The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers • Hacker News Board

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#101

Post by Swizec » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

midasuni wrote: post #89

ren_engineer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the hardest thing remote work has to replicate is just random small talk between smart people that can lead to great ideas. This speech from Richard Hamming about Bell Labs sticks in my mind, especially the segment about open vs closed office doors. I'd say remote work is objectively better for pure productivity in terms of getting things done, but you run the risk of limiting innovation I think https://www.c…

> But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on It seems normal mow to move job every 3 years so that’s not a concern

This too is a type of open door. You see more breadth and talk to more people by regularly changing employers. It enables you to move towards problems worth working on.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#102

Post by ok_coo » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #25

Here's an anecdote. I left because Microsoft was being weird about long term remote plans and I wanted to actually be able to plan ahead. They lost me because they couldn't give me a straight answer if I can continue working there if I went fully remote or not.

And yet, companies in interviews will ask you where you see yourself in 5 years.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#103

Post by ghaff » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #91

kiklion wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of depends on the details. My company has offices that you can go to, but if you want to work remotely then it’s up to you to manage your environment. The company already has offices. Why would they pay for more just because you don’t want to go to the offices. There is a one time budget for hardware, such as a second monitor at home, we’ll have to see how that plays out with upgrades in a few years.

The cost of outfitting an employee with state-of-the-art equipment for their home office is at most a few months of commuter benefits. It's a comically small price to pay for employee happiness and productivity. Employers that don't or aren't willing to pony up are going to be losers in the long run. Cheap is cheap.

The equipment is trivial and most tech professionals have it at this point or don’t really care. But you’re not going to get paid to move from your urban studio to an apartment with an office though some companies did pay for coworking spaces when there was no office for employees to commute to pre-pandemic.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#104

Post by chokeartist » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

Salgat wrote: post #94

ren_engineer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the hardest thing remote work has to replicate is just random small talk between smart people that can lead to great ideas. This speech from Richard Hamming about Bell Labs sticks in my mind, especially the segment about open vs closed office doors. I'd say remote work is objectively better for pure productivity in terms of getting things done, but you run the risk of limiting innovation I think https://www.c…

>random small talk between smart people that can lead to great ideas. Outside of maybe a very innovative R&D department I don't really see these "brilliant ideas that only smalltalk could achieve" in your typical run of the mill company.

That is because most companies are fucking horrible to work for.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#105

Post by walshemj » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #74

walshemj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't see "static and siloed" that's just asking for a disruptor to come in and eat your lunch

A disrupter that’s likely also working remotely. A businesses absolute shit remote working process != remote working is bad.

Co located teams always wins sorry if you don't want to hear this but its true.

December 94 did first agile web project in BT took a month two developers flew up to Edinburgh collocated team.

The traditional remote (Cardiff) quoted 2 years.

Before that 3 of us developed SIROS the system that controlled the UK core ip network in 12 weeks again using agile and getting the customer in the room regularly

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#106

Post by jokethrowaway » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #96

Salgat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>random small talk between smart people that can lead to great ideas. Outside of maybe a very innovative R&D department I don't really see these "brilliant ideas that only smalltalk could achieve" in your typical run of the mill company.

doesn't have to be ground breaking research, could just be ideas for product iteration or for an employees own side project. Benefits individuals more than the company really

The way this benefits the company is that individuals are happy and create relationships with coworkers making work more enjoyable and making it harder to quit. Companies wants you to feel like a family so you'll stay for a lower salary or so you'll accept more grueling conditions.

Knowing this, from a company perspective, remote can work if individuals have a way to create relationships. In my experience, some people bond over work but most bond by spending time with each other doing friendly activities which are not work related.

An in-person party or a holiday is the best option but some online gaming is a decent substitute in these authoritarian times. Some people swear by virtual coffees rotations that randomly match people but I had a couple of good ones and dozens of cringy/weird. None of them ended up being positive for creating relationships, at best it was useful for knowing who is who.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#107

Post by ghaff » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #10

AndreiCalazans wrote: post #9

Unintentional by accident remote work shouldn’t be considered the baseline for such comparison. This research does at best find results at Microsoft, thus it could be titled “effects of remote work at Microsoft” to not induce the sense of generalist research. For the negative results: remote work creates silos and reduces cross-network collaboration. These might easily be mitigated with strategies and tooling. Nevert…

Can you tool-in a water cooler? A walk to the cafeteria? A weird smell several people notice? [ninja edit]: someone downvoted you, it wasn't me.

Can you tool-in a water coolier on a different floor, a different building, or a different city? Because that’s the communication that has to happen at any large company. Very peopleiwork witharein my for now official office even if I went there.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#108

Post by ghaff » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #66

maxclark wrote: post #2

“Together, these effects may make it harder for employees to acquire and share new information across the network.” Remote is hard and not every company is going to adapt to this long term. I’m happy that remote is now an accepted structure but I worry that full time remote employees will miss out simply because they aren’t present.

I always have heard it said “if you have one remote employee on your team, everyone is a remote employee”, because if you don’t interact as if you are all remote, then the remote employee is going to miss so much.

There aren’t absolutes. But yes if end up hybrid expect to do video meetings and write everything down—the latter of which is a pretty good idea anyway.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#109

Post by logosmonkey » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #93

midasuni wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on It seems normal mow to move job every 3 years so that’s not a concern

That’s a very Silicon Valley tech influenced meme.

I don't believe so. It's the only way to get a proper pay increase in corporate America. Internal promotion in most corporations comes with at best a 10% pay increase most of the time and includes increased workload. If I leave my company and go to another I can pretty easily get 15-20% increase and stay in the same basic job I'm currently at. Most companies don't offer any benefits that increase based on loyalty so I don't know why any would expect someone to stay long term.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#110

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #82

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #62

Imagine the desperation and helplessness of managers as they brainstorm behind closed doors on how to force back people into their shitty offices. Imagine it, and smile!

I suppose it beats them thinking 'hey remote is great, why don't we start hiring more aggressively in Ukraine instead of Redmond'. If everything is remote companies won't have to pay non-remote wages anymore.

If the availability of fluent English-speaking developers who work PDT hours was high, companies would absolutely do this already.

Remote in same time zone so you can collaborate in real-time has absolutely no resemblance to an employee you can communicate with effectively a 24 hour delay.