The Real Reasons Companies Won't Hire Telecommuters (oreilly.com) 269
Long-time Slashdot reader Esther Schindler points us to a new article at OReilly.com: Those of us who telecommute cannot quite fathom the reasons companies give for refusing to let people work from home. But even if you don't agree with their decision, they do have reasons -- and not all of them are, "Because we like to be idiots." In "5 reasons why the company you want to work for won't hire telecommuters", hiring managers share their sincere reasons to insist you work in the office -- and a few tips for how you might convince them otherwise.
The arguments against telecommuting range from "creativity happens in the hallway" to "the extra logistics aren't worth it," and the article suggests the best counterarguments include pointing out a past history of successfully telecommuting and allowing your employer to gradually transition you into a remote position. And if all else fails, just become a "rock star," because according to one tech placement company, "For the right talent and when a role has been open for a very long time, they tend to give in."
The arguments against telecommuting range from "creativity happens in the hallway" to "the extra logistics aren't worth it," and the article suggests the best counterarguments include pointing out a past history of successfully telecommuting and allowing your employer to gradually transition you into a remote position. And if all else fails, just become a "rock star," because according to one tech placement company, "For the right talent and when a role has been open for a very long time, they tend to give in."
Synergy! Connectivization! Linkativity! (Score:5, Insightful)
How in the world can Real Work(tm) get done without the constant barrage of face-to-face interruptions? Think of the children!
Brought to you by Management. Management - for when you need to divide your day into never-ending 30-minute chunks of time. Focus? What the hell is that?
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Communication works better in person
By far, the most prevalent attitude is that rapport and camaraderie are generated best from in-person relationships.
Unfortunately, this is true. it's why companies spend millions of dollars a year on travel expenses when it would be much cheaper to use phone/video conferencing.
Creativity happens in the hallway
Questionable. Especially when the only examples they can come up with is Yahoo and Best Buy. Seriously? Yahoo and Best Buy? WTF?
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Re:Synergy! Connectivization! Linkativity! (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of the office sports pool!
FTFY.
A lot of the push to get people into the office is made by those for whom the office is their social life as well. The repeated interruptions aren't always about work.
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All of the reasons listed in the article are pure bullshit. The real reason companies don't want employees to telecommute is because they don't trust them. If an employer doesn't trust you, you shouldn't be working for scumbags like that.
In reality the ONLY thing an employer should be concerned with are deadlines. If a project has been assigned to you and you deliver by the deadline, then there should be no issue. That's how most of my past employers have thought, fortunately. Nowadays, I'm the employer.
Re:Synergy! Connectivization! Linkativity! (Score:4, Insightful)
And quality. Any employer that isn't concerned about that really isn't working for.
Some good points. (Score:4, Insightful)
I was getting ready to throw some serious shade at this, but there are actually a few good points in this article. In particular the comments regarding mentoring junior members and knowing when they are struggling.
Re:Some good points. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been mentoring junior developers for years, and there's been absolutely no uncertainty about which ones were struggling. Or which ones were overjoyed to be guided and which were just hoping I'd do their job for them,
Some of them were even located on the same continent I am.
Though I've never met any of them face-to-face. Or even voice-to-voice.
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I've been mentoring junior developers for years, ...Though I've never met any of them face-to-face. Or even voice-to-voice.
If you've never talked to them, how are you mentoring them?
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Welcome to the late 20th century, where email exists.
And skype and webex and slack. I collaborate with a co-worker in Phoenix and one in Naples on a daily basis while I work off Broward (north of Miami). We conduct daily stand ups, code reviews and design meetings all remotely.
A few weeks ago, I worked remotely with a team in Japan. And in the past I've done the same with people on the West Coast and India.
This is the type of shit that has been possible for more than a decade.
Now, I understand the rationale for being against telecommuting. But they ar
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Forms of online group communications have been available since at least the 80s. This includes "newsgroups" and real time chat. The real problem is that many people choose not to use them and you pretty much have to chase them down physically.
