Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

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I think they were also trying to say in an indirect way that they would have to try to sell the idea of continuing the remote work to the executives.

And then the assumption is that a lot of them are not going to go for it.

Part of the equation for the executives should be that there is a strong chance that some developers resign if they are forced to resume commuting.

Actually, I suggest that all those who like working at home and are in a position to go without work for a period if necessary, do please tell your bosses that you will resign if you are required to become onsite again.

Personally, I believe that this is an ethical issue. The real history of work goes back to actual slavery. The strong push to keep workers onsite for close monitoring is a reminder that the concept of employment is a restriction of freedom and compulsory labor.

Another very significant aspect of this is sustainability. Reducing unnecessary commutes is one of the biggest ways to reduce fossil fuel and overall energy usage.

I've run distributed projects for a long time. Distributed is significantly more efficient for most situations. The main benefits can be gained in an on site environment as well, but is culturally difficult to implement since on site organisations are already encumbered by ancient hierarchies, egos, communication and decision patterns, etc.

In my experience it's easy to convince top management or company owners/investors, but difficult to get middle management on board. Especially since the requirement for middle management in a distributed project is near zero.

When moving to wfh:

- move to asynchronous, shared, transparent communication. Don't use email.

- trust your people to know what to do, give them more autonomy and responsibility.

- stay in touch, but make sure it's on dev-schedule not management-schedule.

- help your people to eliminate all annoying friction wherever possible. Good audio, soundproofing, temporary walls for their house, good desk, chair, etc. Grocery delivery, child care, errands, and so on. This stuff is cheap compared to lack of time and focus for your devs.

You mentioned middle management do not normally add value to remote development. How would you fix this? Besides removing the layer :-) is there any model where they could add value?

Traditionally middle managers are added to facilitate coordination. Today we can expect more of our people, and we have great tools. When moving towards higher autonomy and transparent shared communication most of the coordination and communication traditionally done by middle management is no longer required, and will instead run p2p between the devs while being shared and documented on the asynchronous shared communications platform (not email!).

Many middle managers have been moved into that layer from technical roles. They are often happy to return to more technical work.

In my projects I don't use a middle layer. I have the technical people who have the core scientific/development/production skills and I have a final decision layer of those who by reality have the final say over how money is spent and which goals to prioritise.

This has worked very well up to about 50ppl with exceptionally low overhead. That said, would not try this with people I can't trust. But I would never hire people I can't trust.

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