We do a full remote policy at SerpApi.com, however I found this disadvantages list a bit dishonest, they are more way numerous and important, the most obvious are missing real human contacts (and it doesn't get easier with time), and harder life and work separation.
For me, personally, working from home has amplified the good parts of working with people and human contact and removed the bad parts.
When we do meet in person (4-5 times a year) we have a blast.
When we communicate via video the communication is a lot of fun and very purposeful at the same time. Sometimes it feels like I speak to remote co-workers by video more than family and people in real life! So, lot's of human interaction there.
At the same time, there is now no interruptions when someone gets bored and wanders over for a chat.
There is no need to instantly answer questions when overly eager bosses have a brain... idea.
There is no need to watch the clock and make it look like I'm staying late just cos everyone else is.
And I can work on stuff anytime I like, like if I wake up at 5am by accident I can knock out the current sprint board and have a break during the day.
So, in my case at least, saying "the most obvious are missing real human contacts" is simply not true.
I do think that remote working is a bit difficult to pull off well and I've found the key is to really get to know people well when in person and on video chat.
I'd say "missing real human contacts" is summarized well under a combination of harder rampup/scares some potential employees; as the lack of "Real contacts" seems more of a personal/subjective or team-process-and-tooling-rooted feeling than anything I've observed to be inherent and unsolvable; it's trivial for me to get a face to face with anyone on my multi-national team. Now, to try and read this charitably, if you meant something like "increased difficulty networking" I'd actually agree, but again, if you're at a place in your career where you accept that, it's significantly less of a downside.
Mostly, that's the gist of a lot of the things people list as hard negatives to my ears, including your second point of harder life/work separation. I don't mean to be dismissive, but "that seems like a personal problem." (Edit: see my clarification in child post re: this wording, I came off more accusatory than I'd have liked, but didn't want to rewrite history) With the broad slew of coworking spaces, home offices, coffee shops, and other ways to partition one's time and mental spaces, I don't accept that that's something that can't be solved in the same proactive fashion as a professional would approach any assorted social frictions one might run into in _any_ office environment.
If you read any frustration in this, it comes from a place of, "a lot of the complaints I read are solvable problems or isomorphisms of in-office problems", and a hope that we'd be self-interested enough as a field to be more proactive in seeking solutions, given the benefits that can come from a more distributed workforce. I want to encourage and productively improve sites that try to support this, and part of that is avoiding a re-encroachment of remote work stigma/fear in many people's eyes.
Edit: yes, I'm going to break the HN rules, but christ people, at least _respond_ before blindly downvoting. This was not a glib response, and this topic (remote work) is something we should be able to discuss in good faith without accruing negative score before I even finish grammar-checking my own writing.
I do have made my company fully remote so I do believe remote work is way of the future, but we can't be disingenuous about its downsides.
When you are intending to speak to an audience, I think it matters to know your audience, which gets complicated, when the audience is constantly shifting.
Cheers!
This is incredibly dismissive. Almost all the "advantages for employees" are personal. How is "No commuting time or stress" not a personal benefit? The advantages for remote work are almost entirely being sold that they are better for people. If someone has a personal problem with an aspect of it, then it should be taken seriously.
Imagine if you told an employer that the commute to work was rough so you would like to work remote and he told you "that sounds like a personal problem, why don't you move closer to work?"
You aptly point out that "no commuting or stress" is a personal benefit; to play devils advocate with that, wouldn't having a "typical job" then be "dismissive" in not catering to someone who might be incredibly sensitive to the commute? I bring up this contrast since I think a lot of the friction with remote is that it's a change from the status quo, not necessarily that the status quo doesn't incur its own comparable (if inverted) costs.
Let me try and rephrase my point better, regardless. I don't think there's a one size fits all, period. Some people simply want/like/work better in some environments than others, and to paint these often personally-aligned preferences as generic pros/cons, we muddy the waters.
You asked the question at the end re: a boss telling me that about my commute. Honestly, yes, this has happened to me. And I switched teams, to the one I'm currently on, which is extremely remote friendly. I don't mean to whitewash remote work for any given person or say that everyone has such a lucky opportunity, I see it as two sides to the same coin, in which we shouldn't assume highly-granular personal choices to be a global downside to remote work, and we should enable as many opportunities for that choice to be present as possible.
Edit: After rereading my posts, I'll concede that "personal problem" may not have been the best way to put it, and comes off as far too accusatory. I want to delineate between problems I expect a professional adult to be able to understand their own exposure to and handle via their own autonomy, vs problems that are only in the purview of the workplace to solve/that we can't expect individuals to navigate feasibly.
At the point when the company is losing value and opportunities that you could be providing. It's a business.
To be clear: whether or not it's economical to deal with this problem also matters.
I'm not sure that listing pros/cons paints them as anything (or vice-versa), though maybe I haven't quite gotten your point (and I've read all your edits).