Trustworthiness is really the only issue here. The rest flow from that.
In some companies, even if you are physically in the office you are co-located with NO ONE on your team.
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One of the most highly acclaimed books on Software Architecture started the book saying, if you have to read this or any other book to become the required master at software design to be an Architect, you will never
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And that is just the point. People that know how to communicate do not need the full bandwidth, a tiny fraction is enough. For the others, it does not help, as they have no clue how to use it in the first place. Many of them will want if for an illusion of control though.
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Most blind people weren't blind at birth. You wouldn't have to describe colors for them. As for those who never saw the color blue, it's the same as those who were not blind at birth - it's totally useless information. It would be like telling a blind person to only cross the street when the light is green. Even their guide dong can't tell the color of the traffic lights. The blind person uses their ears to determine the traffic flow, and when it's safe to cross. The color of the lights, or the existence or
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The thing is that it is only possible for, say 15% or so of all people. The others cannot learn deep things anyways, regardless of how they are learning.
I think the faulty thinking applied here goes something like this: Many people cannot learn by themselves with written materials only. Hence they must be taught in the traditional fashion, because that one being traditional, obviously must work.
Of course, the second part is disconnected from reality. The only thing that traditional learning does well is tea
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The books didn't teach you. They just provided knowledge you needed. What taught you is the experience of trying to program your actual device. It's the experience necessary to really learn that the GP wrote about. You think you're disagreeing, but your anecdote actually supports his position.
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And basically all of that is irrelevant for the purpose at hand. You fail. A possible explanation is that you vastly overestimate the worth of what you believe you have to say.
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I've mentored dozens of people by email and by commenting on their articles. Voice isn't necessary. Sometimes it actually gets in the way.
But yeah I also write very long emails.
Gradually has worked for me, as employee and manag (Score:2)
The article does indeed make some good points.
Particularly the last point about introducing work-from-home gradually. That's been my experience both as an employee and as a manager. As an employee, first I established a good reputation as a solid worker in the office. Then I worked from home one day because I waiting for the AC repairman or whatever. That day, I made it a point to start working at the time I would otherwise be starting my commute, stop when I would have finished my commute home, and commu
If you resolve disasters and nobody knows about it (Score:2)
> Distractions to disasters, they do not excuse any lack of success.
If you heroically resolve some disaster and your boss doesn't find out about it, one of two things is true:
a) You /caused/ the disaster and solved your own fuck up without it being noticed. Good job.
or
b) You fail at boss management.
Managers like to stalk (Score:4, Insightful)
Managers like to sneak up on their employees, and look over their shoulders. They like to be an ever-present looming threat keeping the prole's heads down and working hard. It's a constant trickle of pleasure in their bloodstreams. Productivity and mental health numbers don't matter to them.
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Managers like to sneak up on their employees, and look over their shoulders. They like to be an ever-present looming threat keeping the prole's heads down and working hard. It's a constant trickle of pleasure in their bloodstreams. Productivity and mental health numbers don't matter to them.
Speaking of what matters, would financial numbers matter to them after they discover productivity is in the toilet due to them driving their best talent out the door?
At some point the moronic PHB mentality starts to affect what they DO care about, and sane, talented people do not put up with that shit.
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Speaking of what matters, would financial numbers matter to them after they discover productivity is in the toilet due to them driving their best talent out the door?
Apparently, losing good people doesn't bother anyone, because they keep doing it and I have yet to see anyone ever admit that they're doing something wrong and need to change.
Re:Managers like to stalk (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, losing good people doesn't bother anyone, because they keep doing it and I have yet to see anyone ever admit that they're doing something wrong and need to change.
Because Agile methodologies tell them as long as they stand around 30 min every morning, they're making the best progress they can and their projects will finish on time. Oh, and every task can be done by anyone on the team. Replaceable cogs.
Re:Managers like to stalk (Score:4, Insightful)
The *fucking gall* to go around calling people *resource*. Fucking retards.
Kinder than me, I usually say we're all prostitutes either from the neck down or the neck up. Work is basically pimping out your brain for cash.
