
We're ditching the office completely - open-source-ux
https://open.buffer.com/no-office/
======
fredleblanc
I guess I'm the flip-side of this. I work for myself, self-employed, and my
office is the best $360 I spend each month. I need separation of space. My 15
minute walk ("commute") adds to the separation of work from home.

The other thing is that there are two small children running around my house.
I simply can't work there, or else I'd never get anything done. Our house
isn't large enough to have a separate, dedicated office-space. I'd be
constantly interrupted.

I like the concept of remote working, even in a shared environment, but if I
were working at that company and I no longer had a free place to go do work,
I'd be looking for another gig.

~~~
jpindar
You have small children running around the house, so you'd never get anything
done there because you'd be constantly interrupted.

I have childish coworkers running around the office, so I can barely get any
work done there and I am constantly interrupted.

~~~
swalsh
Work from home, son shoots you with nerf gun, work from office, brogrammer
shoots you with nerf gun....

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I've been in this exact situation. Fortunately I found another place to work
in the same building that contained our office and I was super productive. I
feel like the "no fun employee" but when you get shot 20 times a day from all
the nerf Wars that break out I don't understand how anyone gets shit done.
Ultimately they probably just don't (at least if it is as frequent as I ran
into).

~~~
harmegido
Wait, those seriously happen? I thought examples of that were just satire. I
guess there are some upsides to working in finance. That would never happen
there lol.

~~~
NickNameNick
It used to happen in my office, but it was usually a friday evening thing, or
in one of those awkward gaps after meetings, but before lunch, and everyone
was distracted anyway.

------
p4wnc6
The answer is really simple, and has been well-known at least since the time
of the book Peopleware and the studies it cited.

Provide a _real_ office environment for _every_ knowledge worker.

You know ... a door that shuts ... a window ... space to allow your gaze to
adjust.

Things that are ... human.

It's really simple.

And before you say it costs too much, it doesn't. The problem is that you're
in denial about how much your current offices with open floor plans are
costing you. You merely _think_ the cost is equal to the rent. It's much
greater than the rent, though, because of lowered productivity, lowered
morale, increased superficiality of important inter-worker communication,
incessant interruptions disrupting developer flow, more sick time, etc. etc.

If you didn't pretend like those aren't affecting you, and you actually
counted their cost, you'd see that the extra cost in real estate for offices
is well worth it even in short-term scenarios like 1-year where you're using
your start-up runway to pay for it.

Even in San Francisco. Even in Manhattan.

~~~
usaphp
I don't know but for me working in an open office is a positive experience, I
feel joy talking to coworkers from time to time, sitting in a separate room is
quite depressing and might drop the productivity for some people even further
then time you lose chatting with coworkers

~~~
p4wnc6
It's totally possible for people who are more extroverted to find an
interactive setting more pleasant. You could round up all such folks and let
them sit together, since they get energy from that.

But clearly for the people with more introverted working styles it won't work.

So let people pick. Want to sit in the communal workspace? OK, do so. Want
your own office? OK done.

From time to time you'll need to intermix. Sometimes a social butterfly needs
to tune out the distractions. Provide a place for it. Sometimes a hermit crab
needs to sit with the team for 1/2 day and pair program. As Picard says, make
it so.

This is not rocket science. The important part is that company management has
to recognize that getting this right is one of the most important financial
investments they will make. Instead of seeing space as a cost sink ...
something to be standardized, minimized, and papered over with free lunch and
dumbass "team building" shit, they need to recognize that of all the places to
spend money, spending it on compensation for rewarding hard working employees
is number one, and spending it on creating a humanity-affirming physical work
environment is number 2. In visibly healthy companies, everything else hinges
massively on those two things. Companies that have been so distorted away from
humanity that they grind out success (generally for senior level people only)
despite humanity-disaffirming workplaces ought to be seen as the frightening
panopticons they are.

~~~
gfodor
easier to opt-out of an open office via headphones than opt-in to a
collaborative one by relocating your desk. i think this is the root of why
open plans make sense.

~~~
p4wnc6
Except that all of the studies suggest the headphones / earplugs option
doesn't help very much. Most of the damage is done because of lack of
_privacy_ and noise is a secondary (though still large) effect.

The headphone solution is also insensitive to people with extreme aversions to
distracting sounds, such as sufferers of misophonia. In a lot of cases, if you
are embedded in an open plan, there is no such thing as "opting out." It's a
fixed decision mandated upon you.

------
jasode
_> Which environment do you prefer, and why?_

I don't believe this question is interesting because I think we know that most
HN readers will prefer remote working instead offices. It doesn't matter
whether it's semi-private cubicles or noisy open floor plans. Offices suck.
Commuting sucks too. Probably 95+% would prefer remote work if they could get
it.

 _> Do you think we should have kept our office or closed it?_

The _more interesting question & answer_ is how the 100% remote strategy helps
your business. Yes, you save $86k/yr in office rent. However, does the remote
arrangement boost your employees' productivity so much that it helps Buffer
beat other competitors (Hootsuite, Sprout, etc.)? Is the remote productivity
enabling the ability of engineers to add features at a faster rate that you
noticed subscriptions going way up? Etc.

