Remote working – Bringing sanity to mind and lessons worth learning
blog.quuu.co
blog.quuu.co
When I was younger I was full-time remote for more than five years, and at the time I enjoyed it. There was some difficulty separating work from life when it all happened in one apartment, but overall it was a good fit.
Then I had kids, and that distinction became much harder. Little children have a really hard time understanding that mom or dad is right there in the other room but can’t play now. At that point moving to an office job became a really nice change.
As a hiring manager, what I’ve found is that there aren’t so many people who truly want to work from home all the time. Rather, what most people want is flexibility and compromise. For example:
- “I want to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can easily pick my kids up from pre-school over my lunch break.”
- “I want to live in (insert almost any city here) where I grew up and have roots, but there aren’t many good jobs.” Or the similar variation, “I want to live in (place that is very cheap or pretty or both)...”
- “My wife and I want to be able to visit both sides of our family that live far away, and the logistics would be a lot easier if I could work remotely for a week here and there to make that work, rather than need 3 extra weeks of vacation.”
The best thing about remote is that all that flexibility and freedom is just built into the job, and in my experience it’s easier to find a full-remote job than an office job with comparable flexibility. The downside is you don’t get the fun and energizing environment of working with neat, smart people in person, nor the work/life separation that many people find very helpful.
I think most people’s stated preference just reflects which one of those is more important to them in their present circumstances.
So what did I do? I went “against” the company policy and had each of my team members work at least 1 day a week from home, now they’re up to 2-3 days depending on the week (humorous part is during the summer they’re in the office more cause it’s more quiet than home cause their kids are out for the summer lol)
So we’re still a “work from office” company but I run our team how I want and surprise - zero attrition in 3 years on my team, we meet most of our commitments, developer happiness/engagement is up on my team, our time to first response for production issues is great and all because of a mutual understanding that regardless of the “rules” I’ll take care of my guys/gals.
We had a tough situation my workplace to get this going. Once a framework is available and all the legals are checked, it went smoothly.
What I can't speak to is what sort of legal presence the company set up in the remote employee state of residence. (An office may not be needed but some sort of legal paperwork may be.)
Off the top of my head.
* Ensure that your workplace is a physically safe place. ie enough lighting, correct furnishing etc.
* The data you are working with is protected adequately. ie A separate room with lockable door and window.
* The infrastructure is adequate. ie internet, electricity, water and toileting.
* Insurable if something goes wrong.
* How your work time is measured. This is particular important if your industry is covered by union rules.
https://www.osha.gov/enforcement/directives/cpl-02-00-125
"OSHA will not conduct inspections of employees' home offices.
OSHA will not hold employers liable for employees' home offices, and does not expect employers to inspect the home offices of their employees.
If OSHA receives a complaint about a home office, the complainant will be advised of OSHA's policy. If an employee makes a specific request, OSHA may informally let employers know of complaints about home office conditions, but will not follow-up with the employer or employee."
Now on to your question - We haven’t had any issues here with the HR policies and OH&S so far.
Each of the team members is in the same state as the office so no additional burden there for taxes.
The East Bay commuters in my office make as much as I do and could live in SF if they wanted. They made a choice to be homeowners, have more space, get access to better schools, etc. but it is still a choice.
It's great for them, but it kills morale in the rest of the company as people in my wife's department kill themselves to come in day after day (despite good/bad weather, missing personal commitments, etc), while they notice empty desks in the dept. down the hall. Makes for some miserable workers.
The last company I worked for was basically “remote only if there was no other way” but the office policy was “if you need to be out for family events, doctors appointments, kids things at school, etc it’s totally fine”
And it was great.
OTOH, I also worked for an investment bank and there it was made clear, in my first day, that different people work different schedules so don’t assume productivity is sitting in your chair 9-5. I think it all comes from communication and clear expectations.
When I took the role (I’m on the product side, my counterpart is the Engineering lead but we run it together) I made it clear that I’m only taking this role if they let me run the teams the way I want to run them, within reason.
My view on what you’ve described is that my directives are to improve sales, stability and the trajectory of the company.
It is not my job to worry about what other teams or tracks or departments think of how I run my teams. For the first few months, it was very rough because I did get a lot of that passive aggressive bullshit from people.
I told them the exact conversations I had with the respective leadership individual and encouraged them to go have a conversation if they were willing to put themselves in the same situation as me.