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Re: Managers like to stalk (Score:2)
All managers care about is how cheap they can get it done in their version of productivity formula.
If they drive top talent away then good as productivity goes up by an H1B1 because they are cheaper anyway etc.
Oh wait do you mean shit about deadlines? That's the project managers problem.
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If they drive top talent away then good as productivity goes up by an H1B1 because they are cheaper anyway etc.
It's never productive to have flu in the office, anyone with H1B1 should be telecommuting.
Re:Managers like to stalk (Score:4, Insightful)
Managers like to sneak up on their employees
No. Bad managers like to stalk. Good managers don't give a shit about looking over your shoulder. That isn't an argument for or against telecommuting. My manager works in a different country to me, but that doesn't mean I'm telecommuting. I am still very much at one of our offices and for a good reason; I am far more useful when I overhear and am in the middle of what's going on.
Picking up a phone requires effort, overhearing a conversation or discussing a problem over coffee does not.
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Managers like to sneak up on their employees, and look over their shoulders. They like to be an ever-present looming threat keeping the prole's heads down and working hard. It's a constant trickle of pleasure in their bloodstreams. Productivity and mental health numbers don't matter to them.
Not all managers. In 22 years doing this in software (and 28 when I include other fields), I can say for certain that this is not the general case. If a) you have a good manager, and b) you have given them reason to trust you, they don't do that.
However, if a) you do not have a good manager, or b) you have given them reason to mistrust you, then yeah, they'll sneak upon you.
This is not specific of software. It happens everywhere. Life is what you make of it.
I get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who's spent the last two years working on nothing but remote projects, I completely understand it. Doesn't always have anything to do with the worker, either. It's been my experience that it's something that doesn't experiment well.
What I mean by that, is that you can't easily mix the office model and the work from home model easily. You're usually doing all one, or all the other.
If you don't, and you haphazardly experiment with it, without knowing how to do this, your office people will screw everything up, or hire the wrong people.
Sometimes, they'll intentionally mismanage projects, because the notion of remote workers is seen as a threat. I've seen it. They also have this nasty habit of wanting all of the productivity gains of remote workers, while insisting they work with constraints that don't make sense for remote contractors or employees.
It's not for everyone, at least not yet. The whole idea is a pretty radical change from the established order. Better tools need to be built. Better protocols need to be in place more consistently. Better practices need to be thought up and deployed, because the state of it now is objectively bad at the corporate level.
And if companies know their weaknesses here, I say good. Good. It means fewer shit remote jobs.
Not every day (Score:3, Insightful)
Working at home every day is not efficient if you're into software development for example.
In one whiteboard session with some coworkers you get more done than by e-mail for two weeks.
But there are tasks that require absolute concentration if you want to get the best results, like designing and implementing a complex algorithm, or fixing a complex bug.
My days in the office are mostly filled with meetings, Skype calls with the offshore team, writing e-mails, etc. I work at home one day per week, and that's t
Re: Not every day (Score:2)
You know boss that Niff guy is always late and calls out every Friday?!
Are you sure you want to lay me off instead of him? What does he do again?
I at least come in at 8am sharp every day!
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So meet in the local pub for a bull session and pens to draw on the back of napkins. Richard Berry came up with the lyrincs for Louie Louie and wrote them on toilet paper. W.C. Fields sold a plot idea he had written (Never Give a Sucker an Even Break) on the back of his grocery order to Universal for $25,000.00. The Star Spangled Banner was written on the back of a letter Francis Scott Key had in his pocket. Arthur Laffer used a cocktail napkin to explain the Laffer Curve to Donald Rumsfeld, Ford's econom
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> The whole idea is a pretty radical change from the established order. Better tools need to be built. Better protocols need to be in place more consistently. Better practices need to be thought up and deployed, because the state of it now is objectively bad at the corporate level.
I'm interested in what changes you feel need to be made to improve the process, particularly if I left them out of the white paper (to which the article linked). As you may imagine, the topic is one that interests me greatly.
