Just recently, we hired a new systems administrator named Mark. He lives in Virginia. That’s six hours off the GMT. One less than the current five guys in Chicago. Two less than Jamis in Idaho. So what?
He was the best of the candidates available, we’d be crazy not to pick him up, no? Well, apparently there are still plenty of “crazy” companies and hiring managers out there. People unwilling to pick the better candidate because of geography.
Jonathan gives us just one example in his an Open Letter to Job Board Advertisers. So I thought this would be a good occasion to get the excuses out there: Why are you not hiring remote workers?
Justin Chen
on 15 Dec 06Not only are some companies not hiring remote workers, they’re letting them go. I was in HP IT as recently as January this year and happily working remotely in Chicago before the new CIO decided that he wanted all IT workers consolidated in one of the few designated “core” areas. My job looked to be headed for Houston, so I decided to leave and start a business in February. The amount of attrition that happened because of the new policy still amazes me. For our startup we’re working pretty well in a remote situation – I’m in Chicago and my partner is in Seattle.
Ethan Poole
on 15 Dec 06I have always wondered this myself. Companies have to realise that the best employee may not be within a driving radius. With today’s technology there is no reason not to be more open to working over the Internet.
However, that is what separates smart companies from bulky companies.
Lee
on 15 Dec 06I never noticed Mark lives so close to me. Living in Virginia Beach, there aren’t many web geeks in the area.
Jared
on 15 Dec 06We don’t have the luxury of hiring remote workers because of the nature of our project; we need to be able to congregate on the whiteboard and kick ideas around at the drop of a hat.
Alan O'Rourke
on 15 Dec 06There are communication disadvantages with a remote team. Wrote a bit on our experiences lately. http://www.spoiltchild.com/pinstripe/article/fag-break-solutions Its not a deal breaker though.
JF
on 15 Dec 06We don’t have the luxury of hiring remote workers because of the nature of our project; we need to be able to congregate on the whiteboard and kick ideas around at the drop of a hat.
What is the nature of the project?
CR
on 15 Dec 06We are a small company that has been hiring remote workers for a number of years. We don’t enjoy the same notoriety as 37Signals (hopefully one day that will change), so admittedly our ability to hire the “best candidate” is somewhat limited. Regardless, our experience has been that it is very difficult to keep remote workers productive over the long term (even if they are programing in RoR). I’m beginning to think that impromptu face to face conversations/brainstorms with white boards, pen and paper flying, wild gesticulation, and general excitement are the moments that really fuel inspired work. I’ve never really been able to recreate those moments with phone, IM, or virtual office type applications.
CR
on 15 Dec 06ummm, sorry notoriety was not the right word. it’s getting late.
joshi
on 15 Dec 06I guess some managers want a team in a physical sense. In some countries it is tradition for a team to go out for lunch on Friday or drinks after work. Enjoying time together that is not work related can really help team members understand and work with better. You just don’t get this with people scattered across the globe.
joshi
on 15 Dec 06And I also should mention that body language is highly undervalued as a form of communication. I think that communicating behind a computer screen is about as bad as it can get.
joshi
on 15 Dec 06And I also should mention that body language is highly undervalued as a form of communication. I think that communicating behind a computer screen is about as bad as it can get.
victor
on 15 Dec 06(gotta love the “drop of a hat” mindset! sure i don’t)
in my personal experience as an offsite employee:
reliability: some people (i mean some of the people that have interviewed me) are not easy with the thought of you not delivering (and they have told me openly)... which actually (IMHO) can be verified by references or intuited from the CV… or after a three months trial…
stiff work mindset: sometimes bosses want to “supervise” instead of manage (what a waste of time) and that’s not a luxury you can take when your employee is 4000 km away…
otoh, for me the difficult things for working abroad are: gregarious or controlling habits (physical meetings being very important and stuff), bad planning or lack thereof (needing something for their “this morning”, which for me is “when i’m sleeping”), and mostly employer’s stiff communication models (not being able to commnicate in different channels than, er.., last minute meetings and talking for hours), unabling them to “send me the information” in a digital way.
right now i work from venezuela with a company in london and i’ve worked previously with companies in austria and italy, mostly on interaction/visual/web design and it has been great. for me it is obvious: venezuela is a beautiful country, paradisiacal weather, fantastic people and lower cost of life, so working from here has been a bliss for me, and a very good deal for my clients.
(gotta go, have a deadline for today at 3am venezuelan time, and then two skype “meetings” :)
Jared
on 15 Dec 06JF: In broad strokes, a web-based app with an external component to handle scheduling and optimized routing.
It turns out that scheduling is the devil, and the devil lives in the details.
beto
on 15 Dec 06This post goes so in par with the news mentioned earlier of Best Buy debunking (partially at least) the “physical presence = productivity” dogma that defined 20th century working culture and which we are increasingly becoming less dependent on.
Still, there’s something to be said about the power of physical meetings, as much as you may loathe them and deem them unnecessary. Videoconferencing, email, IM and remote calls are poor substitutes for interaction when compared to what can happen when actually being all together in a room. Body language plays an important role indeed, and it just sucks when you need someone’s urgent input or answer for yesterday and he/she seems perennially absent from his/her IM or email. It is not that it can’t be done and managed quite successfully (with offices in CA, GA and NY, we’re kind of used to it already) ... It just isn’t the same.
Sergei
on 15 Dec 06‘our experience has been that it is very difficult to keep remote workers productive over the long term’ – bang on, we have had the same problem. The hardest part is keeping people motivated, especially when, after a few months, loneliness sets on and people realize there is no one watching over them.
Eliot
on 15 Dec 06I completely agree with beto and CR. The factory automation / controls engineering industry is a little bit different than a pure software industry. While I would be able to work remotely to do some coding, there’s so much invaluable face-to-face time that engineers need to wrap our heads around projects. Email and IM can take so much time and are so wordy about a concept that may only take two little hand gestures and a drawing on the board to communicate.
As an electrical/controls engineer I find that so much of that face-to-face communication is difficult to quantify, but it is incredibly invaluable to finishing a project quicker and more accurately.
Anonymous Coward
on 15 Dec 06Something I haven’t heard yet, but something I think is such a huge advantage of remote workers, is the lack (or significant reduction) of office politics.
