distractions (like spending too long at the water cooler chatting) cause either they hate their job, hate the work, can't do the actual work or view work (exchange of labour/time for money) as a predominantly soci…

That's a pretty narrow viewpoint. I can tell you from personal experience that it is very difficult to graduate college almost straight into a (pandemic-induced) remote job in a new city while trying to make local connections and ramp up in my job during a global pandemic.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#126

Post by kwanbix »

danwee wrote: post #86
icedchai wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communications and collaboration is very important. However, "socializing" through Slack is simply just not the same as going out to lunch with a coworker, for example. Permanent remote work has a very detached feel to it, at least for me.

I don't get this. If you have a coworker that enjoy having lunch with you... what's stopping you both doing so? I mean, even if you both work from home, you could still schedule a lunch together in the city, right? If you both live in different cities, well, I guess before COVID you weren't having lunch together that frequently. 100% remote doesn't dictate how (or with who) you eat lunch.

Nothing stops you. But being together "forces" you to socialize. When I turn off the camera, you are gone.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#127

Post by sbf501 »

TOMDM wrote: post #22

Okay, how about a tad more nuance though. The better headline would be "Remote Startups will win the war for top talent among employees who prefer to work remotely" Not quite so sexy. Sure some; probably even most software devs prefer remote/hybrid work, but there are still plenty of incredibly talented people out there who prefer being in the office every day.

I enjoy intense brainstorm jams on multi-wall whiteboards. In person. I guess I'm old.

However, it seems like most programmers here are just javascript pushers. So dinking with a front-end button click handler for hours on end is something that doesn't really require collaboration.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#128

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

rngname22 wrote: post #37
bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

Have you considered that those of your view and those espousing that remote is more difficult might have different personalities, levels of need of social interaction, or lifestyles? Have you considered that your company is self-selecting for those who flourish in remote, but that those whose personalities differ are self-selecting for working in an office environment? It's OK for there to not be a one size fits all…

I wonder if those personality differences get considered when they throw everyone into a single room with a few low cubicle walls. I wonder if the market gives a shit about being fair to those who have personalities that thrive in said cubicles. Thirdly, I wonder if those who thrive in remote give a shit about being fair after having dealt with cubicle farms for so many years.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#129

Post by duxup »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #66

"Your remote team is my company's opportunity." Purely anecdotal based on my own experience, but at my company we have some people who work in an office and lots more that work remotely. The in office staff contribute more ideas, work, fixes, and functional software than the remote teams by a factor of 4 or 5, or sometimes, depending on the in office worker, 10 times. Those are hard numbers right out of our project m…

I work a sort of hybrid model.

We've seen issues and topics that we decide "Let's work this one out when we're in the office." We schedule it, and what might take several video conferences and endless chats ... suddenly takes one meeting and the solution solves a bunch of other things.

I agree everyone should find their best way, but for us sometimes there's more of a free flow of information, everyone is engaged on that one issue more in person than when remote. When it comes to some topics it's just much faster and the result is more complete in person.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#130

Post by vladvasiliu »

lm28469 wrote: post #93
vladvasiliu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who's physically in the UK and works for a US company. I was interviewing for a remote job in the UK while being physically in France. In both situations, the setup is a local company (possibly self-owned) that bills the actual company. So you're not UsCorp's employee, you're an YourOwnCorp employee, and UsCorp is YourOwnCorp's client. This way, all taxes and related issues are handled locally. Sure,…

How do you deal with health insurance, pension, unemployment benefits, &c. ? Sounds like a massive headache

It isn't, really.

Sure, there is some paperwork to set everything up. But once that's done (and you can pay someone to do it for you), it's pretty much smooth sailing.

The biggest "hassle" is closing the accounts for the year and sending them to the Administration, and those have to be signed off by an actual accountant. But this takes like 1 hour per year, it's not that bad.

Regarding health insurance, etc you can either get your own, private one or have it bought by the company. It's the same thing if you're a full-on employee: if you're not happy with the coverage the employer has, you can get your own on top of it. When you're your own boss, you can choose what you want straight away. All this may vary depending on the type of company you set up (there's no such thing as "freelance" as far as the law is concerned). This will also have an effect on pension – if you only pay yourself in dividends, there's no pension.

Sure, there are a few things to be taken care of, but if you invest a few days and do your research, it's a good tradeoff.

The other approach, as siblings said, is to use some kind of "shell company" that does this for you. But from what I've seen, their cut is ridiculous, so it's absolutely not worth it.

NB: this comes from France, but I expect the situation to be roughly similar in other countries.

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