That's the _business_ calculus that's more interesting to discuss. To be fair,
it looks like author Courtney Seiter's background is writing/marketing and not
business/engineering so it's understandable if she doesn't emphasize this
angle. Also, the blog post is only 4 months old so they don't have a year's
worth of financial performance to evaluate its effectiveness.

~~~
nstart
Well, even though the post is 4 months old, we've had remote employees from
Beijing to SF for a while now. The economics of productivity is a super
interesting question. And to share my thoughts on that, we have a company that
basically never sleeps. At any given time there are a group of people working
on stuff there. We have paid for tools that help us communicate in a manner
where on a project, I can pick up where someone else left off. Whether we've
beaten our competitors is a question I admit I Dont know the answer to. And
I'm not sure if owning the entire space is something we want to do either. One
of our bigger guiding principles is, do we have a solid product that people
love using and are they happy with the support they get. On this front we know
that the answer is yes. We always want to continue improving but we also are
very happy with what we've created and done today :)

------
neya
I used to work from my bedroom, in my old home a few years ago. Initially, it
felt like the best thing to do. But, as time passed, there were committment
issues and potential distractions. Some of them included stuff like answering
the door, unwanted guests (and friends) and because it was my bedroom, I just
slept more often (no more tiresome 48 hour hackathons).

Then, as time passed, I realized, the distinction between your workplace and
your leisure space is an important one. Later, I rented out a moderately
expensive serviced office space by one of the local providers and it had
served me well. Even the people around you can perceive this distinction and
respect your boundaries if you work in an office-like atmosphere that can be
perceived.

To be clear, it's not wrong to work from home. IF you have a separate room for
your work and you treat it like an office room, it's actually the best way to
go (convenience and savings). But if you were in a situation like me where you
had to choose between the bedroom and a leased office space, go for the latter
and it will definitely add an improvement to your quality of professional
life.

~~~
ghaff
I have a very nice custom-designed office at home with big monitors, keyboard
tray, Aeron chair, etc. I used to use that as my workplace when I worked from
home (which was most of the time when I wasn't traveling.) But, for whatever
reason, I've found myself gravitating to just working on my laptop in various
rooms in my house. The variety works for me. (I can work outside in the summer
but usually don't because of glare, etc.)

In general, I think I needed the discipline of dressing as for the office and
working in my dedicated office for a time but feel less need for the structure
today.

~~~
jakebellacera
I agree. Working from home will test your discipline, and I personally cannot
work in pajamas and blur the lines between my personal life and my work
(though it's convenient to have the option if needed).

Like you, I need to have some variety. Working from home can get extremely
boring, and I never really thought that I needed a bunch of social interaction
until I began working from home. I really enjoy doing it (been going strong
for about 3 years now), but I can't just sit at my desk all day either. I like
to get out, go to coffee shops, friends houses, co-working spaces, and even
the office about 2-3 days a week.

I personally see working from home not as I'm literally working from home, but
that I'm not tethered to my desk in the office. As long as I have an internet
connection, I can work from anywhere. It's really nice.

------
jpkeisala
It's nice to read comments here as people are writing they like to work in the
office. I also do like it. I am self-employed and in the longer run it is so
boring to be alone at home when there is nobody to talk to. Funnily, when I
was fulltime I dreamed to work from home.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Fellow self-employed here, currently sitting in the office of one of my
clients (as I do 2-3 days per week) despite them being more than happy for me
to work from home. The fact that it's a small office with 4 other people (and
they're great people) and a 20 minute commute through the countryside probably
helps a lot, but I much prefer this setup than sitting all alone in my small
home office all day.

------
ris
I can't imagine anything lonelier.

~~~
NeutronBoy
I was beginning to think I was the only technology worker who likes being in
the office!

I have the option of working from the office or from home, at least 2-3 days
per week depending on what I have on. I much prefer working from the office. I
enjoy hanging out and talking shit (and working) with my colleagues/friends,
grabbing coffee, lunch somewhere nice, and when I leave at the end of the day
I can flip from 'work mode' to 'home mode'.

~~~
rokhayakebe
_at the end of the day I can flip from 'work mode' to 'home mode'._

This is by far the most important decision criterion: the psychological cost.

------
otakucode
Why do we have offices to begin with? Because they provided value. Past tense.
Sure they were always expensive, but without bringing people together
physically, it was nearly impossible to accomplish anything. Humans have a
difficulty, rooted in the fundamental structure of our brains, to hold both
the benefits and the costs of a situation in mind at the same time. Once we
determine that something provides greater benefit than cost, the costs just
disappear. It's a pragmatic shortcut, but it falls flat when the underlying
assumptions change.

The underlying assumptions have changed. The myriad costs associated with
offices are no longer outweighed by the benefits they provide. That's
partially due to the development of technology, and partially due to other
changes, such as the adoption of productivity-poisoning 'open plan' offices.
Our whole setup of how we work is based on manufacturing, and it hasn't been
adapted to the very different work being done now. Even though technology has
made individual workers so productive that the company can survive an open
plan office and still not be able to provide most workers with enough to do to
fill 40 hours a week, we still force them to have their butt in a chair for
those 40 hours - more often more than that, the majority of which is done
solely for appearances sake.