When you separate the people, the work is what matters. The work is the common ground. The work is the touch point. Not what you’re wearing to the office, not the tone of your voice, not the picture on your desktop, not the personal calls you overhear, not the size of your cubical or office, not who you congregate with in the halls, not the car you drive, not the fact that you showed up a few minutes late, not the fact that you’re seen as an ass kisser, not all the stuff that doesn’t really matter but ends up mattering in everyday business.
Get 5 people in a room together and personal stuff creeps in. Jealousy, spite, turf protection. That stuff is a waste of time and a total waste of energy. More productivity in the office is wasted on personal matters than on work matters.
When people work remotely the focus is on the work and clear communication. Clear communication is the only option. That’s a healthy constraint. Personality and culture comes through, but it’s in the background, not the foreground. The background is where it should stay.
When you need to get the troops together, fly them out or drive them in. The cost is so much less than the cost of lost time, energy, motivation, and productivity due to office politics.
My my 2 cents working on both sides of the issue.
-B-
on 15 Dec 06our experience has been that it is very difficult to keep remote workers productive over the long term
Don’t blame the distance, blame the work. I know it’s hard to swallow, but people are motivated when they are doing interesting work that they like to do. Give people work they don’t want to do and motivation is gone no matter if they are here, there, or anywhere.
Kyle
on 15 Dec 06Communication.
We had an office then we all decided we wanted to work remotely so we did. Things slowed to a crawl as we couldn’t yell across the room to each other anymore. We’re getting used to it now, but we’re all itching to get back in an office.
Crimson
on 15 Dec 06The answer is obvious – outside of the trust issue (and the fact most places use time-in-office as their unit of productivity), most probably don’t know how to telecommute effectively.
Show them how you do it to get the party started (e.g. how you do whiteboard mockups, properly track people’s progress, etc.). Of course, a huge chunk of middle management structure would get knifed in the gut with this kind of setup, so it may not be in their interest to do this.
CR
on 15 Dec 06B because I totally agree with your point about interesting work, I thought I should qualify that we are currently developing 2 elearning ROR projects:
1) An asynchronous app that is a minimalist course creation tool with the ability to upload streaming media and flash animations. It also provides the ability to create customized interaction slides and build quizzes for tracking.
2) A Learning Management System that handles large user lists, auto enrollments by filter criteria, catalog enrollment, curriculum, instructor lead events, calendars, many levels of reporting, automated emails, etc…
In addition, we develop courseware and attempt to refresh frequently stale corporate learning with elements from the entertainment world. We are currently working more heavily with 3D animation and video production.
Anyway, I think it’s all pretty exciting, but I’m definitely biased. It’s not as cool as robot space war with lasers or something. I’ll give you that.
Jeff
on 15 Dec 06Managers want people around them for many reasons:
1. It’s easier. Long distance management makes organization and communication of paramount importance, and every mistake you make tends to produce a record. It’s understandable—few people would want that level of accountability.
2. Envy. Most workers would rather work from home, managers included. Why should this guy get to, when the rest of us don’t? It’s childish, but that’s the deal.
3. Socialization. We’re all monkeys, and we crave interaction with other monkeys. Lots of monkeys at work.
Erik Peterson
on 15 Dec 06Since I’m one of the people who had a job posting and rejected him because he wouldn’t relocate, here are my reasons (x-posted on his blog):
1) There are other candidates that are just as good, if not better, that are either local or willing to relocate. 2) I won’t hire anybody that I’ve never met. Flying somebody in for an interview is expensive and annoying to arrange. Somebody would have to be really damn good to warrant it, and while his resume is good, it isn’t “damn good.” 3) While I, personally, don’t mind a telecommuter, other people in the company do. Since this position was to help develop our ERP system, he would really need to talk to the accounting, quality and manufacturing people face-to-face. That’s their shortcoming, nothing else. 4) All of our servers are in-house, and we don’t have any sys admins. Part of this position is helping to manage those servers (particularly when I’m out of town), which occasionally requires physical intervention. Someone who only telecommutes would not be able to fulfill this, so they are instantly less attractive. 5) There isn’t an effective web-based alternative to the white board. 6) I hate talking on the phone. 7) We’re a startup, and we’re forming this team from scratch- this position is the first non-me person in the team. Maybe if it were person #4 or 5, it would be viable. 8) Never underestimate the value of face time.
Bob Robertson
on 15 Dec 06I don’t get what all the face-to-face stuff is about. When I work with people, we are all staring at our computers. Take a hint from WoW and try any equivalent of TeamSpeak, if you MUST, but keep in mind that being able to yakk at me at any time is going to break my concentration. Having me there in person is just too much temptation for some blabbermouths. However, for meetings, it works!
I can’t believe people are yakking about whiteboards when there are plenty of net-based ones, not to mention Campfire. Invest in a cheap Wacom tablet. And look into video conferencing if you need to see each others’ “O” faces.
Ben Richardson
on 15 Dec 06One of our concerns with remote workers is morale – sitting in a room by yourself all day everyday, and only communicating with others through a keyboard doesn’t sound like my ideal environment.
We try to create a fun work place where you not only work on exciting projects, but get to interact with people that you enjoy spending time with. That might mean discussing a technical issue with a staff member that your having trouble with, or the whole team going out for a social lunch during the week. In the case of our office, Friday afternoon ping-pong matches are a big hit (pun intended).
So to flip the question around to you guys, how do make sure your remote workers don’t go insane from only communicating with others through a keyboard all day? And is it harder to create a great company (and company culture) that people want to work for when everyone is working remotely?
Christopher Hawkins
on 15 Dec 06My whole dev team is remote. I love it.
I am based in Central California. My company’s projects get worked on by a dev from the East Coast, a dev in New Zealand, and occassionally a dev in Santa Barbara.
It works out fine. When you pick the most appropriate people for the job, you find that they can perform without geography being an issue. I have the added benefit of having composed my dev team from people I’ve worked with before, so we’re a pre-gelled team.
I wrote a little bit about this in my last Monday Consulting Questions article. It’s not nearly as complicated as people might think. I don’t know why more companies don’t do it.
Stephen Bartholomew
on 15 Dec 06I don’t necessarly have a problem with remote working – my company has been in different parts of the country for ages – but I still feel that we’d work better if we were all in the same place.
It’s got nothing to do with control. It’s just that being in the same room together, bouncing ideas, pointing a screens, scribbling on paper are far more ‘human’ ways to work than talking or typing over the internet. This is a big feature in the XP community too and it seems to work well.
