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Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

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Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#61

Post by cProdigy »

no-privacy wrote: post #31
troyvit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I managed a person who believed that. It was a nightmare. Oh they work all the time, more than they should, because they believe in what the company's doing. But man I completely failed making any sort of connection that allowed us to understand each other (and therefore work well together). Maybe it depends on the company though. This is a 100 person boot-strapped open source company that has a strong mission. Maybe…

Some people do not want to have a social or personal connection with their colleagues. But they still want a deep connection, and they look for that through the work itself. By doing it together, by talking about it, and by talking about the process behind the work, and the big ideas they have about all that. But if they get matched with a colleague who wants to build a connection by getting to know the person beyond…

true

Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#63

Post by slaw »

phamilton wrote: post #41
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In-person events must happen. Best case scenario, once per quarter. Even once per year is phenomenal though. This sounds pretty terrible environmentally, as remote-first implies geographically distributed, which implies air travel with its associated externalities.

It'd be interesting to see how a daily commute compares to a once a quarter flight. I used to drive 40 miles a day in my commute. Roughly 10k miles/yr. A flight to a centrally located place in the US will be about 3k round trip if everyone lives on the coasts (worst case scenario). Are 3k air miles better or worse than 10k car miles?

Long haul airplane uses on average per passenger 3.2l/100km which is 73.5 US mpg. So 3k air miles are 1k 25mpg car miles.

https://blog.openairlines.com/how-much-fuel-per-passenger-an...

Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#64

Post by applesaft2 »

I work at a well known remote company in tech. I would argue that the culture in my team is almost non-existent. There is very little socialising within the team, and many of the people, including the most tenured person, is usually too busy to even reply to a message on Slack, let alone get involved socially. I suppose people would refer to this as “leave me alone to do my work”.

However this has created an environment where there is less incentive to help out others, review their pull requests, help cover their on-call, or just give time to others in the team. The team operates on a very transactional basis (I need something from you) and little else.

I suppose some people quite enjoy that, but to me it has been very hard, and hurt my motivation to do good work.

At previous company, where we all worked in person, we all developed very strong friendships which still exist 5 years later, even thought some of us no longer work there. I don’t think I will ever get this at my current company.

Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#65

Post by closeparen »

androng wrote: post #8

I worked at a remote first health hardware company with 35 employees for 1 year. From my perspective, there was no culture whatsoever. There was one zoom party where the company sent everyone snacks and playing cards. But aside from that, nothing. Only work talk. No side conversations, therefore no friendships. I think step one is to have the zoom call on for much longer than just the scheduled meeting time, which we…

I don't see how there can be "no culture whatsoever." Culture lives in things like how decisions are made, how performance is evaluated, how information flows, whether and how criticism and feedback work, what you do when you disagree, balance of written vs. verbal communication, how technologies are chosen, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#66

Post by angrais »

i_have_an_idea wrote: post #23
pokstad wrote: post #7

GitLab is great at remote first culture. Check out their open source company handbook. Remote first requires proactive process to keep employees engaged and communicating effectively. If you feel isolated and trapped in a silo, good process can pull you out. Also, look for companies where remote strategy emanates from the senior leadership. A CEO that flows down remote strategy will be more effective.

GitLab pays people differently for the same roles, based on where they're located so, by definition, they aren't great at remote first culture.

How's that a negative aspect? For many, that seems fair as it means you get paid the local rate and so can live anywhere in the world comfortably.

Remote first does not necessarily mean bay area pay while living in a low cost of living country.

Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#69

Post by Tijdreiziger »

phamilton wrote: post #41
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In-person events must happen. Best case scenario, once per quarter. Even once per year is phenomenal though. This sounds pretty terrible environmentally, as remote-first implies geographically distributed, which implies air travel with its associated externalities.

It'd be interesting to see how a daily commute compares to a once a quarter flight. I used to drive 40 miles a day in my commute. Roughly 10k miles/yr. A flight to a centrally located place in the US will be about 3k round trip if everyone lives on the coasts (worst case scenario). Are 3k air miles better or worse than 10k car miles?

Hmm, that’s an interesting viewpoint. I guess there is a significant share of people that would otherwise commute by internal combustion vehicle.

For a true comparison you’d also have to take into account the transport mix (walking/transit/EV/ICE) and average distance travelled. Someone in Paris might be likely to commute by transit, but someone in northern Finland might be more likely to use a car.

Re: Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion?

#70

Post by speakfreely »

angrais wrote: post #66
i_have_an_idea wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitLab pays people differently for the same roles, based on where they're located so, by definition, they aren't great at remote first culture.

How's that a negative aspect? For many, that seems fair as it means you get paid the local rate and so can live anywhere in the world comfortably. Remote first does not necessarily mean bay area pay while living in a low cost of living country.

> How's that a negative aspect?

Well, it reinforces a system where predominantly rich, white men who won the passport/work-permission lottery at birth are destined to continue receiving more money for doing the same work than the predominantly brown people of Asia and South America. It's difficult to understand why anyone who values equality would support this.

> you get paid the local rate and so can live anywhere in the world comfortably

You mean, what the company considers "comfortable", even though they don't live there?

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