"Extra logistics" (Score:2)
Given that Slashdot is a technically oriented site, I'd say in this specific case we'd usually be the ones setting up said "extra logistics" - so that argument doesn't hold water here. Whether or not you choose to laugh in the person's face when they bring that point up is up to you (I'd argue that you should show restraint, though; PHBs generally don't have a sense of humor, especially on subjects where they're out of their depth).
I set up an openvpn server on my "test box" (an old Dell running CentOS 6.8
Double edged sword (Score:2)
If you can do the job from home then EditorDavid, manishs, msmash[1] or BeauHD can do it from Calcutta.
[1] Suspiciously close to an anagram if your handwriting is as bad as your accent.
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I think that's overly simplified.
If you can do 90-100% of your job from home, then your statement is correct (although I think I could still argue several points). However if you've got a job (like I do) where you're juggling a lot of plates, there may be some tasks which work well from home while others don't.
I telecommute one day a week - that's my "project day". Adding a second day (and perhaps a third) would not significantly impact my ability to do my job. But there are parts of my job which would be m
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It's not overly simplified, it's called sarcasm. However, is that or is that not the fundamental justification for offshoring anything that's not explicitly banned by the DoD?
I've never done 100% telecommuting. I did one job where a blind eye was turned to the odd occasional day at home - this was nice, there's always childcare issues, transport strikes and shit - until one guy abused it (he had the odd occasional day where he'd turn up) and got everyone banned. Within a month two good experienced peopl
Telecommuting vs outsourcing (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't some of these same reasons apply to hiring developers in India or wherever? Yet that gets done all the time.
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No. Telecommuting and outsourcing are two different things. When you outsource an entire project the resulting project team are still in the same room, collaborating, taking advantage of all the efficiencies of being co-located with their colleagues, and (dare I say this because it's India) they will have managers breathing down their necks and being micromanaged for performance (this is not a good thing as it can kill productivity, it's just different from telecommuting).
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Don't some of these same reasons apply to hiring developers in India or wherever? Yet that gets done all the time.
My thoughts exactly. Outsourcing is nothing so much as a huge investment in foreign telecommuters...
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much cheaper price though. I am sure they wouldn't mind your telecommuting if you worked for peanuts.
If that is the case, then throw every other bullshit excuse for not supporting telecommuting out the door.
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much cheaper price though. I am sure they wouldn't mind your telecommuting if you worked for peanuts.
If that is the case, then throw every other bullshit excuse for not supporting telecommuting out the door.
Why? He is saying they are willing to pay for an inferior product (a telecommuter) as long as it is reflected in the price. No difference than my not complaining about a McDouble tasting worse than a dry aged prime steak because I only paid a dollar for the burger (as apposed to $60).
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Move to India and work for US company
Nope. Telecommute to the Indian company and live a few miles from the client US company who could have hired you directly. Of course, you will have to adopt a pseudonym like Rajiv Virajnarianan.
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Who "hires" telecommuters? (Score:4, Insightful)
apart from people who don't have a business that is developed enough to make it worth shelling out for office on-costs?
Telecommuting is a perk for trusted in-house rockstars who aren't quite board material. The value those rockstars deliver is nearly always organisation specific. It isn't tranferable. Don't believe the hype. Unless you is a global rockstar or sumfink.
Companies with multiple offices who teleconferenc (Score:2)
> Who "hires" telecommuters?
Everywhere I've worked doing software development, a reliable employee could transition to a lot of working from home, no need to be a "rockstar". Work from home one day while waiting for the AC repair guy, or when your and SHOW that you get your job done from home. Skipping the commute (working half of the commute time) makes that easy for anyone who has the skills from working from home or working for themselves. (For example, you learn to work in a room with no TV or fa
Translated to American English? (Score:2)
> But, also, I would argue that you need to have established the trust with that particular employer. (Try doing it with your next one.)