Of course this is merely the ideal and in business nothing is perfect so I certainly wouldn’t shy away from hiring someone because of their position. I would choose a good remote worker over a so-so guy living down my street any day.
fez
on 15 Dec 06anyone who’s been in an Office Space esque environment knows the nightmare that it can entail.
far more often than not, even those with best of intentions end up creating just another Office Space.
someone hit the nail on the head above, “office time” becomes the unit measurement of productivity.
i’ve spent 4 out of 5 days before at a company, doing absolutely nothing but surfing the web.
i’ve spent 60 hour weeks working from home banging out reams of code.
as a manager, what would you rather have? (but some people work best in Office environments… so you just have to find those people if you have that requirement)
Matt Carey
on 15 Dec 06Personally I think there is a difference between hiring remote workers for a company doing client work, and a company doing development work.
We do client work and we do use remote workers. As it happens these remote workers are reasonably local (and in the same timezone). I feel this is important and has put me off hiring remote workers across the globe. Why? Well, if a client calls with an urgent request or change we need to respond instantly. If the person working on that project is in a different timezone (and is asleep) it creates a problem.
If we did development work on our own projects (and no client work) then snap changes become less of an issue. I would then happily hire the best person no matter where they are.
Just a thought to add to the mix…
Pawel Brodzinski
on 15 Dec 06I think most of both pros and cons have been already mentioned here. I work now with team spread over three localiaztions and there’re some issues connected with geography. I find among my colleages people who can work well remotely and those for whom lack of control is the problem. In both cases many thingh would be easier if all of them were around.
While I agree with fez that one can work more effectively at home, it’s not the universal rule. And it doesn’t happen often. That’s for sure.
When hiring company should weigh all pros and cons of that very candidate with all his “features”, including among others, candidate’s quality and geography. Sometimes you’ll find geography as not important factor, sometimes it’ll be key thing. I think the latter happens much more often. And you can call me “crazy” because of that.
Anonymous
on 15 Dec 06Lose the RSS adverts or lose a subscriber.
WmD
on 15 Dec 06The company I’m currently working at does a lot of government contracts. They not only need to keep all their data secret, but also need to be able to prove that in an audit. That’s a lot more difficult, when the workers don’t normally work in secured facilities and send their data over (at least some level) open networks.
That’s a specific example as to why it won’t work. But it doesn’t apply to most companies.
Anonymous+1
on 15 Dec 06Lose the RSS adverts and replace it with a pony.
emi
on 15 Dec 06‘cause it’s a lot harder to shout at someone remotely :)
Neil Wilson
on 15 Dec 06The main issue is being the remote worker, when there is a focussed physically co-located group – and you are working on the same stuff as them.
Ultimately human beings have evolved to work in close physical groups, and they naturally work best in that set up. (Or feel that they do, which is just as important).
If you are using a remote setup then I believe that you must cripple everybody with the same handicap – ie everybody is remote from everybody else. That way you don’t have the central ‘clique’ making strides without going through the group communication technology.
Remote working feels uncomfortable and requires more discipline and training for both the remote worker and the management structure. But it can pay off big time if you get it working. The ultimate goal of course is the 24 hour development cycle, with one team handing off on an evening to the next for whom it is just the morning.
NeilW
Brains4All
on 15 Dec 06I’ve just had the fortunate pleasure of hiring two very talented Designers to augment our team. They’ve both just finished their first projects, on-time, on-budget and made two clients very happy. I’ve never met them, I don’t know even know what they look like or sound like.
All communication is through Basecamp. Basecamp is probably the reason why this is all working out so well. Clients and Designers alike are all completely up to speed as to the progress of the projects. Everyone knows what to do and when to do it because everyone is kept in the loop.
Best thing about it is I don’t have to buy them desks, pc’s, printers, software, coffee, snacks, books, pens, index cards. Best thing for them is they can work whenever they want whever they want and they’re not stuck in traffic for the better part of the day. They can pickup their kids from school and have lunch with the whole family.
Actually this was an inspiration. Our local designers have started telecommuting on more days as well and we found we were more productive and energetic, and our days were happier because we get to spend more time on our work and on our families and hobbies.
I can come up with a thousand reasons not to do it; most are based upon hanging on to ancient beliefs and assumptions. Yes – you’ll have to create new paths if you walk into the unknown, but there is beauty and fulfilling experiences to be found.
Cheers, Marko Brains4All
Chris Kay
on 15 Dec 06We do not hire remote workers where I work and I believe this is because of the process we have in place for how we develop software.
Every one of our projects is done by 2-6 people in a project room. Part of that process is pairing, and while it could be done remotely it wouldn’t have nearly the same effect. Not to mention the if it was done remotely the other people in the room would not be able to hear all of the conversations that are going on between pairs. The open communication and availability of information in a project room is a huge factor in our success.
Another aspect of how we work is having direct access to our clients. On my current project we have the customers BCP and QA in our project room working with us daily. They are part of the team. Imagine if a few of the developers were offsite, they wouldn’t hear the ad-hoc conversations that go on about requirements and why certain decisions are being made.
These seem to be the first ideas thoughts that come to mind, and while I know there are many ways for facilitating communication by a remote worker I just don’t they work within our process.
sbrewer
on 15 Dec 06For those of you talking about body language:
What’s wrong with video conferencing?
Between Skype & GoToMeeting (Both completely unmetered services) I just don’t find those adversities a challenge anymore.
Mark
on 15 Dec 06Me: I need you to let me work at home a few days this month. I can focus on the work without distraction, and am way more productive.
Boss (begrudgingly): OK. But you have to let me spin it because if I let you do it, then so-and-so will want to and this other person will want to, etc.
=========
Of course, so-and-so is completely unreliable, misses deadlines, talks on the phone/chat/MySpace all day in the office and a big part of “this other person’s” job is client management and coordinating deliverables with other people in the office.
My mandate for the month was to get two projects coded and live, which required a good amount of backend development before any attempt at integration. I sit in the office and contend with people’s dogs running around barking, so-and-so’s tantrums (it’s always the stupid computer’s fault his code doesn’t work) and phone calls and digressions six feet away from me, a barrage of inane network and server questions thrown at me because I’m the only person who takes the time to understand the tools he’s using, etc.