~~~
USNetizen
They still provide value, but in different ways. There are still things that
can be accomplished far more effectively in an office than remotely. However,
there are things that can also be achieved better remotely than in an office.

There are many factors at play here, and a mix of this must be made by each
company to suit its industry and personnel.

------
nstart
Hi all, I'm currently with buffer in the bootcamp period. I've loved every
moment of it. Agree with a lot of the sentiments here, especially the
separation of personal and professional lives. Working with the buffer team
has allowed me to pick where I work from each day. Some days it's a coffee
shop, a lot of days it's a tiny co working space I've found. Sometimes that
space gets a little noisy, so I move over to my friend's office. I've got
about another 4 places that have open invitations for me to drop in and work
from there. So overall, pretty awesome. Would love to answer any questions too
:)

------
rtl49
A startup with little brand recognition posts a blog entry concerning a topic
of general interest to a demographic whose attention it seeks. A predictable
discussion emerges with the company as a backdrop. Everyone rejoices that the
topic has been broached, because they have well-informed, unique opinions to
offer on the subject. Brand recognition is achieved, and because of the
photographs of smiling, laid-back young people contained in the blog entry,
the impression on the target demographic is a positive one. Everyone forgets
it happened, and the cycle repeats again next week.

~~~
brainflake
Do you really think Buffer has little brand recognition? That's very
surprising that anyone here would think that.

~~~
rtl49
I don't know. I've never heard of it and I read HN daily. Maybe it's because
startups don't interest me. Either way, I just think it's funny how these
topics, which people clearly want to discuss regardless of what the Buffers of
the world are doing, always have to be centered on a company's PR.

~~~
0xffff2
For what it's worth, you're not the only one. I read HN for technology
oriented news and interesting articles and because I live in Silicon Valley
part of the year. I've never worked for a startup and probably never will and
I've never heard of Buffer.

------
EwanG
OK, reading through all this, I'm wondering if there isn't a compromise
approach needed. For myself, I go in each morning for a couple hours. If there
are no meetings that require my physical presence, then I drive home, and work
the rest of the day from there. Sometimes that means home at 10am, others
closer to 3pm, and occasionally 6pm. But it means I am available to comingle
when it makes sense, available to be run into for at least a couple hours a
day, and almost always home before traffic gets bad. It also means I don't
mind working past 5 most days as if I was in the office I wouldn't get home
until then due to the traffic. Maybe this kind of half and half approach would
be ideal for others?

~~~
disantlor
This is my ideal as well and over time I've been somewhat able to implement in
practice. I much prefer the lack of distractions etc, vs. the open office at
work but I also must begrudgingly admit that there are many times (especially
in the mornings for whatever reason) where I overhear things and address
problems much more quickly as a result.

------
elcapitan
That sqwiggle tool they use (described here [https://open.buffer.com/remote-
working-means-tools-use/](https://open.buffer.com/remote-working-means-tools-
use/)) sounds pretty creepy. A software taking a pic of my face every few
seconds and broadcasting it is almost as annoying as having someone in your
back all the time, I think.

~~~
palimpsests
absolutely. it's horrifying... the cheery PR around all of this is what I'm
finding to be the most disturbing

------
USNetizen
Having worked remotely for over 6 years and then having run my own company, I
can easily say that there are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches -
office and fully remote. It really depends on the industry and the team.

I have found that offices do tend to improve communication through instant
access to people and feedback, whereas remote work sometimes requires
incessant scheduling of meetings. Instant messaging and such can help, but it
is not as immediate nor is it a replacement for face time. However, working
remotely is a great feeling of freedom and control over your personal
environment, which can lead to better _personal_ productivity, provided the
person has enough discipline to ignore distractions (if the office is one's
home).

It is also a personal preference. As a software engineer, I loved remote work
because I could code in peace without distraction. However, some personalities
could never stand this much solitude and prefer the hubbub of a traditional
office, however distracting it could potentially be. I even knew people who
worked remotely that would venture outside and chat at length with neighbors
just to have that feeling of human contact that is sometimes lacking with full
remote work.

That being said, with the industry I work in, my customers expect a
traditional office. So, implementing a mix of remote and office time has
worked best for us. There are some stipulations, however, for remote work we
enforce - such as childcare must be taken care of by someone else (e.g.
school, daycare, spouse, etc.) while working remotely and background noise is
to be minimized so as to treat it as a true professional environment. Nothing
is worse than when you're on a conference call with major clients and hear
crying or barking in the background. And I say this as someone with children
and pets myself.

------
amelius
It seems that they don't have a very good idea of where their employees are
located exactly:
[http://i.imgur.com/XCHQstM.png](http://i.imgur.com/XCHQstM.png)

------
jonesb6
Remote is good for some people and bad for others. At big companies there will
be enough of both groups that going one-sided in either direction will hurt
some people, and ultimately hurt the company (COUGH YHOO). IMO the best
solution is a flexible working environment that can support everybody,
especially in large cities where the commute can be an absolute grind in and
of itself.

------
minimaxir
Note: the article was posted about 4 months ago. (Oct 2015)

One apparent consequence of all-remote working for Buffer is that having all
the employees meet in real life is _incredibly_ expensive and logistically
complex: [https://open.buffer.com/remote-work-
retreats/](https://open.buffer.com/remote-work-retreats/)