I'm going to try. :) Actually I'm probably going to be bold and mention it at the interview. Because I'm now working from home most days, and the head of the office sees me working past midnight sometimes, I will have a strong reference telling the hiring manager I do well with it. Other references will say the same. We'll see what happens. I suspect I'll find which e
Re:Translated to American English? (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally agree, except when it hits the fan (Score:2)
Funny, I mentioned something similar to my boss last night. Anyway, I totally agree, and that was a bad example to use for making my point. I work late in fairly rare instances, when there is either an emergency or about twice per year when there is a *real* deadline, such as a government imposed legal deadline that's non-negotiable. I work in order to take care of my family; neglecting my family in order to work late would be putting the means before the ends.
Anyway, you make a good point. *My* point, whi
How is this news? (Score:2, Interesting)
The real reason? Simple: people are lazy as shit. If you give them a chance to slack off, they will. And that's far more likely at home than at work where a pointy-haired boss can tell you something else that needs doing.
All the rest is just hand-wavy bullshit. And it's right. I personally think "working from home" is *never* as efficient as a dedicated, isolated workspace. If you do it, it should be a level of trust you EARN from a company, certainly not start with. Plus, I think if you work from ho
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry. That's shit, too.
People who are well-motivated and self-driven can work without someone continuously breathing over their shoulder.
People who are slackers can slack off just as well in the middle of a crowded office. Dilbert's fellow-employee Wally is alive and well and I've had the questionable honor of working in offices with many of his clones over the years.
People who have to be forcibly driven to work are going to resent it and the results are going to show in the quality of their work. Although, what am I saying - qualify took back seat to cheap and fast years ago.
Personally, my home office is organized and equipped a lot better than most employer-supplied workspaces I've been given. I can have a comfortable chair because it doesn't have to conform to HR's ranking of who gets what kind of chair based on whether one is a manager or not (even to the point of whether it should be floral or plaid). I don't spend my time looking for items to set fire to because the office thermostat isn't set to arctic levels in the misguided idea that the colder it is the more "productive" i am. I don't arrive at work in a bad mood because of the commute or connive to quit early in order to avoid the rush and I can even adapt my working schedule to be more friendly to natural body rhythms by taking a break in the middle of the afternoon and returning to work in the evening since I don't have a long commute in and out of work.
I don't even talk to headhunters who expect me to work exclusively on-premises anymore.
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Sorry. That's shit, too.
People who are well-motivated and self-driven can work without someone continuously breathing over their shoulder.
People who are slackers can slack off just as well in the middle of a crowded office. Dilbert's fellow-employee Wally is alive and well and I've had the questionable honor of working in offices with many of his clones over the years.
In my first real job, there was this one guy who would go into the restroom every morning with at least 2 newspapers.
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I can have a comfortable chair because it doesn't have to conform to HR's ranking of who gets what kind of chair based on whether one is a manager or not (even to the point of whether it should be floral or plaid).
Holy shit is that a thing? What kind of a dead beat employer does that? I have the same chair as the top manager at my company and I think also the same one as the cleaner does in their break room.
Re: How is this news? (Score:2)
A good chair that won't flat your butt is a good $600!
Not everyone wants to pay for that when you have 3,000 employees
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Even in small companies, where the number of employees are small, some employees are more equal than others. More on that later, but just to share my telecommuting experiences.
I've worked in a telecommuting position twice. The first time was 100% telecommuting, with the distance between me and the office being about 1300 miles, from 2005-2008. The hiring situation was unusual - they came to me, I'd worked for them in-office for three years in the late 90s, they knew what I could do, etc. It started out
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Hard plastic?
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I can have a comfortable chair because it doesn't have to conform to HR's ranking of who gets what kind of chair based on whether one is a manager or not (even to the point of whether it should be floral or plaid).
I think this taps into the subtle psychology that often opposes remote work.
I think part of the psychological value of being a "manager" is elevated status and power over people. That status is reinforced by the physical space controlled by a manager, the public display of differentiation in status (bigger office, better furniture) and social display of authority and the fealty received by inferiors.
