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The Winners of Remote Work

nytimes.com

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Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#61

Post by lmilcin »

iainctduncan wrote: post #38

I have done remote work for a long time (because ...Canada), and the real issue is that it requires management to have their shit together. I also assess companies for acquisitions now so I talk every month to companies about what's working and what isn't. I've seen some very successful companies with partially remote or even 100% remote teams. And... they have their shit together. Managers have to actually know what…

To be fair, same things apply when your team isn't working remotely. It is not like being able to plan one day in advance has less value when you work in person.

It is just that remote working mercilessly exposes some of the flaws in the organization.

For example, people who look for a way to slack off now can do this much easier. The problem really is selecting right personnel and motivating them. If you try to treat the problem with a stick it most likely will fail with remote people.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#62

Post by tonyedgecombe »

pvm3 wrote: post #22

The Winners of Remote Work don't live in the United States. The pandemic has accelerated globalization.

>The pandemic has accelerated globalization.

Is that really the case? There is some evidence that globalisation had plateaued over the last decade or so. I can't find any recent evidence one way or the other.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-trade-exports-const...

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#63

Post by nathanvanfleet »

ThePadawan wrote: post #44
pvm3 wrote: post #22

The Winners of Remote Work don't live in the United States. The pandemic has accelerated globalization.

Only if you consider Remote Global Work. As a European, it is very disheartening to see how many companies espouse "we are now embracing remote work company-wide", which on closer inspection means "California hours +-2h time difference".

It's not nearly as easy to have people in a timezone 16 hours offset than you might think. So I am not surprised that they would be two very different decisions.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#64

Post by luffapi »

pc86 wrote: post #56
luffapi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> love working from home but it’s easy to get distracted with side projects, feeding birds, germinating seeds etc. For programmers at least “productivity” comes from writing leveragable code, not by working more hours. Watching birds, gardening and generally being relaxed and rested will increase the quality of the code you write. It may even allow you to envision solutions impossible to come up with under the daily…

There are also plenty of programmers who are just lazy and don't want to work a lot. Check out any of the dozens (hundreds?) of comments on Blind of people working 15, 20, 25 hours a week. Total. "I'm sitting on my porch drinking a beer and watching birds but trust me I'm totally working right now " doesn't take you very far.

The best code I’ve ever written was when I was only working 10 hours a week. Hours worked has no positive correlation with quality of code written. Good managers know letting their devs watch birds and relax will result in a much higher quality of output then forcing them into the office and dropping by their desk to prod them.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#65

Post by kansface »

avnigo wrote: post #53

> Google [...] would reduce the pay of those who choose to work remotely or move farther from the office. Avoiding the office saves employees money — in commuting costs, for example I don't understand the reasoning behind this, and I've seen it being used again and again. Employees are compensated on the work they provide during work hours, and only rarely do companies provide compensation to specifically accommodate…

> Other than that, in terms of energy usage, heating/cooling, etc., I would imagine the cost savings of having people work remotely are considerable.

You'd have much higher costs around compliance and taxation, which represent an ongoing expense since laws are always changing and people moving. That probably works out after a few employees in any given state. Companies also lose money by flying everyone in once or twice a year. Now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind seeing some math on the subject.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#66

Post by Clubber »

iainctduncan wrote: post #38

I have done remote work for a long time (because ...Canada), and the real issue is that it requires management to have their shit together. I also assess companies for acquisitions now so I talk every month to companies about what's working and what isn't. I've seen some very successful companies with partially remote or even 100% remote teams. And... they have their shit together. Managers have to actually know what…

>Workers have to be lined up in their swim lanes and the whole thing has to be orchestrated... you know, like actual agile instead of the reactive pfaffery that everyone passes off as "hybrid agile" (boy do I hear that phrase a lot in diligence!)

Swim lanes isn't agile per se, it's just business communicating their priorities and assigning it to development. I remember when agile came out, it was great from the development point of view. It was almost immediately perverted by consultants trying to make a buck trying to sell scrum as a panacea to all development costs and overruns. There's an awful lot of snake oil salesmen in tech. Other than that, I agree with everything you said.

https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#67

Post by Clubber »

ghaff wrote: post #47
mlac wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do think the “old guard” has the most to lose from commercial real estate investments. Think about who sits on the board for a major company… It’s owners and executives from commercial real estate firms. There is a ton of money around commercial real estate, so letting it all just collapse (or losing even 10% of that market) is billions of dollars shifted around the economy. Most “normal” people who are work…

I'm skeptical that executives in commercial real estate have that much leverage over major corporations. I expect things like a bias towards the status quo, sunk cost fallacies, concerns about long-term culture/productivity, and so forth are more than enough to make companies hesitant to go mostly/fully remote.

It depends if said corporations own the building / land or not.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#68

Post by mumblemumble »

lmilcin wrote: post #61
iainctduncan wrote: post #38

I have done remote work for a long time (because ...Canada), and the real issue is that it requires management to have their shit together. I also assess companies for acquisitions now so I talk every month to companies about what's working and what isn't. I've seen some very successful companies with partially remote or even 100% remote teams. And... they have their shit together. Managers have to actually know what…

To be fair, same things apply when your team isn't working remotely. It is not like being able to plan one day in advance has less value when you work in person. It is just that remote working mercilessly exposes some of the flaws in the organization. For example, people who look for a way to slack off now can do this much easier. The problem really is selecting right personnel and motivating them. If you try to trea…

I've bounced back and forth among remote and co-located positions of varying levels of effectiveness. I haven't seen much trouble with remote workers slacking off. But I have seen a lot of tension with mixed teams, typically around this problem of remote people getting frustrated about management not having their shit together. The overarching theme that I've seen is that it's really easy to confuse "enjoyable" and "effective." And co-located offices give you all sorts of opportunities to mix those up, because oftentimes the most enjoyable ways for a co-located team to work aren't really the most effective. But nobody cares, because they're enjoying it.

By contrast, one of the (un?)happy accidents of remote life is that it tends to cause ineffective organization and communication styles to also be unenjoyable.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#69

Post by umeshunni »

ghaff wrote: post #39
francisofascii wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use an example from the parent post, local, cyclist spin trainers are losing, since people are simply using the Pelaton trainers at home, rather than going to an "in person" spin class. The local, small time trainer can't compete with a celebrity/model trainer. Similar to how TV and movies hurt local theatres. In the end, it is more efficient, but there are "losers".

I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.

The same principles that apply to remote work apply here.

Why would I want to drive 10-15 minutes, park, change and all that for a 30 or 60 minute spin class when I can take that same class in my garage or living room.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#70

Post by mcguire »

pc86 wrote: post #56
luffapi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> love working from home but it’s easy to get distracted with side projects, feeding birds, germinating seeds etc. For programmers at least “productivity” comes from writing leveragable code, not by working more hours. Watching birds, gardening and generally being relaxed and rested will increase the quality of the code you write. It may even allow you to envision solutions impossible to come up with under the daily…

There are also plenty of programmers who are just lazy and don't want to work a lot. Check out any of the dozens (hundreds?) of comments on Blind of people working 15, 20, 25 hours a week. Total. "I'm sitting on my porch drinking a beer and watching birds but trust me I'm totally working right now " doesn't take you very far.

That depends, though. How many people reading this thread would say, "I'm sitting in my cube surfing the 'net, but trust me I'm totally working right now"?
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