~~~
marknutter
No way it's more expensive than paying rent for an office in a trendy city and
commuting to said office.

~~~
minimaxir
That's not what I was implying. I noted the Buffer retreat since that's a
hidden cost of remote work I haven't seen people discuss.

~~~
marknutter
It's a completely optional cost, though, not a hidden cost. Plus it sounds
like they allowed everyone to bring their partners and families, too. _And_ ,
most companies that have physical offices _also_ have corporate retreats or
events, so it's not even really exclusive to companies that work remotely.

~~~
lmm
> most companies that have physical offices also have corporate retreats or
> events

Citation needed. I'd never even heard of a corporate retreat before now.

~~~
sondr3
Valve flies out the entire company with families on vacation once a year.

------
mmaunder
Our team is remote and we're 9 full-timers with a few contractors in the
infosec space and it works incredibly well. I want to add that the main reason
to work remotely isn't really about saving on office rental. We take that cash
and put it back into our employees home work environment and tools like
awesome hardware.

The biggest benefit for us is that our team is able to have a better work-life
balance and keep a high level of productivity. e.g. One of our engineers used
to have a 40 minute commute either way morning and evening. Now he works from
home and can spend more time with his family instead of in his car.

It also lets us hire from all over the World. Our full-timers are all in the
USA and we have people in Ohio, Florida, Maine, Washington and Tennessee. So
it's a really diverse group but we're also very tight knit even though some of
us have never met in person yet. Several in our team work in small towns so
they enjoy a slower pace and more quiet time which (coming from a small town
myself) I think lends itself to solving complex problems.

I'd agree that it's all or nothing with remote teams or you risk alienating
half your workforce.

The best advice I can give any company going remote is to get Slack or an
equivalent like IRC. It does a fine job of replacing the day to day contact
you have with team members. Also twice weekly all-hands calls to sync up are
great - we do voice not video and we go around the room and everyone updates
us on what they're working on. In a way we have a greater sense of what
everyone is doing than some brick and mortar companies I've worked for.

I think for software businesses remote working will be the way everyone works
20 years from now. It'll take a while for larger companies to make the shift
because there is no very large company that does this yet but there will be
and they'll prove the model and the imitators will follow.

It's also way better for the environment.

------
alblue
Tried reading this on my phone, got three paragraphs in and then got slammed
with a full screen advert for buffer.com. I mean, what's the point in
advertising the site that you are already on?

I have no idea what the rest of the post was about but I'm pretty sure that I
never want to deal with buffer.com again.

------
csomar
_we noticed that office space was a not-insignificant element of our overall
expenditures each month—more than we paid for health insurance, or advertising
and marketing._

Office space cost them 2.1% of all of their monthly costs.

This is "not-insignificant"

Am I reading this right? If anything, they are under-paying for their office
space.

~~~
0xffff2
I think they obviously were underpaying compared to their total number of
employees, since they only had one office in San Francisco, and as far as I
can tell they never had more than half of their employees living in SF.

------
draw_down
Here's why: cost!

To be clear, I find it refreshing that they just come out and say it. It seems
obvious to me that when you work remotely, you're paying for the office space,
and any company that believes the savings in pushing the office-space expense
onto the employee outweighs the benefit of holding offices will start moving
in this direction. (Since this particular company pays for coworking space,
they're not pushing the cost to employees. I'm speaking more generally)

Having worked remotely for a substantial portion of my career, I have found
the best for me is a mix of working at home and working from the office.
That's my personal feeling, but still I think there are more downsides to
remote work than many would like to consider.

~~~
rpedela
What are the downsides in your experience?

~~~
draw_down
Mostly around communication. Slack and IMs and video chat are great and all,
but you can move way more information and have it be received much more
clearly in person. There also can be a feeling of isolation, depending on how
teams are structured and how many employees at the company are remote.

Also, there is no "going to the bar after work for a couple beers", which for
many is fine. But still humans require some measure of being physically near
other humans, so you need to be much more proactive about socializing and
seeing friends/family. If you aren't diligent about this you can become kind
of a hermit. If you have young kids this is probably not a big deal, you'd be
too busy anyway.

Plus, like I mentioned before, you're now on the hook for the office space.
Working remotely can lead you to justify paying for more house or apartment
than you otherwise would have, because "well I need an extra room for my
office". The freedom it affords is quite nice, so many would probably be fine
with the extra outlay. But you should be clear about what you're paying for,
and why.