I've never had an opportunity to work anywhere all-remote, remote-first, or even truly remote-friendly, and I harbor an interest in the discussions, including anecdata, primarily because so many of these things are personal. I, as a reader, am pretty capable of figuring out which personal preferences don't actually match up to my own and which pros/cons may not actually apply to my situation or profession. The water isn't muddied for me by more information.
As such, I very much would prefer to hear a more complete [1] and expansive list of both advantages and disadvantages to a remote-only culture. I find it's even important to include what you describe as "isomorphisms of in-office problems" if only to point how they're easier/harder to deal with when working remote.
[1] I think a grandparent comment used the adjective "honest", but I think that's only relevant as maybe a jab at the article itself, which is clearly promoting an agenda.
My commute is a 20 minute walk through a very nice park, and my partner walks the same route in the morning. It’s one of my favourite parts of the day, and it would be a hard push to get me to give that up right now.
These are very significant societal benefits, not personal ones.
That said, remote working isn't going to work for everyone. Extroverts, especially, I think tend to struggle with it a little bit.
If the downside is "lack of separate workspace / human contact", then it is blown way out of proportion imho. It's easily solved by using a coworking space, and it's not reason enough to dismiss remote work.
I made countless friends while working remotely and a good 90% of them I met in a coworking space (and the so called "digital nomad" community is made of some really awesome people). Plus you have the option to change coworking space if you don't like the people, the coffee, the wallpapers or whatever. You can't do that with a traditional office (or it would be reaaally hard to justify).
For those occasions, I've always just relocated to either a coffee shop (or similar) or a co-working space with drop-in rates. If you're extremely rural, or those aren't options, I don't know what to tell you.
But seriously, how would it be a problem? In the afternoons, we often have a beer at our desks while working. I often work at night after having a drink at dinner or in the afternoon after lunch at the pub. Having a pint beside the laptop while answering emails or working on a side project or making content changes for a client wouldn't be especially difficult or problematic.
I've worked for myself for 20 years (http://www.isaacforman.com.au/) so there are rarely issues with time and place of work either. I'm mostly anchored to my desk because I like the room to move of four displays.
Or perhaps your partner works in a regional area, but you can take a tech job from afar rather than be limited by the local market.
That is rather hyperbolic. Many remote workers do fine working from home. Others do not. Not all people are the same. Any of us can think of things that are "more detrimental to a person's psyche" for nearly all individuals.
Really, though, you're making the (likely false) assumption that ones "junk" is the only thing touched in the restroom. You're also ignoring the potential for aeresolized bits of feces sprayed by commercial flush mechanisms.
None of this adds up to "filthy" per se, but hand washing is one of the best disease spreading preventions we know of.
Personally, if they're not going to wash I'd rather someone not go anywhere near the sink after using the restroom instead of also touching the fixtures and giving the bacteria on their hands a drink of water.
[1] I once worked in a building with a dentist who washed both before and after.
After all, your desk, keyboard, smartphone screen, and even shoes aren't likely to be places other people have touched, so not much potential for spreading anything.
Shaking hands, though.. filthy habit ;)
But yes, I'm not suggesting that not washing your hands all the time greatly increase your likelihood of getting infected with something. Just slightly. I just have slight OCD and it's still weird to me how people don't feel anywhere close to the same way I do about these things.
Don't worry though, I do wash my hands after a bathroom visit. I just don't care that much if someone else doesn't.
That's the point, though. Once you "see" it, it's way too late.
> It's been close to 20 years since
That's just anecdata, but, as you point out, you do wash your hands.
> total avoidance of all bacteria
That's not exactly possible (and essentially deadly, unless there are archea that can take the place of all our gut bacteria.. I'm not sure).
> I just don't care that much if someone else doesn't.
I'd agree it's unreasonable to care more than just slightly, since they'd be increasing the risk more for themselves than for you. However, increased risk for everyone (including you) is non-zero.
I see your point, but it simply falls to things I rather not care about. Adding a mental/habitual burden on something that is either unlikely or not that serious isn't just worth it; a life is more relaxed if it can be disregarded.
I also acknowledge that it's not something that can be simply chosen though. I do I know about certain things way more than some of my friends, even if I didn't want to.
I can only suppose you mean everyone can just rinse his hands after using the urinal because his genitals are clean. They aren't, unless your sweat is both antiseptic and insecticide. Anyway, I meant using toilets too, not just urinals.
Some people thrive working from home. Some people thrive working with a colocated team in a private office. Some people would thrive on a remote team, but working in a coworking space (I'm in this boat).
Personally, I'd go stir crazy if I worked from home on a regular basis, not just from social isolation, but from working where I live. I try to keep my life compartmentalised; my gym, my work, my home, and the bar I drink at are all different places and I like it that way.
I'm very social and love spending time with people, but work isn't my outlet for that. I find that friends in an office end up decreasing my productivity and causing me to have less free time for friends, family, and relaxation.
