Video calls are absolutely useless. They add absolutely nothing and make many people uncomfortable. Not to mention the extra preparation needed by the participants to look good. This isn't a beauty pageant. I've been working remotely for over half a decade and never needed a video call or found a single meeting it would not have detracted from. This isn't management 101. Frankly, it's stupidity. It's what idiot managers think is management 101 along with micromanagement and never giving raises. I stopped reading after that. What a stupid thing to add to the list.
In my experience there are several overlooked aspects of the remote work situation:<p>1. Extroverts need lots of interaction, etc. Introverts are more inclined to focus on their work. Naturally the latter are going to do a lot more comfortable with remote work and lower levels of interaction.<p>2. There are many talented people with disabilities who find it difficult to commute, etc. For them, working from an environment that is set up to accommodate them well, is far more productive.<p>3. There is the ever present danger of micro-managers. They are the ones that constantly interrupt and need to see people working under them to feel "useful".<p>4. Employing people is not always the best option. Consider sub-contracting, i.e. work is performed to agreed specifications, timeframes and costs.<p>5. Much of technical work is "Deep Work" (cf Cal Newport's book, etc) so reducing interruptions leads to greater productivity. I once worked in an office where the norm was to email co-workers 6 feet away so as to not interrupt their being in the flow.<p>6. Many multinational consulting firms have their staff work on client sites all week and then bring them back to their local office for Friday afternoon debrief and drinks. The managers travel around the different client sites to manage relationships with clients and check-in with their staff.
> 1) Managing time zones for your remote employees<p>A good rule of thumb is no more than nine time zone span across the company. Anything more than that becomes unbearably difficult to manage.<p>> Your remote employees may experience severe loneliness<p>One way my fully remote team tries to solve this is that each meeting starts with each person getting a chance to talk about something not work related. It takes up time, but it's worth it. It can be anything, like a TV show they just saw, or asking for advice on how to fix their broken car.<p>Each one-on-one starts with asking what they did over the weekend or since the last one-on-one. If the answer I hear is "worked the whole weekend", I made a point of encouraging them to do something other than work. I also try to set a good example by always having something that I did that wasn't work.<p>> Thank you, Texas, for $2000 in late fees for a business tax I had no way of knowing even existed.<p>Yep, I feel that one. We got hit at one point with a $5,000 fine from the State of New York for not getting insurance that we didn't know we had to get. Luckily we were able to prove that it wasn't necessary since our employee in NY was a co-founder, and the rule didn't apply to business owners.
I'm just looking now for my first full-time remote working job. I have worked remotely in the past as a contractor a few times in the workation tourist / digital backpacker category but never as a full-time employee. What I'd like now is to buy a home with super-fast internet in a small town and work from home.<p>I agree with the article that this category of work is likely to expand. Ideally I can get some remote-manager managing remote-employees experience under my belt. Then I would like to start my own business entirely with remote workers.<p>As a first timer one question I have is salary. Most recently I have been working in New York, and San Francisco before that. My perception of salary might be skewed by those bubbles. For that reason I'm not sure what my salary request should be. I have 15+ years development experience (most recently full-stack Java/Node.js/React) and 5+ years experience as team-lead/management.
As someone who has worked at numerous remote first organizations I felt this list captured a lot of the challenges for remote workers. I wish they'd gone into the 4 different types in more depth, because knowing which type of worker someone is colors the issues/challenges/opportunities which will arise.
The article starts with talking about "work from home", then start talking about distributed teams.<p>Where I am a bit puzzled is that there are already hundred of thousands of people working in global companies where colleagues are already in different time zones, with different cultural norms, etc.<p>So apart from the loneliness aspect, I feel it is not that a novel idea, and feels like recycled content.