That’s why they want you in the office, and that’s why working remotely works better for many of us.
dm
on 15 Dec 06I’ll second Ben’s question up there, and another comment regarding learning to telecommute. I don’t think it’s an obvious thing to be able to pull off. it takes work to do it well, and while 37signals has been able to do it, there would seem to be a learning curve. what are the habits that make a successful team without physical proximity?
AR
on 15 Dec 06Points made re ancient beliefs and assumptions are quite valid—if you start remote-based, you’re not tainted by those.
Our software team has always been distributed. We grew from one person to 10 in four cities, so remote was not something we tried, it’s been our way since day one.
We use Basecamp, chat, phone. Our knowledge is in a wiki. The emphasis above on importance/need for whiteboards is odd to me as we’ve done fine without for five years—maybe because its never been an option.
And our distributed team works with teams that are physically together, so its a interesting case study. Our distributed team is by far not only better at collaborating, but does more of it than the colo teams. When we work together, we are frustrated by the colo teams not communicating. Basically, if they can’t say it over their cube, they don’t communicate. Its a kind of laziness that sets in—a real liability in this day and age if you ask me.
Rich
on 15 Dec 06The loneliness/isolation thing is a personal issue. If you’re feeling that way, you need to reevaluate your life. Work should not be the primary source of social interaction for you.
The best part about telecommuting for me is not wasting your life outside of work by having to commute to a job. I save 2 hours day when I work from home. That’s 2 extra hours I can interact with and enjoy my family and friends.
Caryn
on 15 Dec 06Project Manager here. I don’t like hiring remotely because I have had precious few experiences with development or design resources (mostly) who can communicate effectively in such a situation.
It also requires honesty. If you want to work from home on day X because you’re waiting for a couch to be delivered, because you need to be home early, or because you’re supervising the plumber – TELL ME. That way, when I call and you don’t pick up the phone because you’re outside yelling at a guy standing on a ladder, I don’t feel like you’re taking me for a ride.
I’ve made it explicitly clear that I expect them to OVER communicate; I’ve written the specifics of what’s required in terms of reporting and availability into consulting contracts; I’ve made payment contingent upon them being accessible to fix their bugs.
It rarely works, it exponentially multiplies my stress load, and it’s almost always thrown the project schedule out of wack.
Also, the time zone issue above. What happens if the overnight team needs to have an architecture discussion? I also am not willing to be working 24/7 to accommodate time zones. If you have true 24/7 development going on, sure, but who has that right now? And, If there’s a bug at 9am, I don’t want to wait until 10pm to have it fixed, because that’s when the person who wrote the code will be back at work.
Now, here’s the pluses: when you have someone who is responsible and accountable, they tend to over-produce at home, partly out of guilt and the accountability factor mentioned above.
I agree 100% that if you work in an open-plan office or cube farm, someone may be better off working remotely to be productive. We’re in temporary space and while I have a cube wall, I might as well be sitting in the middle of the hallway. I can’t get anything done that requires actual thought until everyone goes home.
Adz
on 15 Dec 06Create jobs locally and help support your local economy…
Darren Stuart
on 15 Dec 06I am currently remote working for my current employer and I love it. Why? I get so much more done than when I am in the office.
When the project I took over is finished I might decide to go freelance just for the joy of not having to deal with the politics.
Fabian
on 15 Dec 06It seems, that there are just two kinds of persons; in the world, as in these comments. One kind is the IRC/IM/videoconference kind, that has no problem with staring at the screen 24/7 or writing on tablets, but does have a problem with people around, distracting by talking or even having to care for one’s appearance. The other kind cannot imagine, that someone can work like that and deems it impossible for productivity.
Maybe there are some people, that should rather stay in their house, love their remote work, but it definitely does not work for all in the world.
Consider this not only from your p.o.v. as an employee (great to work from home) but also from the viewpoint of an employer (is this the kind of person, that can do it?).
Dr. Pete
on 15 Dec 06I used to be EVP for a web services start-up (about 18 people when I left), and let’s just say my boss and I differed on this subject. Fundamentally, I think it’s a mindset shift. For someone to work effectively remotely, you have to think in terms of goals and not hours. We were always so tied up in our own work (even as executives, we were coding half the day) that we just wanted a warm body in hopes that they would soak up workload. We had remote salespeople and it never worked, mainly because we didn’t really outline our expectations.
Ironically, had we had some remote employees, we might have also planned better and made our in-house team more productive. Of course, I do agree that you can’t really have a split. Off-site work has to be available to everyone, or jealousy is going to creep in. I worked from home once/week, and since I was VP, people assumed it was just a perk. They didn’t realize that it was often one of my most productive days.
epc
on 15 Dec 06I’ve managed remote employees and worked remotely myself. I found as a manager initially I had to work on keeping the remote employees in the loop, we ended up reorienting our applications and operations to ensure that any of use could work remotely so that no one felt excluded, and we all had the freedom to work offsite if we needed to. When we did this, IRC was the way to go, I suppose today we’d use something like Campfire.
As a remote employee, I was completely turned off by the experience, everyone else worked out of the same office and frequently forgot to include me in the loop.
While you do lose the whole office politics nightmare, you also lose a lot of the informal office-hallway chit chat that on its own may not seem to be of value but can frequently slip into valuable “work talk” quite easily. If you’re remote you don’t get that chit chat.
Another thing for success: the remote employee has to have access to every resource she’d have if she were working in your office. Telecommuting shouldn’t be punishment or banishment.
Joe Rosend
on 15 Dec 06It just a matter of trust.
I am currently maintaining an e-commerce system for one of the largest electronics distributors in Spain. I do it while I enjoy a relaxed life in Costa Rica.
Based on my experience, most companies won’t hire you to work remotely unless they know you from previous work.
These guys trust me because I’ve worked on site for three years before crossing the ocean.
New local clients here in Costa Rica won’t even let me work from home for the time being. That is the nature of trust.
Of course, I haven’t extracted a complete web framework from an exotic programming language. I am just one of thousands of web developers out there.
warren
on 15 Dec 06If 37signals thinks hiring people with writing skills is so important, take some of your own advice and write in complete sentences.
