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Ask HN: Why is remote work not mainstream in 2018?

11 points by bsvalley ↗ HN
It seems pretty old school to have to commute to an office in order to work. Why is remote work not mainstream yet? Seems pretty obvious we’ll end up all working remotely in a near future. Instead of putting 100% of our resources in green and self driven vehicles. I think Elon Musk missed that one :) [sarcasm]

17 comments

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bluGill
Because studies show that people are more collaborative when they work in the same office as their co-workers. Studies also show that collaborative teams are more productive. There is a lot of value in personal face to face conversations with your co-workers and you don't get that when working remotely.
bsvalley
That is old news right? What if we improve our resources to make remote communication like face to face communication? Using VR, etc.
bluGill
That doesn't help - you get better business meetings, but you don't get the non-business conversations that might lead to something more.

Real collaboration happens at the coffeepot - when people who didn't know they should talk accidentally run into each other and happen to talk about something they can help each other with.

reidjs
I work as a developer on a fully remote team. I agree with what you wrote, but a nice thing about being remote is you can conduct these “non-business” conversations on your own terms. When you’re at an office all day you probably only interact with your coworkers. When you work remote, you meet people outside your specific industry at cafes/coworking spaces.
bluGill
That is useful for you, but it isn't useful for your company. When it is co-workers you talk to the talk [sometimes] turns to solving work problems.

Remote work isn't all bad, but there are serious downsides that cannot be ignored. Companies that choose to do/allow remote work need to figure out how to deal with them. Of course working in the same office has its own set of downsides to deal with.

beatgammit
There's also tons of downsides to working in an office, like unproductive interruptions and ridgid schedules.

When I started working from home, I got way more done, and I attribute that to a combination of almost no distractions (slack is way less distracting than physical interruptions) and flexibility. I work most of my hours early in the morning (6AM-1PM), then I go outside for family time, and then finish up in the evening if I have work left to do. I'm happier all around because I get higher quality family time, and I believe this translates to more productivity when I'm working.

I'm available during office hours on slack regardless, so I'm able to help my co-workers when they need it. I've responded to slack at the park, shopping, etc, and I my coworkers don't notice a difference (I see them in person for lunch occasionally because we're friends).

It's not right for everyone, but I think it can really improve productivity for those it does work for.

davismwfl
I think you are underestimating how much has to change in company culture, communication and structure to make a remote office work efficiently and effectively. I am remote and we work hard to try to minimize the issues but there are always extra delays and miscommunications because of time zones or multiple communication channels etc.

And there is something to still getting together to bond as a team, work through problems together and learn how each other work. I travel enough to make sure I work with the team, bond with them and so we all learn how each other function. This makes remote possible, but it is never a panacea of perfection.

Don't misunderstand me, I am very much in favor of remote teams/people/work, but taking a company that is established and adding remote workers just doesn't work without a lot of process changes, additions, the right expectations and time. Starting a company as remote friendly is a lot easier if you follow well known patterns that work but even than there are challenges you wouldn't face otherwise.

Even business structure/registrations etc have to be updated/changed, let's say you are small company in the U.S. state of Colorado and now you employ people in 5 other states. Your company will have to register in each of those states as a "foreign" employer and pay workers comp, taxes etc within those states. Yes, 3rd party payroll services help with a lot of the tax side, but there are so many more things that have to be monitored, registered etc. Now, say you do this cross international boundaries, it gets even more complex if you want to do things legally and have employees. Notice I said employees not contractors, that is a different situation.

bsvalley
All the problems that you mentioned are actually easy to fix.

Team bonding doesn’t exist anymore, it’s very old school. I spent many years working in tech for various companies, I see more angry colleagues than ever before. Majority of them, not all of them of course. Team bonding is usually an awkward social event with people you don’t really appreciate. Management usually set that up (not always). It’s great because it helps people getting away from their desks for a little while but a remote employee would rather spend that time away from a screen with family and friends.

Working remotely or from home doesn’t necessarily mean that employees are located throughout the world. A company can still be located in only one city and its employees can work remotely within the same state (in the US for example). No commute time, flexible hours and less frictions.

I agree though, some people really need a structured enviroment to function “properly”. But again, it’s a cultural thing someone came with one day and everyone followed. Cultures evolve with time.

davismwfl
I agree the issues can be addressed, I disagree with your assertion they are easy to fix, not to mention the cost to address some of them is not free. And yea, I totally agree there are some people that just won't due well in a remote environment while many people can thrive given the right circumstances.

It is interesting to me why more startups aren't remote friendly early on today as if you build that culture early it actually has a key benefit of forcing good process and communication skills on the entire company, versus relying on the office chatter which is common in startups. This is my primary reason for preferring remote from the start of any company I am apart of, it just forces good habits and lets you find awesome people anywhere.

bsvalley
I agree. I can only think of Automattic (wordpress), Github and InVision in terms of mid-size fully remote companies. They are more early stage startups that do that... It really sucks because the companies I mentioned are pretty successful and they have a very solid and strong culture.
jrnichols
"If you can do your job remotely, we can hire someone in India to do it for 1/3 the cost." - a former boss of mine.

Mindsets like that are a huge reason and in corporate America, "presenteeism" is still very common. Many people still pride themselves on long hours in the office.

beatgammit
At my company, my boss felt the same way, and he pushed everyone to work long hours. I campaigned to work remotely part time, saying I'd get more done. This was routinely denied until eventually I left and worked for them as a consultant.

In my first month as a consultant, I got way more done than anyone else, and my boss was so surprised that he announced how much I got done at a company meeting (apparently I outperformed everyone).

Managers need to realize that some people thrive when they're able to set their own hours and completely eliminate distractions for hours on end. And no, just because I can work from home doesn't mean someone in India can do my job (we tried that, and it failed miserably).

We absolutely need to break this culture. I get way more done in less time when working remotely.

cimmanom
I’ve worked with distributed, entirely remote, and partly remote teams. My takeaway is that there are some people who just communicate much more effectively in person. And no, videoconferencing doesn’t help.
Down_n_Out
I would love to work remote, unfortunately my country is just beginning to have people work from home 1 to 2 days a week if their "title" allows for it. As an architect I could do all my work remote, even meetings. But it's, as was already mentioned, a big cultural change, many companies also don't "trust" their employees. They come up with the excuse that people will be doing non-work related chores at home (washing dishes, laundry, etc...) while they should be focusing on work. They expect you to sit 8h at your desk at home. If mentalities don't change at the top it's not going to trickle down.
vikb
Just curious: where are you from?
sh87
The argument of more productivity is just too ambiguous and weak.

You have to realize what allowing remote work means for a manager : losing control.

I see only a few reasons for management to change their attitude towards remote work

* it saves money

* its harder to get good folks to work for you without this perk

bsvalley
Just to follow up on my sarcastic comment about Elon Musk. I believe this would actually compromise his own companies. If all his employees were to work remotely, he could not put the them pressure on people to work unlimited hours with no interruptions.

If he would have adopted a remote work culture, tesla and space X would be a bit behind in terms of progress today. But does it mean the results would be different at the end? Are we looking at a 2-3 year delay? Is this a big deal?