However, I'm more convinced than ever that these pop-culture articles and thought pieces about remote work are counterproductive for remote workers. Most of the remote work thought pieces that make it to the HN front page are very one-sided; They make remote work sound like a panacea, or a way to boost productivity and happiness with zero downsides. This creates very unrealistic expectations of remote work for job seekers, especially the more junior remote devs that I've worked with in recent years. When it comes to remote work, we want to believe that it's the golden ticket to solving all of the problems of the modern workplace.
In my experience managing remote, on-site, and mixed teams: It's much more difficult to make remote teams work well. Some key things to watch out for with remote employees:
- Communication is everyone's job. Async, text-only communication can be more efficient when done right, but it's much more difficult to foster friendly, accurate, and rapid shared understanding over Slack or e-mail than in a well-run face to face meeting. Successful remote work depends on everyone making an effort to seek out information they need, proactively share understanding via accessible documentation, and develop healthy relationships with their peers and managers.
- Remote employees are not contractors. A common misconception is that remote work equals total freedom about when, where, and how you do your job. Pick your own hours, vacation without taking PTO as long as you respond to e-mails once a day, batch your e-mails to once a day or less, and work on your own terms. This can work in certain situations if everyone agrees to it, but it's not a given. If you're a remote employee, the only guarantee is that your working location is not at the office. Having the team working together during specific core hours is hugely valuable if any collaboration is required. It's not efficient to have two people ping-ponging e-mails back and forth with one response per side per day when they could hash things out with a 5-minute chat during overlapping business hours.
- Some people can't handle remote work. It just doesn't work for everyone. My biggest surprise as a remote manager was how many people's productivity dropped off a cliff after they went remote, yet they were convinced they were being more productive than ever. Some of these employees can be trained to be productive remotely with intense hands-on management, but it's a lot of work. I give new remote employees very explicit instructions about expectations for process, check-ins, and team discipline when we start. Continually update these remote onboarding documents as you learn how your remote team works best.
- Remote job listings attract a lot of bad apples. Remote jobs are synonymous with slacking off in some circles. Watch out for digital nomads who want to collect a paycheck while they travel the world. Avoid startup founders who think they can put in a couple hours of remote work and collect a paycheck and benefits while they focus on building their startup on someone else's dime. Watch out for remote applicants who try to work two jobs at once, doing the bare minimum for whichever of the two companies is paying the least attention to their work. When hiring remote at scale, you'll run into more of these bad actor applicants and employees than you might expect.
- Meetings are still helpful in remote teams. There's another common misconception that remote work == no meetings. Some conversations are still most efficiently handled as an N-way video call for 15-30 minutes, rather than a never-ending Slack conversation where participants are half-distracted as they alt-tab between Slack and their work.