None of them did and over time I grew thicker skin, plus stopped caring about what they thought as it was working fine.
There’s about five more teams in the product/analytics/engineering realm that operate the same way I do now and it has been a culture change.
I’d imagine in the next 9-12 months we’ll revisit the policy company wide.
But I’ll say this, I’m not sure it was the right call from the overall morale of the company but it turned our team from the butt of jokes into the leading example so it was the right call for our team.
Has that been your experience? I love working remote but even at a remote-focused company, I feel there are things I miss out on since I'm not onsite in one of the offices.
When I worked remote it was at all-remote jobs. My office jobs have typically had a pretty "standard" policy around how much remote / work from home people can do, and that makes it viable. You definitely do miss out on some things on the days you work from home, though, so it's one of those things you kind of have to decide how much you can afford to take.
Shoot me an email (address is in my profile) if you'd like to chat more.
Our HQ is outside DC and most new hires (at least one my product) are local. But, we have great flexibility - we can work from home on demand from day 1. And we regularly let employees go permanently remote when their personal situations change.
Prospective employees are always glad to hear that's one of the perks working here. Especially those that come from government contracts, where being on-site with a client is generally preferred, if not required.
Is there a policy that defines it? Is there a limit?
Would love to hear your experience as I'm doing some research into this right now.
Younger employees (college hire to 3 years or so) tend to be hired locally, with increasing levels of work-from-home allowed as time goes on, but we're flexible from day 1 in terms of "work from home to let in the plumber" type stuff. Generally, after a few months, we'll allow regularly scheduled work-from-home for "I need T/Th to do day care runs" stuff. And several a year go full-time remote, usually to flee DC real estate prices and traffic.
Mid-career employees, we'll hire remote from day 1.
With 1/3 of my product's staff in Bangalore, we have to be good at remote work anyway, so there's little, if any, cost to allowing US-based employees to work wherever they want.
I think you might be surprised how many people truly want to give up 40 of their best hours a week at all. Reality is that most people need to work for an income, which, as you’ve laid out for remote work, allows them to do things that they want to do with their lives. I know many people who would quit working today if their rent was paid, food guaranteed to be on the table, and they could travel a little or pursue some other hobbies.
But I know there are also a lot of people who love their work and would want “work to do” whether they needed money or not.
Probably the biggest gap is that most people (have to) choose work based on pay, rather than choosing based on what they enjoy spending their time on.
My manager let me work from home as needed during that time. Just having the power to make the decision gave me satisfaction. I used it when I needed it but went in otherwise.
Yup that's all I want.
I want to be in the office for many things, and I wouldn't want to do them remotely. Important meetings, and discussions, just getting to know people, I want to be there.
et other times home to get some life tasks done easier (kids), or just hunker down and pound out some work for a while.
My love for remote work isn't "remote only" but a lot of news stories about "remote" really mix the ideas and "remote often" and "remote only" are very very different ideas for me.
I really don't want a job that's partially remote. I enjoy working 100% remote. Work/life balance really depends on discipline. I turn everything off at around 5pm, unless there is an emergency.
Managers also need to know how to manage remote employees. I've run into issues where a manager doesn't know how to effectively communicate over email/skype, etc, and it results in miscommunications.
In the end, an office worked better for me, but I agree the commute sucks. Since I didn’t have one at all for years, I’m very conscious of all the lost time in transit each week, even though my commute is pretty short by local standards (~25’).
I was remote for a couple of years from home, traveled around Asia for a year (while still remote), and got an office when I got back (7 years ago).
"Since I didn’t have one at all for years, I’m very conscious of all the lost time in transit each week, even though my commute is pretty short by local standards (~25’)."
It's more than just that. While I did enjoy having coworkers to socialize with, I realized it wasted lots of time during the day. I can get things done with virtually no interruptions and it's great. I regularly meet people through meetup groups in my area, so I still get to socialize. Just not at work (aside from Webex meetings/phone calls).
As far as flexibility goes, I prefer remote work. I'm OK with office work is the commute is short. But I hate 100% flexibility. I do appreciate the ability to make exceptions to the norm as needed, but if everyone is 100% flexible, I find that is just makes you unsure where people are going to be each day, and doesn't really focus the working habits into one mold or the other. Either way can work, but the least productive teams I've ever been on have been mixed between remote and office.