I understand that David speaks better English than I do Danish.
shawn
on 15 Dec 06it seems to me a lot of this has to do with managers and workers who can’t grow beyond an “old world” business sense.
it is pure closed minded management style. geographic location, especially in design and development, only has bearing on output if you believe it does; and if you can’t manage a project effectively. instead of blame, maybe some managers should take a look inward first.
mysql ab is a remotely staffed company. are they a failure? 37 signals is a remotely staffed company. are they a failure? the entire linux kernel, as well as the majority of successful f/oss projects, are remotely staffed. are they all failures?
the issue is not remote staffing. the issue is your hang-ups as a manager.
it is true, some people cannot work remotely. but, i would argue that these are the same people who are generally disruptive and lazy in person as well.
if you hire the right person, who is dedicated to their craft-whether it is development, design, systems, etc-they will perform. your inability to hire the right person isn’t just cause to say “remote is bad.”
work is evolving. people have to be flexible. learn to adapt.
Keith
on 15 Dec 06I’m not opposed to hiring remote workers. Hell, Blue Flavor (my company) very often works remote with our clients just fine. However, I would say that as part of a permanent team I’d prefer people to work on-site.
We started out working remotely and we would have crashed and burned had we not decided to get an office and work together everyday. We needed that face to face time to build trust, etc. I think we’d prefer that with anyone we add to our team from here on out too.
I think that being in an office with people has more upside than not. You can build relationships better, strong and faster by actually spending time with people face to face (at least this is true for most people) and there is something to be said for having a “place to go” for work. I know I get up everyday excited to get out of the house and into the office.
Having said that, if I found the right person (depending on the job) and they for whatever reason needed to work remotely, I’d definitely give it a try and come at it with an open mind.
Ben
on 15 Dec 06Our company is looking to hire a couple Rails developers. We’ve posted locally (in Chicago) and haven’t had a ton of success and are thinking about opening it up to remote workers. I actually work remotely on a frequent basis so I’m confident that it can work well.
BTW: I really enjoyed the SVN post about using campfire to sign in and sign out. 37S… any other tips on remote working would be highly appreciated.
Mark Webster
on 15 Dec 06I would say the most important piece of using remote workers effectively is making sure an organization is prepared for it (both technically and emotionally).
The organization, as a whole, has to decide they want to embrace telecommuting, and make it available to everyone (within reason).
A lot of employees are always hung up on what’s “fair” so applying a different standard or expectation that some people can work remotely, but others can’t, tends to breed resentment.
Here’s another discussion to throw onto the pile: Why isn’t our representative government made up of remote workers? Senators and Congress could work from their home state, staying in touch with their constituents, and participate in government virtually. This would break up the whole lobbyist culture, and from a security perspective, would eliminate DC as a nice, ripe target.
Think about it: The whole legislative process happening over Campfire :)
TomK
on 15 Dec 06From a scan of these posts, I think we should presume that we’re talking about a position where:
- the job itself does not require physical tasks (network admins gotta pull cables and crawl under desks…)
- the nature of the job does not require a significant amount of face-to-face interaction, whiteboarding, reading subtle communication cues (being a liaison to a client department, leading requirements gathering for a new product, etc.)
- the remote candidate is the best candidate overall (Erik Peterson generously described why he didn’t take on a remote worker…but emphasizes he wasn’t a stellar candidate; the question on the table is “Presuming the best candidate is remote, why do you choose not to hire them?”)
- remote working is a choice the worker made for themself (some postings here are about how demoralized/disconnected/etc. workers become when their office iss taken away from them; that’s a different issue; focus here on folks who’ve chosen to work remotely)
I run my own firm (Tom Kelleher Consulting, Inc.) and have worked remotely for my clients for about 10 years. In all cases but one (a very recent client), I’ve met them face to face before working. I don’t resent that. In fact, if the opportunity is compelling enough, I’d pay for the face-to-face introduction travel myself.
I primarily do original development work for small/midsize clients, and generally on well-focused projects. When specs aren’t clear, I’m glad to get on a plane and go live at the client’s location for a day or a week to lead the meetings needed to clarify matters. They’re usually glad for that, and it’s an acceptable expense to them. Otherwise, I’m back in my home office (in sweet, rural New Jersey!) writing out the specs, planning the project and budget, coding the system, etc. etc. But then, working by myself suits me well.
- Tom
PS – and a big RIGHT ON! to the person who wrote that the lack of politics is a big benefit to working remotely. The magnitude of the relief that hit me unexpectedly when I started working alone…well, that’s a post in its own right.
Jack Shedd
on 15 Dec 06Our company is a lot like 37signals, but even more dispersed. We have 8 developers now, and while 4 of us our in Chicago, we don’t even bother having an office. Each member of our team works from home.
We’ve never encountered a project that we couldn’t do without sitting in the same room. If anything, we’ve found, in the three years we’ve been working this way, that we are vastly more effecient than numerous companies in our field, and more price-competive, since we don’t have the silly overhead of a 2000 sq. feet office.
Oddly, we’ve found our problem to be quite the reverse of what’s discussed here. We’ve had numerous interviews with people who prefer to go to an office. We’ve had great candidates turn away our offers specifically because we required they work from home.
When I’d talk to potentials about the culture of this company, and mentioned the nature of our setup, many seemed downright shocked we didn’t have a proper office. Some thought we were somehow a less trust-worthy company. One called us a “band of gypsies”.
Eventually, I hope both people and businesses will get away from this idea that an office is some form of status symbol. That if you don’t have an office, it’s a sign you’ve done something wrong. Until then, I’ll enjoy being able to take afternoon naps in my own bed, do laundry while I wait on complies, and watch my own TV while I finish up this design or the other.
DHH
on 15 Dec 06A few brief pointers on how we make it work. First, you have to have real-time overlap. Working in time zones so remote that you’ll never see each other online is to me a complete no go.
When I worked from Denmark (7 hour time difference to Chicago) that meant starting a little later in the day and finishing a little later too.
You don’t need 8 hours of overlap, though. (Actually, we found it preferable when you don’t have complete overlap—more alone time). I’d say something like 2-4 hours would be plenty.
Second, you can’t rely on email and IM alone. Then you completely loose the common social aspect. That’s the reason we built Campfire. Real-time, always-on chat is IMO the life line of a distributed team working on longer projects.
And it’s not all about work either. Our Campfire is at least 50% joking around, posting funny pictures, and generally just having a good time.
In general, though, I agree that the most important shift needed to make remote working work is to have a goal-oriented reporting style. What are you going to get done today? What did you get done today?