~~~
nstart
Hey there. Those are some awesome points you make and something we definitely
try to be mindful about at buffer. Before I jump into them I'd love to note
something about the parent post which talks about cost being the reason. While
cost was definitely something looked at, I feel like the overall decision was
much greater than that. It was a commitment to being a fully remote team. Like
the post mentions, mixing remote and non remote might not be a great idea
since communication can suddenly happen off the remote channels. And that's
lost information. (That's just one reason :D ) It's perfectly natural for that
to happen and ensuring we all truly embrace remote working was I believe the
true deciding factor for this. Cost was mostly an awesome justification point
to close the case.

So about the disadvantages :).

Having worked in multiple types of non remote places (closed plan, open noisy,
open quiet), my feeling so far is that the information flow has never been
inferior. It's been equal and in many cases better. A lot of this boils down
to the hiring process that buffer has where over a 45 day trial period, we
ensure people can handle this type of work style. A lot of the focus during
this period is communication. Even the parts about isolation. We like to
ensure that people have found their stride in this aspect and they know how to
handle it. So far, I believe it's worked. When I have something immediate to
ask, I jump on slack. When I have something I'd like a more asynchronous
communication to happen around, we use discourse. Our team discovered that we
are more productive by ditching the daily video call in favour of using a
daily updated Dropbox paper. So that's how we've tackled this very valid
concern and so far, it feels like it's working well.

About being diligent about not turning into a hermit, spot on! Many of the
team members take breaks during the middle of the day to shift locations, do a
run, or even pop into a fitness training/yoga session. It's encouraged and it
works well.

About being on the hook for office space, if a co working location works for
you (or sharing office space) buffer even offers to reimburse this (including
additional net connectivity that you might need to get to ensure smooth
communication as you move around).

So yea, all valid concerns and these are how we move around them. Would love
to hear your thoughts on this. It's a lot of work for sure, but we do love it
and we all jump in to make sure everyone has a good time. The company is
extremely supportive and I think that's essential for remote working
environments like this :)

Cheers!

~~~
billpaetzke
Regarding coworking reimbursement, what are the bounds? It's possible that you
could easily go over your prior office expense of 7k/mo.

The average WeWork space is 600-900 USD/month for a single-person office in
NYC and SF. And there is a lot of turnover amongst coworking businesses that
offer space for any cheaper. So, below 600/mo does not seem to be viable, at
least in these two markets.

If you offer to reimburse all employees' coworking leases, at an average of
600-900/mo, then your total office expense would exceed your prior 7k/mo after
about 10 employees.

Automattic, another distributed company, offers a stipend of 250/mo toward
coworking rent. Basecamp (aka 37signals) offers 100/mo. In both cases, these
are certainly better than nothing but are only a fraction of the market rate.

[https://remote.co/company/automattic/](https://remote.co/company/automattic/)

[https://m.signalvnoise.com/employee-benefits-at-
basecamp-d2d...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/employee-benefits-at-
basecamp-d2d46fd06c58#.a642k8k39)

------
eugenekolo2
Am I reading this right that 9 people are making an average of ~222K? _edit:
~290K_

~~~
fweespeech
[https://open.buffer.com/transparent-
salaries/](https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/)

No. It is more than 9 people.

~~~
moron4hire

        Dependents: For every person that depends on your income (kids, husbands, wives,
        significant others, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.) we add an extra $3,000
        per year in salary.
    

That's not kosher. You're not even technically supposed to ask if your
employee has kids or is married.

~~~
morgante
Whoa, I can't believe their lawyers approved that.

Also a good reason I would never work at Buffer (beyond their generally low
pay). My pay shouldn't depend on who I support.

------
wehadfun
Could some one explain why accounting/legal and payroll would be 5K per month
for a company this size? It seems high to me.

------
jsudhams
I wish world realizes this makes this happen.... I think for manufacturing
work and so on it made sense build cities.. now if we make as much as work
from home then the villages and towns will keep its face and continue have
facilities and will grow. Cities wont be over crowded, less traffic etc.. i
think there is value to coming to office and social network and so on but i
also it is based habits so once majority works from home (with video etc..)
then it will become norm... In countries like India we can easily tap top
talent which is actually women(in the schools).

------
bobby_9x
I work for myself and finally got an office after 2 years. It's so much better
than working from my home. Less distractions and I can completely separate
home/work.

When I was working for someone, I hated working from an office because I had
no freedom and the bosses/managers constantly watching me. It was stifling and
I felt like I was in a prison.

It's funny how things change.

------
agentgt
I too like many others work from home and to complicate it I own my company...
so I have very little separation of work and personal life.

But I love it. One of my favorite things is I can play my own damn music as
loud as I want!

And yeah It may not be psychologically ideal but humans are pretty adaptable.
You just have to develop new habits and behavior.

Some of the things I do to help the work/life balance:

* My wife calls me at 4:30-5:00pm everyday to tell me to wrap up my shit or else... this is pretty critical as I can easily get in the zone and the heads up expectations for some reason works.