I get to have breakfast and lunch with my family every day, which also means I can help out with the kids.
I get more sleep, since I don't need to spend half an hour in the car (and when I do go into the office, I have to get up earlier, because traffic).
I think the key to having this work well, especially when you have kids, is to have a separate room setup as a home office, so you can close the door and be in work mode. I know it might be a luxury that not everyone can afford, but personally I wouldn't work remotely without it.
I usually have the mindset to be in everyday of the week 9-5 and that’s how I start my week.
But realistically, as the week progress, life gets in the way, I stay late one day in the office, wake up a bit late, etc. So by end of week I am always getting in around 10:30 or just working from home. Also, as honest as I can be, I deliver much more and don’t see my job as a burden/stressor if they grant me this autonomy. It is funny but my wife much rather have me 9-5 because I work less hours this way.
The solution is to rent an office for yourself, or you can work from co-working hubs if you're more on the extrovert side. Even without kids having a separate work space helps a lot in keeping the work/life balance in check.
That previous job was contract work for an enterprise — not super inspiring, lots of structural annoyances in the team that created barriers to getting things done, and team a setup that didn’t quite put remote workers on the same level as the inhouse team members. Even with all the annoyances I found when working from home I had a lot of trouble “stopping” — it felt like I was always at work.
Switching to the coffee shops was definitely better, but with my role on new team (startup and fully remote team — it’s aweskme!) I decided to try out a coworking space. Got a reserved desk at a WeWork walking distance from home and really like the experience so far! Short walk to work, sort of a community feeling at the office (well haven’t made any friends Yet but it at least seems possible to), master of my own space, and whenever I want I can choose to work from a coffee shop or wherever seems convenient ...
Best of all worlds so far!
I used to have a “hot desk” at The Port Workspaces in Oakland for $125/mo. It’s right near the 19th St BART stop, we had folks commuting from SF with no complaints. I know their rates have gone up but are still probably much cheaper than WeWork.
Now I’m in Charlotte NC and WeWork is expensive here too! I’m about to start a membership at Hygge Coworking for $125/mo; quiet space, great people.
I'm curious because I never had this problem...
Did you have a dedicated computer & desk for work? Did you have a work room?
I started without a work room, but I got a work laptop & desk with none of my personal stuff on it; and none of my work stuff was on my personal devices. I put these in the kitchen where I don't normally hang out much. Once I'm done working, I go to another room where most of my personal life is. I never had this feeling that I'm "always at work", and work/life balance got strictly better than it ever was with any commute.
Seems to work pretty well - so it's certainly possible.
Otherwise you'll eventually get silos depending on people's locations. That can work too if they're all kinda grouped in terms of work function but it's not as ideal as "treat everyone remote" for sharing information and productivity.
(+1 to me for getting "their", "they're", "there" right on the first try!)
When the whole organization buys in to the remoting experience, it can work. Where I'm at, the default assumption is remote; be it home or another office since we're so distributed. So our way of working takes that into consideration.
The managers need to enforce that all meetings have to include remote workers. And I mean ALL meetings should include them, or at least give them the option of joining in. Managers need to avoid falling in the trap of "I didn't talk to them today so they didn't do anything", even subconsciously. Managers need to make sure that no decisions are made informally in an office without giving a chance to remote workers on the teams from having input or knowing they happened. Managers need to make sure that in-office people know how to use and work with the remote work tools, and remote workers need to be held to the same standards (no one-on-one calls and decisions without including all the in-office people, not just the one they are talking to at the moment).
It's not impossible by any means, I even work in a situation like that myself right now where about half the team is remote, and half is in the office. But having worked in fully remote teams and fully in-office teams before, I will say that it's much easier when it's not mixed.
One really kind of "unique" setup I have at a current job is an always-on zoom "meeting room" where team members will stay in all day sometimes (often any time we aren't working on something individually or deep in a problem). It really bridges the remote/office gap really well, because just like in an office any of us can just unmute and ask a quick question about something, kind of like leaning back to ask someone a question at another desk in an office.
Resentment can go both ways
That being said I really like remote work. But you have to be proactive in your role to be successful. I've found the main danger to be manager changes.
The previous manager accepted and worked with remote personnel. The new one does not like it so they create a situation. Then solve it by canceling the remote program. I'm pretty sure this is where most of the negativity comes from.