We actually have people post that in the beginning and the end of the day every day. Makes a huge difference in visibility and quickly highlights problems (same issue posted two days in a row as [IN]/[OUT]s).
Rimantas
on 15 Dec 06Kathy Sierra provides some thoughts in Why face-to-face still matters!
Mark McLaren
on 15 Dec 06From an earlier post:
That’s a little, um, Rich. First, if you’re feeling lonely at work, you need to reevaluate your work, not your life. Sacrificing 8 hours happiness at work for an extra 2 hours at home isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
Second, why shouldn’t some people make work their primary source of social interaction? Maybe someone enjoys teaching the new kid Object-Oriented design more than getting drunk in a bars on a Saturday. Or maybe creating a killer computer game is more appealing than creating a new family.
Jonathan
on 15 Dec 06“…but emphasizes he wasn’t a stellar candidate…”
As the candidate in question, the exact words were:
“your resume… looks pretty good” (original response); and: “while [it] is good, it isn’t ‘damn good’” (above comment, hardly objective)
The quality of my resume is certainly up for debate, but it was good enough to get an interview, which is the sole purpose of a resume… if I had been willing/able to move my family.
Whether one can judge the strength of a candidate based on resume alone is a kettle of worms of a different color.
Nate
on 15 Dec 06Jason and DHH, Is Campfire enough or do you also use videoconferencing (iChat AV). Also, I think I remember reading that you all get together once a year or so. What sorts of things do you find are worth physically getting together for?
P.S. It’d be great if you guys did a follow-up post expanding on what DHH said in his comment about how you guys make remote work work.
JF
on 15 Dec 06Nate, Campfire is better than video conferencing and audio 95% of the time.
Writing forces you to focus your thoughts and communicate clearly. It’s rare you see people blabbing in coherently in a chat because typing is work while talking is “free.”
I’ll be putting together a detailed post on how we use Campfire to get work done. It’s by far the most valuable tool we have at our disposal.
Leon
on 15 Dec 06I manage a virtual team of 10 engineers in China, India, Australia and Japan. With the right process, workflow and communication channels, I wouldn’t hesitate to hire a remote worker. The team could perform and work productively as being together in the same office.
The hardest obstacle to go through is finding the best method to communicate on different occasions.
Having said that, being in the same office is still better. For discussion – IRC, IM, voice or video conference cannot beat face-to-face.
Mandy
on 15 Dec 06I am reluctant to hire remote workers for one reason: most people can’t write. I don’t expect to get emails written in iambic pentameter, but you need to have some pretty strong writing skills if you’re primary modes of communication are going to be email/campfire/IM. It’s very difficult to find good designers or developers who are also good writers.
TomK
on 15 Dec 06Jonathan,
re: “good/not damn good” etc.
Apologies if I offended! I should have quoted Erik directly, rather than paraphrasing. And I’m new to this thread and forum, so I had no idea Erik was talking about someone specific, rather than an anonymous “someone” he had once dealt with.
- Tom
Thomas
on 15 Dec 06I think the need for face-to-face interaction may be down to the person. Hire the right person and it won’t be a problem. I tend to think that being in an office setting leads to a lot of wasted time, too many meetings where you go off on tangents, etc. When I work from home, I can avoid a lot of that and focus on being productive. And I can work when at my best and produce most efficiently.
As for the motivation factor, just find out if you have the right person. Set some good deadlines, and see if the person delivers. It shouldn’t take too long to see if you got the right kind of remote worker or not. It’s not for everybody, even though most people think they’d like it.
dm
on 15 Dec 06there are probably many great programmers who can work from their home, but not everybody has a suitable place to work there. our house isn’t big enough for a dedicated space, and being in the dining room just complicates things in our family. gets in the way of the kids coloring…
by not having an office at all, you do end up limiting your application pool arbitrarily.
Jonathan
on 15 Dec 06Tom: no offense was taken.
RMM
on 15 Dec 06Virginia (EST) is 5 hours off GMT, not 6. :-)
Rob Sanheim
on 15 Dec 06I would be curious to know how often the chicago contingent of 37 signals gets together in person to have face time. I’ve found that having elements of both can be very powerful – I work remotely but the other two developers on my team are in the same city. We sit in campfire all day but can easily meet for lunch and a coffee shop to go over design, joke around, whatever.
Alex Bunardzic
on 15 Dec 06Seems to me like most of the offered rationale to hire remote workers assumes that the hired worker is fully qualified for a job. If that indeed is the case, then the arrangement might work.
However, I still haven’t had a chance to meet a worker who would fully qualify for the job. Any time I hire someone, I need to be around to do a full blown training.
Sometime that training could take a long time. And, realistically, it’s an ongoing process.
With remote workers, that knowledge transfer, teaching them the know-how of the job, just doesn’t work. It’s OK if the guy already knows all there is to know about the job, but again, I’d like someone to show me such a guy.
I certainly haven’t been able to ever meet such a mythical beast.
Don Schencl
on 15 Dec 06I chuckle when I read a manager’s comments about WHY they can’t support tele-commuting.
The “what if there’s a bug and …” belies the very ACT of “managing”.
You didn’t … test? You have ONE person who knows the system? You don’t have either Good Design or a Lightweight Framework—either of which would facilitate any other programmer to make the change.
LIVE code? Live, PRODUCTION code? With a show-stopper bug that MUST be fixed NOW?
Something tells me “management” needs some help.
Baz
on 15 Dec 06Question at 37s:
A number of people have mentioned whiteboards.
I often find it useful to grab a piece of paper and scribble on it whilst talking to someone – boxes with unintelligible text in them and arrows moving from one to another. The end result is utterly useless as it tends to be illegible. But the process of drawing it is an invaluable addition to what I’m saying.
Do you have any techniques for doing visual stuff? Or do you find that you don’t need that sort of visual explanation (I’m not talking about design and HTML prototypes – I’m thinking more of how different “things” interact).
JF
on 16 Dec 06Baz, we draw stuff all the time. We’re big fans of paper.
If we need to share it on the screen with people remotely we either use a tablet to draw it or just quickly scan it in. Then we upload it to the Campfire room where everyone can see it (images are previewed live in Campfire).
CJ Curtis
on 16 Dec 06I’m dealing with the same stuff…
“Are you in Chicago?? No? Buh-Bye”
Even though one of my principal partners is in Chicago, and we have very good connections in NY also.