What would "being a manager" be like if you were in charge of a team of workers who were all remote? It wou
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And yet, there's a manager at my job who watches fucking youtube videos all day long, in an open office environment; and another guy who manages his fantasy sports team in the office.
So much for the idea that being physically present encourages productivity. Lazy slackers will find a way to slack regardless of where they are. If your employees can't get things done from home, maybe you need better employees.
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The real reason? Simple: people are lazy as shit. If you give them a chance to slack off, they will. And that's far more likely at home than at work where a pointy-haired boss can tell you something else that needs doing.
All the rest is just hand-wavy bullshit. And it's right. I personally think "working from home" is *never* as efficient as a dedicated, isolated workspace. If you do it, it should be a level of trust you EARN from a company, certainly not start with. Plus, I think if you work from home you should get paid less, because working from home is so desirable and convenient.
And I personally have the full choice of working from home, or at my office; I've worked for the firm for 23 years, they couldn't care less. But generally, I work from the office.
Utter bullshit. Sorry, I work from home 2 - 3 days a week and dealing with a new CIO that thinks the same way as you do. Home workers are less productive, rahrah... it all comes down to the CIO's personal opinion and when I challenged them on it, ha! No analysis to back it up. Sorry, but if you are making decisions based on opinions at that level and not hard data you need the boot. In addition, I have a _DEDICATED_ isolated office in my house - which is the key. A prior company I worked for, there was a ru
In my experience most companies avoid this because (Score:3)
...they don't know how to manage remote employees. I find this difficult myself, but primarily because I ad hoc manage a few people who are remote - I think if you manage the entire team in a remote fashion, it can be a win.
With a management process built to support this type of team - remote teams actually coordinate and communicate better than physically co-located teams.
We currently have a single remote team (many other teams in-house) at our company - and they're fantastic. That's primarily down to the fact that the guy running the team (also remote) has a great and transparent system for communication that works well.
Now, there are many reasons why it wouldn't work for a given company - but I can definitely state that it can work, and work REALLY well - given the right circumstances.
I forgot that being rockstar is so elementary (Score:2)
And if all else fails, just become a "rock star,"
As if it was that easy. This reminds me of when I explained that the cost of housing was too high and a friend said 'people should just earn more money'. Don't you think they aren't already trying?
How much of the advice out there is for a very select few able, talented, healthy, and driven individuals. What about the other 99.5% of us? The ordinary folk. The very best of us don't need advice. They will virtually always find a way to succeed.
What is wrong people that they would dish out such myopic '
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You know, there is an outside chance GP was being sarcastic.
Rock Stars Wanted... (Score:2)
According to a lot of posters I've seen recently, many companies want Rock Stars as interns... and Jimmy Johns wants to hire Rock Stars, so maybe they are "Freaky fast"
I don't know, but I would like to think you have to have some other qualifications, especially with retarded "rock" like that screamo crap that was so popular a few years ago. I'd prefer it if my sandwiches weren't delivered by somebody with the ability to make a pig squealing noises that ruin an otherwise listenable tune.
The real reason (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The real reason (Score:4, Insightful)
This.
It's partly management's inability to measure output vs resources expended. All they know how to do is count butts occupying seats. And then there's management styles. When the meetings are run by Type A personalities, they need people present to dominate. Move the communication away from face to face and to text and it becomes more difficult for the Type As to 'win' in staff meetings.