If the organization understands that you're a full participant and they don't blink when you say you're remote, that's great and will lead to success.
If, however, you're perceived to be tele-shirking or "wink wink remote working" because of the company culture it will be a big issue. I would say this could be resolved by some focused in-person time to talk about norms and how to collaborate and share success, but it takes a good manager to do this. If the manager wants butts in seats and remote is not a company-wide norm, then that may be what you're left with, unfortunately.
I like the company and I like working remotely, but it may be time for a change soon because of this.
Most, especially in the German speaking part of Europe, are still run like factories, barely have flexible working hours and don't even want to hear about remote work as managers prefer having a close eye on employees at all time.
I get 3-4 opportunities for freelance work per week in the Paris region. I couldn't find any proposing full remote work (not just one day per week) after searching for 2 months
The funny thing is that now I work remotely for a German company from France
I've worked for their sister company (Theodo) which makes web apps. They work with employees but sometimes when they get too much demand they can bring freelance on board
Really good working environment there
Having worked most of my career remote and now working in Menlo Park... I prefer working in an office by default but with no rule about it... which is my current work situation. I have a desk, and co-workers, but sometimes work remotely, in other offices, weird hours, etc.
Ymmv, but I think if you're in the right role, big company employers can make exceptions.
I wonder if that's a reason German employers hesitate to allow workers the freedom to work unsupervised. As a remote worker myself, I know there's a greater temptation to slack off at times; knowing that I'm accountable for remaining productive is an important motivator for me.
In most software shops there are no unions and your performance is easily monitored (Scrum anyone?) and, contrary to popular belief around here, you can easily be fired without a problem should you or your performance, objectively or subjectively not meet the management's expectation anymore.
IOW, "we're totally flexible on when you work that other 30 minutes per day..."
One day I missed a stand-up because my wife was pregnant at the time and I wanted see our first baby MRI. The CTO sent me a nasty slack message in the company phone (which they claimed as a benefit “we give you state of art iphones!!”)
Also, there was catered lunch, which I sort of dislike and went out for lunch by myself sometimes. It was also frown upon, they want me to be in the office for the working hours.
I didn’t last long. In my subsequent job I made sure to pick just for the flexible hours since compensation in Europe, well st least where I am, doesn’t vary enourmously across companies.
Meetings should be treated like everyone is remote. If people attend from their desk, these tend to work out better & you avoid unintentional things that make it difficult for remote employees to attend.
Having the majority of conversations done via e-mail or a chat tool & properly documented in something like OneNote or Evernote or a project management tool goes a long way in keeping everyone on the same page as well. This is good for non-remote teams as well.
Allowing flexibility in time & location goes a long way in making happy employees in my experience. It shows you trust them to get the work done. Sure, some people will abuse it but those aren't people you want on your team anyways.
As stated by others, being a remote worker doesn't mean you need to be a hermit either. There are tons of ways to still go out & socialize with people. Even on remote teams, I still find a good chunk of my day is socializing via video chat meetings where someone is bound to go off topic. People also login early & chat about life.
Poor teleconference tool.
Low quality headphones/microphones.
Low quality or no web cams.
Process:
Failure to auto-mute attendees when they join meeting
Failure to actively manage mute during the meeting (some nitwit always starts eating potato chips).
Failure to ensure mics are well placed in conference rooms.
And I've found remotes to be better at intuitively following those rules than local employees. Because locals are face-to-face, there's no audio/video quirks, and misc noise (chewing, paper rustling) tends to be way less distracting.
EDIT - remotes also have a serviceable webcam on their laptop. Meeting rooms need good wide-angle cameras installed so the entire room of people can be broadcast. Employer issues decent Jabra headsets to all employees, so audio is covered - so again, it's a matter of installed good A/V in the conference rooms (particularly number and placement of mics).
Our current teleconferencing solution is "Zoom" and so far, it's been far better than previous software (primarily WebEx and odd combinations of 800 numbers). It allows default meeting settings (by corporate account and by user) and "mute incoming attendees" is checked on mine.
Another common (but not universal) rule is "cameras are ON". We want to see each other's faces while chatting remotely.