* I try to walk every day on the days I don't lift weights

* I have a home gym. And despite what people think you don't need a lot of space. There are so many space saving products out there (like quickly collapsable pullup/dip bars, weighted vests etc).

------
xupybd
I'd love to remote work. But I've learned a lot working in the same office as
some very talented developers and managers. I'm not sure I'd get that
remotely.

------
benatkin
I like this concept a lot! I'm not sure whether I would give each employee
money for coworking space, because I think that would make me feel like I need
to choose and commit to a coworking space, since otherwise it would seem that
I'm throwing away the money. It would also make it sound like it's
compensating for not having an office, which I think is a net win for the
people who are going to enjoy working at a company with a remote culture.

~~~
cableshaft
What about if the company gave each person, let's say, $100 or $150 credit
each month towards 'remote work amenities', maybe it has to be approved or
expensed, maybe it rolls over, but it's given a very loose definition for
anything that could be related to making work easier for you.

So people who care about a separate office could put it towards a coworking
space, while others might use it to eat out every day (to get themselves out
of the house), and others might use it towards ergonomic chairs/keyboards/etc
in the home, another uses it to clean their home once a month, another might
use it for a gym membership, essentially whatever is important to the employee
to make them feel more comfortable.

Especially expenses that an employee might not be willing to pay for
themselves if it was just considered straight up extra income.

~~~
benatkin
I like this idea! Also it would be good to pay for external monitors and
keyboards. It would probably be best for them to be owned by the company to
reduce costs, help with upgrades, and save tax. Maybe this would be a good use
of leasing.

------
serge2k
> Not long after we tallied up every penny of what your money is used for when
> you purchase a Buffer subscription, we noticed that office space was a not-
> insignificant element of our overall expenditures each month—more than we
> paid for health insurance, or advertising and marketing.

and here is the real point. We can save money.

I think remote options are a great idea. I also think that forcing workers to
take their work outside the office is a lousy idea.

------
snarfy
I worked from home for a couple years. One thing that made it work was having
a separate work computer with a separate desk. If I'm sitting in that chair at
that desk, I'm at work. If you have family they need to know not to talk to
you when you are at work.

------
Spooky23
What do you do if you have a family? I have small kids. No way I could handle
working from home.

~~~
ivanca
You can create an space/room that family can't enter (at office hours), or if
you want an easier route just work from a coffee shop near you.

~~~
spinningarrow
Is it common in the US for coffee shops to have decent wifi? The wifi at
Starbucks where I live sucks - you have to keep reconnecting every 30 minutes
and even during the 30 minutes it's not very stable.

------
sagivo
the more startups adopt the open-office model, the more people want to work
from anywhere else.

------
kampsduac
I work at a fortune 500. Most of the dev team I am on work in the same office,
but there is zero benefit to going into the office as most customers and
project members are remote. The grey cubicle shreds my sole anyway, I love
working from home.

------
Kiro
I can guarantee that our productivity would drop significantly if everyone at
my office started working remotely. Pretty sure this is a bad idea for most
companies.

~~~
techaddict009
Yeah it varies case to case. Some companies are meant to work together. Some
are meant to work out remotely. And some can work both ways. And Some can work
jointly part from office and part from remote.

------
z3t4
I find it funny that payment fees are double the office rent. And they decide
to close the office.

There are no reason why payments over the Internet has to cost that much!

~~~
morgante
There is if you want to have customers.

Unless you're a niche business, you better accept credit cards.

~~~
z3t4
It's not like credit companies are shipping gold nuggets across the states
when you make an online payment. Money is just an abstract value that exist on
a balance sheet.

There is no reason why we can't have fast, low fee, micro-transactions via the
Internet.

~~~
bbcbasic
Probably due to the cost of managing the operations including dealing with
compliance, fraud, chargebacks, refunds, disputes and suchlike. Also this
whole silly rewards points thing that many of the cards seem to do needs to be
paid for somehow. And that's just the credit card company, not the processing
company taking payment on the internet who will want their cut, and may do
their own fraud/refund/dispute handling too.

------
lazyant
$6k for legal, payroll and accounting? is this normal for a 6 people company?
(I guess it depends on if you retain a legal team)

------
galfarragem
Working in an office is not the real problem. The real problems are the lack
of working hours flexibility and commute time.

------
eva1984
Good, why should we follow? Nahhhh

------
biztos
I have often wondered what I would do about the Office Question if I started a
company, since any company I might start is very likely to be distributed due
to geography (mine and my network's both). Usually I end up with the idea that
everyone would work from "home," and would be encouraged to use co-working
(company-paid) if they wished; and I might maintain a minimal "HQ" assuming it
was more than just me at that location; and I'd build in regular face-to-face
team meetings into the business plan, say at least every quarter.

The only problem is, I'm not sure I'd want to work that way myself if I were
an employee. I think I'd want an office: preferably one to myself.

I currently work from home, and have previously rented office spaces (both
shared and not) at my own expense; and at various times I've worked in the HQ,
branch offices, and various combinations of all these things, for a few
different tech-related companies.