I work out of my own design studio in WV, so talk about not having many good local resources…but I wouldn’t relocate to a big city for a million bucks.
This is how I came to believe that you hire the right person for the job…period…regardless of location. It really allows you to do things on a creative level that you simply cannot if you’re so insistent on having all local employees (or even in-house freelancers).
So here’s a follow-up question for 37S…
How do you find companies that ARE willing to hire off-site employees or freelancers while trudging through the thousands of ads that eventually result in the “local only” requirement??
Helen Baxter
on 16 Dec 06I have been remote working for over 6 years, and have proved how efficient it can be with the right tools and personality. I ran a global KM community (knowledgeboard.com) on behalf of the European Commission for three years while living in New Zealand.
Now I manage a network of studios and projects across NZ using Basecamp and GTools to work with everyone collaboratively. IMHO companies that refuse to employ remote workers will never get the best people. Why sit in a cubicle when you can be teleworking from one of the most beautiful places on the planet? I know where I’d rather be.
Sam
on 16 Dec 06when you have someone who is responsible and accountable, they tend to over-produce at home, partly out of guilt and the accountability factor mentioned above.
Wow, Caryn, with that frame of mind I’m sure you’re employees LOVE the respect they get from you. accountability (as a stick)? guilt? What kind of canvas is that is start with? Seriously, give people some credit and they’ll produce better results, I promise.
Guilt, jesus.
MT Heart
on 16 Dec 06Caryn’s post is epitomizes why more and more people are moving to the Free Agent Nation style of work. Also read up on Tom Peters works – Design. Talent. Leadership. Trends.
- By the way, if the bug is found at 6:00pm is OK to wait until 8:00am the next day when the guy comes in to get it fixed? What’s the difference?
Sinker
on 16 Dec 06I’ve had both experiences. When we started our company, we were spread out across the US-no one had ever physically met when we started. Over the years, things have concentrated more and more here in Chicago, and in some ways it’s easier-calling across a room is very handy—but in other ways, you waste a lot more time not working: joking, going on coffee runs, calling people over to see this thing, etc… etc… I think if you can get the right people and you can figure out methods that make it work, there’s no difference in the quality or the speed with which work can get done.
Hell, I used to assemble our magazine with a designer in Boston, and this was in the days of dial-up. We’d stay on the phone until 2 or 3 in the morning, waiting for a file to finish a three-hour download! It was nuts, but it was fun.
Sinker
on 16 Dec 06Also (sorry for posting twice), I think the excuse of not being able to trust that a remote working is actually working is lame. I’ve been in plenty of office environments where half the staff is surfing the internet, ordering shoes, and IMing their friends. Lazy workers are lazy workers, whether they’re in your office or at home. You’ve got to find the right crew no matter what.
Giles Bowkett
on 16 Dec 06I’m working remotely for a company in LA. I’m in Santa Fe, NM. I actually just got back from LA, where I spent a week working with the company in person. What I found is that we got more done that way, but I also found there were a lot of unnecessary distractions as well.
For most of my career I haven’t worked remotely, but in the past year I’ve done a lot of little Rails apps, and some of them were remote while others were local. What I found there is that issues related directly to the work are much more important than physical location. Project management strategies, development practices, design philosophies, technical strength, business culture, and just whether or not the app grabs your imagination at all, all those things are much, much more influential on the quality of the experience than physical location.
I’m considering relocating to LA and working in person with this company there. The personal interactions in real life are obviously better, and knowledge-sharing stuff like pair programming seems to work better in real life too. Also, seeing somebody write code gives you some insight into the code they write.
On the other hand, the main reason is that I just enjoyed the city. Working remotely would probably work out perfectly well, and a lot of the stuff that being in person really helped us with was actually stuff where we perpetuated hacks and design errors because we were in a hurry. The possibility definitely exists that working remotely is actually much better for code readability and good design. Certainly there are a very large number of open source projects which would imply that this is the case.
Working remotely is definitely viable, lots of people still prefer working in person. Jury’s still out, for me personally, on whether this general reluctance to embrace remote work has any validity or not. I think as webcams and richer-media conferencing become more and more prevalent, that reluctance will dissipate, and quite possibly disappear completely. The question of why it hasn’t disappeared yet really comes down to whether it’s technology that isn’t quite there yet, or just cultural inertia. It’s probably a mixture of both, but which flavor dominates the blend, that I don’t know.
jb.
on 16 Dec 06Past the obvious outliers on the “ability to telecommute” scale, most of the time the objections to remote workers are really just a thin veil across the real issue… control.
No anti-telecommuter will admit this, but the reason you want an employee on-site is the same reason you want them to dress like the rest of the khaki brigade and work traditional work week. Alternative work arrangements are having trouble gaining traction simply because most of them are focused on removing the employee from the compete and utter control of their supervisor and company. They’ll give you all kinds of excuses why working from home or coming in for four 10-hour days won’t work (I had a former supervisor tell me that 4×10 schedules just lead to burn out… nevermind that I’m a better judge of how I burn out than some guy who’s only known me for a year), but at the root, it’s all about control (and the trust that they’d have to accept to give up that control).
I’ve worked from home and I’ve worked on site and I can tell you that for most developers and designers, working remotely is going to be a huge productivity boost. With very few exceptions (especially in the developer community), every designer or developer I’ve met prefers and craves uninterrupted “alone time” where they can concentrate on the problem at hand and get work done. The constant “we’re meeting in 10!” attitude that seems to be touted as such a boon for face-to-face work is actually hurting productivity in most cases I’ve run into. Yes, you get your problem solved (usually requiring 2-10x as many people as you really needed to solve the problem in the meeting), but you’ve just caused a context switch and the resulting loss of productivity in every person in the room. For a manager who’s only real job is to go to meetings, this doesn’t hurt… but for the guy who’s trying to crank out that application, he’s frustrated. This is why there’s so much aversion among the people who do the work to meetings.
There was an example given above where a person overheard a couple of coworkers trying to solve a problem and came to their aid… for every time that’s worked out for me, I’ve had at least three instances where the person only caught a small portion of the conversation and provided no real value… in essence wasting 10 minutes because we had to explain why his solution wouldn’t work. Then there’s the “archive” factor. Face-to-face meetings are fleeting. Stuff like Campfire has a transcript that you can refer to without running around to the 10 people who were in the meeting and asking them “do you remember what Mr. CEO said to do?” It’s like automatic note-taking. :)
And to whoever said you do without the office politics in telework, A-MEN. That’s the biggest benefit to me, honestly.