EDIT2 - good AV equipment isn't cheap. I asked about adding a Polycom system to one of our small "huddle" rooms and it was many thousands of dollars - not deal-breaking for a mid-size enterprise operation, but also not something any of us could fund on the spot. IT is slowly adding them to the smaller rooms as funds become available (all rooms that seat >4 were done when we moved into the space).
Poor microphones set up around the conference room that make it hard to hear everyone.
No webcam at all or a bad webcam setup that doesn't allow the remote attendees to see the gestures people make.
Multiple people talking at the same time, but having very quiet conversations.
Using a whiteboard, a projector or showing a screen by turning your computer around but not making it visible to remote attendees.
* Basically doing things that the remote people can't participate in.
I will say this advice seems highly tuned to a different generation than mine. I really don’t want my company talking to me about “self care” or playing weird slack games (slack itself is great for remote though).
As far as depression and anxiety goes I get that from my current job sitting in a cube with constant noise and interruption. I feel it’s starting to really impact my mental health negatively.
In the end i don’t think remote work is for everybody. Some people will thrive with it and some people will thrive in an office. It’s good to know which you are.
It's not that different from sitting in a cube, at least for software development. It's just threshold when something becomes a problem to reach out for help is higher for remote work, since it takes a bit more effort to communicate. You do a bit more so you have something to show and to discuss, not try to reach out for every little thing.
I always felt that good remote workers are very mature, communicate well and are respectful of others . I guess that applies to office work too but remote amplifies this.
I would also struggle with an office environment, so I feel for you! I hope you manage to find a solution to it. I think a lot of offices would do well to adopt some of the principles behind remote work. If employees are sacrificing something to come into an office each day, they should have more say in what that workspace is like when they're there. For example, being able to work in a quieter part of the building if noisy environments are draining for you.
I recognize that I'm in the minority here, but I actually need to get up, have a shower, leave my flat and go into an office with people for my mental health.
I have zero issue with other people working remotely, in fact I envy them.
Definitely something I wish I had figured out years earlier.
I wonder if something analogous would happen with remote work. If more companies go the remote route, wouldn't we expect them to favor employees in cheap locations that will accept less pay for the same work? And if that's the case, wouldn't more and more families be forced out of more expensive locations, even those who could afford to live there before? In other words, remote work has the possibility to exacerbate the very problems that it seeks to fix.
One of the first steps given here for remote work is to "set-up or find a space that lets you stay productive", which will enable you to "Stay focused on tasks and be able to fully disconnect whenever required". Sound familiar?
That's what private office advocates have been saying for years. The only difference is that companies refuse to allow this within the walls of the company. I'm surprised the companies aren't also pushing to have these people reclassified as independent contractors and not employees.
- open seating and/or highly sound-reflective surfaces
- unfixable A/C and/or drafts and/or allergens
- all methods of transportation to the place where the office is are unsupported (e.g. Cambridge, MA)
- jerks cruising the office
- unwanted attention not or only pretentiously connected to work
Each floor also has an area where you can relax with a cup of tea or coffee and read the newspaper.
Desks are all motorised so you can adjust the height and use them standing if you like, the desks are not personal although those who work most of the time in the office do use the same desk all the time.
The environment is quiet, the temperature is pleasant, there are automatic blinds on the windows shut out the sun when it is too strong.
For me it works really well. If I have a meeting then I go in early, find a desk and work, go to the meeting, back to the desk and do some work, then finish the day just as though it was an ordinary office day.
But I agree, there are plenty of places (I've worked in some) where all of your negative office conditions apply.
Anyway, Norway is a very transparent society with a well integrated government web site so you should be able to find the details here: https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work-immigration/
I don't think it's fair that you idle while someone is paying for your time.
Someone, at the end, organized this so you can work remotely. Someone is taking care of you financially, at the end. The least you can do is do what you have agreed/promised/been contracted to do.
The energy usage and CO2 output for commuting versus using the internet is dramatically in favor of remote work.
In fact, if we are concerned with those things, I believe that commuting every day for jobs that can be done online should be illegal.
Oh, that's hilarious. I certainly don't.
I wanna try remote working, wonder how it'll goes through.
Some of that is that the commute is shorter, so I can start work earlier and stop it later without while keeping the same amount of time at home.
Some of that is that my lunch breaks are typically much shorter. I don't have to take time to go to a restaurant if I fail to pack a lunch in the morning, and I'm much less likely to spend a while after lunch just chit-chatting with my colleagues.