I would probably rent another dedicated office right now, but my rental
apartment has a guest room so it seems decadent. But I'm still tempted, and
check the listings every couple of weeks.

I would say that for me, working in software development and also doing
"creative" work, having a separate space easily made up in peace of mind and
_probably_ in productivity what it cost in money. (In a high-rent zone like
San Francisco that probably wouldn't hold.) But I found a coworking space too
annoying, and probably would not go back to that if I could avoid it.

I found the big advantages to a rented space were, in order:

1\. Freedom from distractions (usually; neighbors make noise too). 2\. Work-
only nature of the space, i.e. you go there _only_ to work. 3\. Ability to set
it up as I like (decoration, layout, etc.). 4\. Got my butt out of the house
and out amongst the humans more often. 5\. Your feelings about Home don't get
so mixed up with your feelings about Work. 6\. You can still opt to work from
home when you really feel like it.

Disadvantages vs home office:

1\. "Shared resources" (kitchen, bathroom, etc.) might not live up to your
normal standards of utility or hygiene. 2\. Neighbors pay rent too, and are
thus unlikely to change their habits at your request. 3\. Expense (though this
is very location-dependent). 4\. Commute, while probably a good thing overall,
eats time. 5\. Your landlord, like most landlords, may suck.

None of this in any way contradicts the idea of going all-in on remote teams,
but it does raise a question: if you're doing it for the competitive advantage
of high productivity, might it be better to spend _more_ on offices that are
_themselves_ distributed?

(FWIW: Married, no kids, and neither one of us works a 9-5 schedule.)

~~~
ghaff
I'd just add that I've worked semi-remote for a good decade--in that I've
nominally had an office but between travel and working remotely I've been in
the office well under half the time. I don't really have any complaints. I
live by myself and have a good office setup--though I mostly use my laptop in
various rooms these days.

Having said that, and appreciating that both norms and technology
infrastructure are much different than they were when I started in the
industry, it's really difficult for me to imagine starting out of school as a
remote employee. I think I would have found it enormously isolating and
difficult.

------
sebringj
Why are people in their own cubicles video conferencing and chatting to others
in the same office? Because its convenient and saves time, you on-site
proponent hypocrites.

If cost isn't the significant factor to being remote then time and convenience
sure is. I have two or three extra hours of productivity not driving into the
office (no round trip), settling into a cubicle, chit chatting, picking where
to go to lunch and of course avoiding tension headaches and sleepiness from
sitting in traffic. I also have time to work out that I didn't before. I'm
more balanced in my life. I'm 10 years and going strong remote as a
programmer/consultant with tons of energy and free time to do what I want
while being highly paid. My wife is at home with me along with my kids and the
most driving we do is your typical errands. Cost for me is much lower as we
only need one car and I can write off office space in my house.

I have a hypothesis about these studies showing that onsite is better aside
from being the business culture propaganda it is: People are generally social
creatures and find communication most effective in presence as it strengthens
learning via increased dopamine response (reward system), however, the
outliers in the bell curve don't need this type of stimulation, in fact it may
make them less effective.

Several remote workers I've met over the years along with myself simply don't
need that and find video, chat, docs and email more effective in communicating
over in-person meetings on whiteboards. As a programmer, I care more about the
idea being presented or discussed than the people themselves. I find I
personally work much more effectively in my own space and I know the remote
teams I've worked with find a similar experience. This is probably the outlier
which is why these studies find it more effective to the contrary. It depends
on the type of person and that type of person not needing social feedback in-
person is more rare. I would say I receive less dopamine overall or find the
in-person experience less pleasant because of all the extra overhead (time)
needed just to start the day. I simply hate inefficiency and see having to go
in as very annoying, it reduces the social benefit to being pointless in my
case.

Don't get me wrong, I seem very far from a nerd in person and am very
successful socially in general with men and women. I'm the type of guy that
tells jokes and has the zinger comebacks always on the tip of my tongue, can
get everyone laughing and can communicate very well. The thing is I don't even
miss any of this as I can do this on video anyway daily. It is a choice for me
to come to the office or not and I simply don't choose to 99% of the time.

I am even thinking the bell curve outliers are starting to move toward the
center as older people die off and technology becomes more "real".

------
seany
Awesome. I really wish more companies did this.

------
anjc
Um, I feel like this will have repercussions in terms of staff churn rate.
Office spaces are one of the definers of culture, and culture is one of the
main motivators for staff. I'm certain that remote working suits many people,
but I doubt that it will allow a sense of 'loyalty' to arise in the worker.

~~~
p4wnc6
I can't tell if this is satire or not. Office "cultures" that involve inane
things like alcoholic drinks, free boutique meals, or dog-friendliness have
absolutely nothing to do with getting work done. They are things you have to
roll your eyes about and put up with. You can't openly explain how
unproductive it is, or you'll be labeled as "not a good culture fit" even if
you're great at your job and get along with everyone.

So instead, you have to let your frustrations silently brew under the surface,
always wishing your company cared more about employees and gave them
adequately quiet and private space to get work done, or gave everyone a raise
instead of spending the money on video games, gourmet coffee, etc.