There's also a good chunk of people actively seeking that because of their personal characteristics (psyche?).
Perhaps it would be better to remove "remote" from the title completely. You may have several locations where people can come together, don't call them headquarters and those not there remote, but instead everyone is team member who sits in various sites. Some of those sites have 1 person, others have 4 or 5 or 10. And those with more than an individual
Having clusters of remote workers, perhaps there is a sweet spot.
I just changed job from an open office to remote work, and while everybody thought my new job sounded like a great opportunity, no one was jealous of the remote part - "So, now you have rent a shared office, huh?" (and yes, that is what I did)
The biggest downsides are: loneliness, feeling like a shut in, and working all the time because you're only two steps from your "office". These are NP-hard problems to solve, especially for an introverted 4-eyes like me.
Human contact for me is more about friends and out of work activity. Colleagues are colleagues, if you want "real human" interaction, you'd need to get out of the office anyway.
They don't pay us to socialise, and I can count the number of times on my middle finger of how many people who at the offices I've worked at I'd want to spend my free time with.
Strangely, now that I'm working remotely, I actually do socialise with my colleagues when we meet every 3 months, and enjoy it.
Apart from that, I'm around people who I enjoy being with instead of staring the clock or the rear of a car. And I have more social energy to do so.
If you were to write that list, what would it look like?
Despite technological advances, I still believe that face-to-face communication is the most efficient way to transfer information and come to conclusions on difficult decisions. It's also the least susceptible to misinterpretation.
Why do people think this. For one thing, and I think it is most important, face to face communication does not give either parties time to think. It ends up with awkward, unproductive pauses.
Face to face communication is great for small talk, chit chat and rumors. Not for communication backed by actual thought...
wat.
When you want productive communication, you want thought backing content and framing of every one of your sentences...
Live video chat is a good alternative, but I think more natural human empthay comes out in face to face experiences. People seem to understand the other side’s perspective more fully and confusions that can show up in email from things like poor word choice can be resolved quickly before they fester. Live video chat gets you much of this but isn’t quite as effective in my experience.
To me this observation just means that on remote teams you need to be observant of such issues and spend a little more time to resolve them, which can be a fine trade off for remote teams. (Or ideally avoid overly contentious debates in the first place)
If the metric is "time to decision" then face to face will do very well.
I have observed the same. But 9 out of 10 times, it was because the losing party couldn't spend much time thinking about counter arguments.
So again, it cures the symptom, but it benefits only the person with the loudest voice in the room, and not the one with sound reason.
>People seem to understand the other side’s perspective more fully and confusions that can show up in email from things like poor word choice can be resolved...
Don't buy this either. As I said before, the "seem to understand" bit might come from the fact that people often does not express disagreement in face to face communication that often, because they didn't have time to think it through.
EDIT: This is assuming that the both parties in the discussion are more or less on the same level of competence. If the communication is going to be mostly one sided, then face to face communication (Like a teacher in a class room) is fine.
..or even just the facts. I have, on (fortunately rare) occasions, refused to heed a manager's encouragement to speak with someone directly, because my disagreement isn't even about reasoning, but about facts.
It can be remarkably frustrating to have to repeat the same thing to someone who believes in something that is demonstrably false. At least over e-mail one can copy-and-paste.
It's as if (some) people can't tell the difference between matters of fact and matters of opinion (or judgment).
It may be true that face-to-face is best at resolving contentious disagreements on matters of opinion. However, I'd think it could only be true if those disagreements are based on everyone reaching their opinions from the same facts, and even determining if that's the case could easily be short-circuited by a premature opinion (e.g. loudest voice in the room).
Time zones, were a huge issue and pain point when trying to get a large number of people on the same page. I found my self often having to give the same meeting twice, which put more pressure on me. Even worse was when i would have to go over points only for someone who wasn't available for the first meeting, to raise issues that we didn't notice, and so on.
After 6 months the team basically felt like it dissolved into the European team, and the North American Team. With me trying to ferry information from one team to another.
So many times regardless of how amazing the latest tools we tried were, it still pales in comparison to a whiteboard. The company bought me a high end digital whiteboard, that allowed me to pass control to other people, it was a buggy POS. On top of that since i was the only one unfortunately with the white board, it meant i was the one who was always doing the drawing and trying to extrapolate a diagram from what someone says.
Sometimes some team members would spend hours drawing up a digital mock up of what they were going to push for only for it to become completely useless within a very short time.
I also found some people no matter how hard i tried, some people seemed to interpret working remote meant, they got to work in their own silo, and would ignore 99% of everything going on around them. This lead to numerous conflicts, and other issues.
Also one other thing i found, was that 1 on 1's became super impersonal, and frankly felt extremely uncomfortable.
You can establish policies that ensure life and work separation (as in: "No calls outside of designated work hours") but you can't easily allay an instinctive as well as indistinct fear that everything will go the dogs if people don't work in the same office anymore.