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The "need to be in the same room" is bullshit, because I've been forced to work with coworkers on the other coast
Your one-off anecdote that unlikely applies to a wide variety of roles in your company isn't even remotely proof that the premise is bullshit. There is a wealth of efficiencies that are gained by simply being in the same room as people. It's the reason 4 of us drove 4 hours to an office in Germany last week to have a quick meeting, it's the reason we manage to solve problems by overhearing hallway chatter, it's the reason most of us are part of a social community that extends beyond a name in an email fiel
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Remote as an emergency fall-back (Score:5, Insightful)
One advantage of planning for remote work is that it makes it easier to get people on-line and working in an emergency. If production goes down unexpectedly on a weekend, if the company's already set up for remote work they can make phone calls and get engineers on-line and working on the problem in a matter of 5-15 minutes. If the company isn't, engineers are going to have to get dressed and get in to the office before they can even start looking at the problem and that can take a half-hour to an hour (or more depending on how far away the engineer lives). It also makes it easier for employees to turn what would've been a day taken off to deal with appointments into a half-day or less of time away from the keyboard, which helps get more work done. I've always felt that those benefits more than outweigh the costs of setting the company up for remote work, and that having people working remotely on a regular basis makes sure all that infrastructure's working properly and gives confidence that it'll be there and working when things go pear-shaped and you really need to get people on the problem quickly. To me that justifies telling the HR people and the managers "The company needs this. If you don't know how to run things this way, go start learning.".
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Assuming that its a real emergency and they actually want it fixed in a timely manner. When I worked for Boeing and supported some shop floor IT systems, we had the occasional panic. A page and message to get in right away. Several times, I'd call the number back and try to ask the nature of the problem. Perhaps it was something I could do logged in from home, sitting in my pajamas in 20 minutes. That was usually met with rage on the calling manager's part, as the whole point was to mobilize as large a grou
In the hallways? (Score:3)
Just write the damned code there is no requirement for it to actually work seems to cross all cultures.
Yes, productivity is higher if you don't keep being interrupted, but if you are off site, emails texts and even voice calls can always be used to destroy productivity if there is any risk of it actually happening.
But its hard to operate CNC machines from home, and group hugs are also a problem for telecommuters.
Tere is only 1 reason - and it's bogus. (Score:5, Insightful)
Managers don't know enough about the ins and outs of the job, so they substitute butts warming seats instead of proper performance metrics.
Other reasons, such as mentoring, are fullof sh*t. There's no reason a group of coders, documentation writers, even accountants, can't rotate meeting at each other's homes in small groups of 2 to 6 people, especially if they all live in the same area. This also takes care of the "communications work better in person", because sometimes having a frank discussion to find out what is bothering a co-worker isn't ever going to happen under the watchful eyes of everyone else.
As for the "creativity happens in the hallway", first, consider the source. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer banned telecommuting, and Yahoo fell into the shitter - over and over and over. There is no reason for ANYONE to be stupid enough to write an article on October 4th, 2016 (the date of the article) with advice from Marissa Mayer, unless it's "How to ruin a business, screw over employees and shareholders, and collect a golden parachute". Seriouisly. WTF was Esther Schindler thinking? Or EditorDavid, for that matter?
"Managing remote workers is harder" - sure, if you don't understand what they're doing, don't trust them, don't have a way to measure performance, and want to justify your job as a manager by being seen managing those chair-warming butts. Don't use the manager's incompetence as an excuse. It indicates that whoever hired the manager should also be fired.
"It's more complicated." Aw, gee whiz. If you're going to use that excuse, put a gun in your mouth and eat a bullet. LIFE is complicated. Other companies can do it, managing nurses visiting patients in their homes, truck drivers on deliveries, any company that dispatches workers to the job. Anyone making the excuse that it is complicated should be ashamed of themselves,
As for "we've always done it this way", we could have used the same excuse to keep the old outhouse around. Both are equally full of shit.
Crap article by someone who is stuck in the past.
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Actually, mentoring is a good reason.
I do telecommute. If I'm assigned a new project, I almost always try to be atleast 50% at work when working on a new project, because it's so much easier to get a 5-second answer from a coworker than send a text or email that gets replied to who-knows-when. People-to-people interaction is much easier in the office.
Don't agree that these interactions should be forced on you however - just that in-office work does strengthen your bonds.
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One of my managers, in his 20+ years of being in engineering, told me by all metrics, I am the slowest, but by results, I am the fastest.
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Managers don't know enough about the ins and outs of the job, so they substitute butts warming seats instead of proper performance metrics.