Many engineers, especially experienced ones, are fully aware that all of these
fringe "culture benefits" are just utter bullshit, and that they exist to try
to hoodwink younger engineers into accepting worthless equity, criminally
insane working environments, and exasperating, oppressive work culture that
doesn't really permit good work life balance.

They aren't fooled or enticed by them. They simply have to put up with them
because it's what _everyone_ is doing. And they have to act like yes-men when
people ask if you like the new foosball table or that killer company party.
And HR thinks it's really working.

Your employees can't really afford recreation or adequate living space or
decent meals based on what they are paid, so instead bring the recreation to
work, bring the meals to work, and just have people stay at work all the time.

We're aware of this, and unfortunately until people start telling shitty
companies 'no' and insisting on being treated better (or software unionizes)
it's not going to improve, and everyone's going to continue having insane
shitty working conditions, but paper over it with all smiles about how cool
Whisky Thursday is or whatever other bullshit none of us actually care about
at all.

~~~
jholman
_You_ don't appreciate office cultures involving alcohol or dog-friendliness,
and _you_ roll your eyes and put up with them. Some people _do_ value those
things, and they also value having coworkers who value those things, which
isn't a surprise because most humans value community (though of course
different humans have different ideas about what constitutes community). So
when you flat-out lie to your coworkers about your feelings, you're
undermining the social fabric, for your pecuniary gain (e.g. because you don't
want to be correctly labelled a "bad culture fit", because you like the
salary). That deceit is straight-up unethical.

It's also disrespectful to assume that your coworkers don't know what's
actually valuable to them. Some people prefer an extra $5k in salary, some
people prefer $4k of free meals. Or $6k of free meals that costs the company
$3k because of scale. Or whatever. Some people are investing in their long-
term growth by deeply immersing themselves in their careers (and perhaps
working non-long-term-sustainable hours), and if the company provide some
cheap bennies that make that easier to do, so much the better. Yes, the
company profits, and no the employee isn't maximizing short-term earnings, but
maybe it's still win-win.

If employees _really_ can't afford recreating or adequate living space, then
of course that's a problem. I'm skeptical that's a real problem in software,
though. And if that problem does exist, btw, then I think the best solution is
those employees going and finding careers/lifestyles that fit better.

I want to add that I found this comment particularly startling because most of
the comments I most agreed with on this page were also by you, p4wnc6.

~~~
sheepmullet
> You don't appreciate office cultures involving alcohol or dog-friendliness,
> and you roll your eyes and put up with them.

I think the OP is complaining about this "culture" being used as a weapon to
trick, mislead, and bully people.

> So when you flat-out lie to your coworkers about your feelings, you're
> undermining the social fabric, for your pecuniary gain

Any company that forces you to lie about your personal non-work related
opinions in order to keep your job is incredibly toxic.

> It's also disrespectful to assume that your coworkers don't know what's
> actually valuable to them.

The problem is non-monetary benefits are misleadingly marketed to prospective
employees and are thus very hard to evaluate.

For example I've worked at companies that provide free dinner to employees. In
reality if you took advantage of these "free" dinners you were expected to
work late.

Likewise I've worked at a couple of places that advertise unlimited vacation
days. At all of my previous jobs in tech I have had 4-5 weeks vacation per
year. So naturally I'm assuming that unlimited is at least as good. In other
words taking 5 weeks off over the year shouldn't be a problem at all. Bzzzzt!
Wrong.

Likewise many companies say they offer great career progression and training
and very few deliver.

It is false advertising. Plain and simple.

Actual free dinner is easily worth $5k/year to me. The ability to take extra
vacation days here and there when I feel I need a break is easily worth
$10k/year to me. A serious focus on career progression and a focus on training
is worth another $10k/year to me.

Naive sheepmullet used to get tricked into giving up $15k in salary thinking
he was going to get $25k in benefits (that only cost the company $5k) and
everybody would win.

Jaded sheepmullet realises there is a huge asterisk next to most of these
benefits and refuses to compromise on salary unless the benefits are written
into his contract.

For example I'd love to take a lower salary for a job that offered serious
training and skills development. Lets write into my contract that you will
provide me 20 days off work for self-study + 100 hours of 1 on 1 mentoring by
my manager + a conference budget + a 10% pay increase at the end of each year.

------
steveoc64
Having a look at the company in question, and the products that they produce.
I only got as far as the "Diversity Dashboard" to realize that this
organization doesnt actually produce anything.

If you don't produce anything real, then you probably don't need any space to
do it in.

Meanwhile, the ranks of the unemployed, the hungry, the homeless, and the
disenfranchised continue to grow, as any useful capital that remains in
circulation is eaten up by these parasitic sectors of the economy.

Im sure that the country has a bright future ahead, where everyone can make a
meaningful contribution - such as serving hot dogs and coffee with a smile, or
just helping everybody else establish an impressive social media profile.

The rest of the world will be so grateful that they will continue to purchase
our debts, extend additional lines of credit, and provide all the manufactured
products, food, and energy that we need (but can no longer produce)