Son Nguyen
on 17 Dec 06Probably for us the most challenging problem is communication. The fluid environment requires extensive, in-depth discussions and we still find the current tools (VoIP, IM) are not sufficient or not very intuitive.
Grant Hutchins
on 17 Dec 06Jared, check out Thinkature, a dead simple free whiteboard replacement (for when you use a whiteboard to develop ideas and draw diagrams) and has a simple voice chat functionality that is the easiest I have ever used.
I understand that the evocativeness of being in person is lost at a distance. However, with Thinkature I’ve been able to regain a good deal of this evocativeness with people very far from me.
Allan White
on 17 Dec 06Good points on both perspectives here. I’ve done the teleworker thing; I’ve managed them, worked with them, and gotten lots done remotely.
New collaborative environments are great (I’ve fought for them); we’re all getting lots done, sometimes with less politicking and friction.
But yet, I find myself wanting to be there, with people, in person. I want to shake hands, look in their eyes, see the excitement or frustration – raw and unfiltered. I want to connect with my teammates in the real world. I want to see if they’re hearing me, their body language. Yeah, it’s a pain sometimes, and…messier. But it’s real.
Anyone else feel this way, even sometimes?
Yan Pritzker
on 18 Dec 06We’ve been developing Planypus with a tele-team as well. Four of us are in Chicago, one in D.C., and we’re just hiring a web designer in the U.K. We don’t have an office and work remotely all the time. One night a week the Chicago people get together to brainstorm and whiteboard and have a codeathon, and the rest of the time it’s instant messaging and emails. Occasionally we use campfire but mostly it’s AIM or something due to better client support…:)
Caryn
on 18 Dec 06Wow, Caryn, with that frame of mind I’m sure you’re employees LOVE the respect they get from you. accountability (as a stick)? guilt? What kind of canvas is that is start with? Seriously, give people some credit and they’ll produce better results, I promise.
It’s funny that I’m turned into the enemy here. I was talking about myself, mostly. And a little bit about human nature, from what I hear from other colleagues who have telecommuted. Only once has that been the actual expectation from a manager (who was a terrible manager), the rest just comes from an alpha-personality, and from the looks you get from some of your cow-orkers the next morning after you work from home: that yeah, right. you were working from home
My personal management style is that I trust people 100% from the outset. But right now, I’m getting burned, again, with someone I hired to work remotely, because they got sick and didn’t finish the project. Now, understand, I know that half of NYC is sick right now. I’m pissed because he didn’t tell me he was sick. He just missed the deadline HE set, and instead of writing to say, “I think I’m coming down with something and won’t be able to meet the deadline,” which of COURSE would have been acceptable – he just missed the deadline and waited for me to ask what was up.
If he’d been in the office, he would’ve had to tell someone he was coming down with something and I would have walked over to his desk to look for him (if he didn’t set an out of office message) and would’ve found out.
I am not a company owner, just someone trying to manage resources given to me, which are not always perfect. And if anyone here claims they write 100% bug free code, that they never miss something when they’re unit testing, that no bug, EVER, EVER gets missed when testing – well, please send me your resume, because I’d like to meet you.
I am the first person to send people home who are working late, unless they assure me 100% that their extra hours will either put them ahead of the game for the rest of the week, OR if they will absolutely get the work done that night. If not – go home, we don’t work for the Defense Department.
But that’s 6pm. At 6pm, I will tell a client that it’s the end of the day and we’ll have an answer for them in the morning. At 9am, that answer won’t fly, and you know it.
Free Agent Nation doesn’t mean you get to abandon all notion of professionalism and accountability. And, it does mean that I will give my company’s money only to those freelancers who step up and meet those requirements.
ian
on 18 Dec 06I’m director for an entirely virtual company coincidentally in Chicago and I’m in Virginia. We’re constantly looking for people to hire but the problem I find is that most of the people I talk to have no experience working virtually, and after doing this for years, I can usually tell who is going to work out in an environment like this.
Where exactly are people finding people willing, and more importantly, capable of working remotely? Is there a job board that people are having more success at?
Michael Morton
on 19 Dec 06I believe that it’s hard to shift an attitude of a culture to encorporate telecommuting. It can be done, certainly, and smaller organizations have a much better chance than larger ones. But it’s very difficult, for all the reasons mentioned here already.
just blogged about one of the main benefits, in response to this blog post, about how hiring is a great benefit of being distributed. We get to hire the best talent we can find without being limited to a geography. I believe this is a huge benefit as goe-limiting is very severe where you can only attract the [limited] talent from that area.
jb.
on 19 Dec 06I’d love to hear the answer to Ian’s question about there being a more successful spot for hiring/getting hired as a remote worker. Because I’d love to get hired as a remote worker.
And Ian, feel free to drop me a line (my name should be linked to my blog). I’d love to work remotely. :)
Mitch
on 20 Dec 06We have 5 guys around the world that work with us. We have an office in Sydney and one in Nashville and it has worked out really well so far. In fact, we’ve just hired Alex in Canada to help with a product update and using MSN messenger it’s easy to keep in contact with him and work on things together.
ionel
on 20 Dec 06If distance is not a problem why don’t you try to use cheaper workforce (coders for eastern europe for example)?
we have many good programmers (i’m not one of them :) unfortunately) here in romania (place an ad on romanianfreelancers.com, it’s free) and russians are better i think (but the language barrier is stronger … you know the funny accent ...)
it’s a viable business model for big companies, why not for start-ups?
Audrey
on 20 Dec 06Caryn, you have it right. Communication is key. I don’t get angry when people tell me there’s a problem, I get angry when I find out that we’re missing a deadline for reasons that maybe could have been addressed if the person involved had actually told me what was going on. Or at least I’d have the chance to inform the client so they don’t think we’re slacking off. And this can happen whether workers are in the office or working elsewhere, but it seems like people can get away with hiding problems longer when they’re offsite.
Dimitar Yanev
on 21 Dec 06All you need is responsible developers. Neither the time zone nor the face-to-face issue are something that can stop you from hiring remote workers.
This discussion is closed.