Even the good performance metrics would show that my productivity comes in squirts, I don't work on an assembly line where time equals work. I could have thought long and hard, designed and redesigned, made prototypes and tests but still not found a good solution or I could have done nothing at all. The difference is that I don't have any interest in faking time at the office, I'd still be stuck there. At home more time off would be more time off. If the reward goes up, the risk/reward ratio goes down. Some
A way to make companies want to support it. (Score:3)
Every one of us living in a major metropolitan area deals with the stress and bullshit surrounding just getting to your workplace from home. Not only does commuting suck hours of productivity away from your employer (2 hours a day equates to 40 hours lost every month per FT employee), it also contributes to excess reliability and consumption of fuel within the economy, along with helping destroy the environment, primarily that air you're breathing every day living in the same area.
Why not speak to what matters with companies, and provide considerable federal and/or state level tax breaks for every position that a company converts to 100% telecommuting.
Beyond the environment and opening up productivity windows, this might be a model that enables companies to perhaps want to support a change that can easily be supported by technology today. Needless to say, I'm not buying the anti-communication reasons brought up in TFA. If we can rely on technology today to bond families over thousands of miles, I'm pretty sure we can build a simple professional relationship with a co-worker or boss.
TL; DR - Federal/State level tax breaks for each corporate position converted to telecommuting, because technology can support it.
Micromanagers need control (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Remote work (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who works for a large multi-national, trying to hold someone accountable that works for home is a pain in the rear. If they work in a remote office, I can ask someone to walk past their office and ask them to call or email. There are a lot of people who are good remote workers. However, almost none of them seem to work as developers and system admins. The couple of dozen or so that I have worked with while they have worked from home have been absolute pain in the neck, since they are passive aggressive little twerps.
If you want to work from home. Prove you can work in the office, that your skillset is significantly better than others who could do you job and are willing to show up, and give a cost/benefit that matters to your management, not to you
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Yet, my large city has couple hundred of you, willing to come in the office, network with employees outside of work that are outside their team, and is a crap load more flexible. Let's be honest, why should we hire you?
Not trying to be cruel here, just honest. I have a mortgage in another city. I pay a company to manage it for me. I moved because it needs to happen or I could stay in my little crappy town, with 20% less mortgage cost and a 40% less salary, along with 80% less opportunity. Weigh the benefits
Two days a week (Score:2)
All of the reasons given in this article are why you wouldn't want employees disappearing into the telecommuting ether forever, but why not two days a week? If tech employees were to do that, with in-office days properly synchronized by team, companies could save money without demolishing the company culture. Your city would benefit environmentally too.
Home becomes office (Score:2)
I have had the opportunity a number of times and refused it. I have no desire whatsoever that an employer be able to consider that just because I work from home, my home is an extension of their environment. I worked 40/wk with the occasional on-call and that's as far as I wanted it to go. Every single workaholic that you interface with at the business now thinks that you're also available at all the hours they make themselves so. Nope, I am not. I have another life and it is sacrosanct.
Vice versa, by
My company is about 85% remote (Score:3)
I live 15 minutes away and rarely come in.
It works well for us simply because we hire people who respect this freedom: we have core hours in which you are expected to respond to email, slack, phone calls. Missing meetings is not an option - you will attend over GTM. People are pretty professional. No gossiping or stuff like that.
We realistically scope our work - an Agile shop, our two week sprints are rarely ever slipped, our stories are are rarely ever 5 points (Fibonacci). We usually make the goals that management and engineering agree to. While of course they ALWAYS want more, they have tasted the sweetness of perfectly predictable product release dates... and they like it.
We also fire. Quickly. Not only is it a reminder to all that slackerdom is not tolerated... just one lazy apple can bring the whole thing down. So we end up working *very* solid 8 hour days. Rarely have to work overtime. It usually ends up feeling like a low grade constant crunch time, but is not so bad.
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so why does Esther Schindler get to blogspam Slashdot...???
Because she had five "points" - they mistook it for a Schindler List.
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Well maybe they should appear in my living room instead of working remote and slacking off all the time.