A big part of it is that I just don't mind working longer hours when I'm remote, because the experience of working is more pleasurable - fewer distractions, I can listen to music without headphones, the lighting is much more pleasant (I made sure to give myself a window office at home), the people furnishing my home office were kind enough to buy me a chair that doesn't make my back ache, etc. etc. At an office, when the end of the day rolls around, I can't wait to get out of there. Working remotely, I'd rather finish up whatever I was in the middle of before shoving off for the day.
Also, get a locking door for your home office. Kids will learn that locked door == parent is working.
It's been a day or two since I've had a closing door at a co-located office, so I'm not used to being able to implement such a policy in that kind of work environment.
(I'd also add that there's no quicker way to recharge your batteries than to pop out of the office to spend 10 minutes building a block tower or whatever with your kids. 14/10 much more effective than bitching about work with your colleagues in the office kitchenette.)
As for the personal effects of remote work, I find them almost entirely awesome, but I have a wife and son that I can interact with, but who are also out of the house during the day. You get to schedule your day more in your liking. I'm more productive first thing in the morning, and then once again in late evening. In the afternoon, I prefer to get up and move around more, as I get sleepy. Plus, you can generally live a heathier life, as you can go for walks, exercise, do chores, etc. when you are having lulls in productivity.
I'm back to a local company now, and switching from local to remote to local has definitely highlighted a lot of the differences. It's sooo much easier to maintain perception when you are local; if your manager or others have concerns you can see it and chat with them about things quickly and easily. My local boss knows why things might be taking longer, because I'm talking to him, intermittently every day.
It's also easier to come up to speed when working locally, a 15 minute face-to-face talk is easily worth an hour of remote slack/video chatting. Not to mention that text chats (even with slack) tends to suffer a lot more from misreads and misunderstandings of intentions. If you and I meet in the morning and I see you are cranky because you were dealing with your upset toddler all morning, I'm probably going to commiserate with you a bit before asking you tech questions, or I might skip them for now. Over Slack, I don't know that, and so I'm likely going to accidentally bug you and you, against your best desires, are going to respond more curtly, which will rub me the wrong way, then suddenly everything is more negative.
Definitely, the best way to do remote is to either know your boss ahead of time, or do local work for a while (months) and then transition to remote. Then the trust is built up, the tech transfer has largely happened, and generally everyone gets to know each other better first.
But when it works, I find it awesome.
I would consider the largest risk with remote work to be "out of sight, out of mind" for consideration of promotions or even job referrals by colleagues.
I very much have the personality for remote work and largely like to figure out things on my own but the drawbacks feel significant enough to keep me in the office for now...
1 your reducing your effective hourly rate - and presumably your salary is less for remote. 2 It Development is a salaried role so you in theory have no fixed hours.
My schedule is:-
6.50am wake up
7.00am start work
12.00pm lunch
1.00pm start work
5.00pm dinner
6.00pm start work
9.45pm get ready for bed
10.00pm sleep
I don't have any distractions (except the occasional quick read of HN, when I need a short mental break), don't own a tv, no kids, wear the same clothes, I eat the same meals daily and I wear headphones and listen to music.
I'll do this for 90 days and then relax on the schedule somewhat and then repeat for another 90 days.
Let me tell you. It's actually quite interesting on what you can accomplish with 13 hours of work (91 hours a week) available to you.
Elon has it right. In a compound interest sort of way, what you can achieve in 90 days (with this schedule) is akin to someone else taking 6 months or more to do the same.
Of course it means no social life. But that's for later on.
Life is happening right now, not later on. Vision acuity, muscle tenacity, disposition, hell, even liver performance – these won't wait for you :-)
What are you working for, actually?
Those extra hours to make more progress on whatever personal project(s) I'm working on at that time keep me motivated and, more importantly, happy. Which means I'll enjoy doing my actual work more (or just tolerate it better) and you'll probably get better results from me.
Also, do people actually think "infinite vacation" is a perk? I like having a fixed number of vacation days that I can take without question or explanation.
It really depends on your manager and what the fixed number is going to be.
At my last job, I had "infinite" and my boss let me take six weeks over the course of a year.
At my current job, my boss would love to let me take 6 weeks (or more), but the giant behemoth of a company sets the limit at 3 weeks (but I get another week if I stay in my job for 10 years).
1. make lunch plans with friends and peers.
2. go to networking meetups
3. personal development unrelated to work. take a class. start a garden, build something at home. Go to the park. Take extra walks. go to the grocery store. Do things that are really annoying to do outside of normal work hours.
I don't think I'm a cliche software dev. I don't like sitting in my cave all day. I don't play video games. I don't watch much TV. It's really important for me to get human interaction beyond the workplace.
I find that as a possible introverted extrovert, working in an office sapped my social energies and I wasn't able to socialize outside of work. As a remote worker, all of my socialization is on my terms. I get to devote my energy into people that I desire to be around, while before my energy was getting drained by small track from folks, while nice people, were not people I wanted to spend my limited energy on.
Once you realize this, articles regarding "X environment has Y good and Z bad" stop providing any value. What I want to read about is how to effectively manage a company to allow my employees to 1) discover the environment they prefer 2) be in that environment and 3) maintain a high performing team across those environments. Given considerations around maintaining culture, communication challenges and "informal, de-facto decision makers" forming up where people to choose to work closely together, #3 is a challenge I haven't seen a good answer to. (e.g. office or co-working employees naturally have a networking advantage and can quickly form an "in group" that makes decisions while, at best, unconsciously leaving remote workers out)
Also there are many things at my startup where we really all need to be in the same place to make a decision- I don't think slack or other chat apps can really replace the high bandwidth in person discussions for important decision making.
> Intentionally carve a space and routine and set up a separate remote working space
Yes. It's very important to have a separate "office" space. Then get dressed in the morning, get ready as if you're heading out of the door to an actual office. In the evening at 5pm close the laptop, walk out of the office and closer the door behind you. And you're done for the day.
I would prefer a 20 min commute on a clean train, to a nice office than remote working (and I did have that on an Amsterdam based contract).
But an hour plus drive to an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere - I'd maybe push for a remote option.
When I commuted, the commute was the best part of the day because I got to relax and sit alone in my car. Stepping out of the car at the company parking lot was always nauseating.
That said I'm still glad I needn't commute anymore. Life is short, I will die. I feel like I can do better with my life than spend it sitting in a car.
I'm 100% remote but have never experienced some of the downsides mentioned in the article, but I know others who have. I'd like to see companies transition from their rigid policies to more flexibility that gives their employees greater control over their schedule.
The reality is bad management is the rule rather than the exception in most of the world. If you are home you are "out of sight out of mind" for MBWA(management by walking around)managers. At the very least it requires a manager to stop think before just running over and screaming we need this done today type stuff.
I could hardly ever get ahold of anyone. They would just not be there. Come to find out most would only work the 4 core hours (10-2 CST) we were required, then "work" after hours when no one was online. We lost the contract.
Remote CAN work and work well, you just need management in place to keep the ducks in line.
It would be a much more sound poll if it was framed as "Among these options, which one is the most important when looking for a new job"
Maybe work from home will be how we reduce the workweek to account for the diminishing need for work.
For example, at the office, if I feel unmotivated (or stressed out/distracted by the noise/chatter/other people), my only real options for a context switch are to take a walk, or get a snack or coffee, none of which really gets me going again... But at home I can easily go downstairs and accomplish something like washing the dishes or a load of laundry, which gets my mind back in the right space of accomplishing tasks. And if I'm doing that and something comes up, I'm 10 seconds away from my desk and I can be back working much faster than if I were 10 minutes away at the coffee shop.
Additionally, it's results not methods that should be managed. You want to set goals for your workers and see how they progress. Whether they achieve those goals sitting at an office or by outsouring their work to their little nephew while playing video games, it shouldn't really matter. Ultimately what matters is if the goals are achieved, as that's why you're paying the person -- not because you want them to physically be doing some specific activity.
Also, people can work less and just exist more, albeit physically closer to you.
In the end, you'll only be able to measure the amount of work they've done similarly in both cases: remote or regular. It'll be a combination of seeing the progress, understanding the tasks and gauging whether they've been done in reasonable time, etc.
You can do all of this in the case of a remote worker.
Speaking for myself, I am vastly more productive in a remote, quiet place (home). Easily 5x more productive, or perhaps even more.
I cannot understand people working mentally demanding jobs and being interrupted all the time.