

Why IT companies don't hire remote programmers? - mrsheen

From company&#x27;s point of view I can&#x27;t think of any advantages of forcing programmers come to office every day. Why is this style of working so unpopular between employers?<p>Here is a short list of advantages:<p>Meetings, brainstorms can be done remotely - and very often are. Many companie already work remotely.<p>There are less distractions when you work from home.<p>Your boss knows _exactly_ what you achieved by looking at your commits.<p>Contrary to common belief, knowledge and new ideas spread quicker in a team. Think of common chat window vs water tank herding.<p>Some companies say that remote jobs are threat to their security. In 99% of cases this is not true (VPN anyone?)<p>Some people say that meeting in person every day on a lunch is very important. I am saying, bitch please, I won&#x27;t do my job any better if I have pizza with you on a regular basis.<p>Some bosses _need_ to see you in the office otherwise they feel uneasy and lose sense of control over a team. This is both funny and sad..
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CyberFonic
PHBs need to assert their control. If you are not there then they feel
somewhat lost. Believe it or not, their bragging amongst other managers is
firstly about how many direct reports they have.

If you get a bunch extroverts onto a team, they want to have meetings, pizza
lunches, etc. All that activity makes them feel productive.

On the other hand, if you have introverts working remotely they can get on
with the task at hand. Bring them together once a month for a day and it will
form the social bonds that work well when they're back to interacting over the
internet - the exact tools is a question of preferences.

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tkimmel
Remote can be great, but it does kind of seem like it requires somewhat better
(and more technical) management than having everyone on-site.

If a bunch of programmers are in the office, it's a lot easier to see them at
a desk and sort of say, "yeah looks like they're working..." With remote
developers, whoever is in charge of their productivity needs to be technical
enough to eyeball what's getting done, know that it feels like about the right
amount of work (or not), and be confident in their appraisal of the team's
productivity.

I think oftentimes remote teams can be much more productive, but requires
either a more political technical technical lead or a more technical PM to
really work.

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solomatov
Completely remote work usually has overhead. First, time zone differences
really hurt work.

>Meetings, brainstorms can be done remotely - and very often are. Many
companie already work remotely.

Meetings over internet work worse than in person. Also, I don't know any
decent low cost software for this. Skype works well with sound, but video is
far from ideal. The same with google hangouts.

Personally, I work from home 3 days/week and 2 days/week in the office. We
have team members in other location with a large time difference of about 8
hours and this complicates things a lot.

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eip
I have been working remote for most of the last ten years. It's great. I am
more productive and happier.

I have separate rates for remote and onsite work so it's clear to employers
that if they want to waste my time and energy it costs extra.

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halfcat
_> From company's point of view I can't think of any advantages of forcing
programmers come to office every day. Why is this style of working so
unpopular between employers?_

I have seen companies on both sides, where remote work is successful and where
it fails, and where it is successful, it is built into the business model,
starting from the hiring process, to select individuals who are technically
competent, and who also have demonstrated the ability to work independently.
This severely limits the number of people that qualify, and limits the
company's ability to grow aggressively. Some companies do not have the option
of slow-and-steady growth, due to investor involvement. Most others are going
to prefer reasonably aggressive growth (more money), and that means foregoing
remote work in favor of hiring workers who are more easily replaceable. If a
company can hire from the pool of workers who are technically competent, but
who need a little oversight to stay productive, and that process works to
produce the output needed, then that is much easier to achieve than having a
long and expensive hiring process where the company delays growth while
waiting for the perfect new hire.

 _> There are less distractions when you work from home._

For a lot of people, this is not true. Where it is true, it's still difficult
to justify a remote work policy. Distractions can come from a significant
other, kids, pets, roommates, a TV, or internet access. If you are single with
no kids or pets and live alone, it's true you at least have control over most
of your distractions. In situations where the quantity of distractions is
fewer, there are still distractions that the employer has no way of detecting
and managing. Suppose your coworker chooses to watch TV while he works, which
leads him to write code with more bugs. He still hits the number of commits
(or whatever metric), but his reduced productivity is difficult to detect and
correct. What if you are unusually disciplined, and your estimate of other
people's discipline is wrong by a significant margin? In that case, everyone
working from home could be a huge hit to productivity. The employer can't have
a policy of, "All single employees without kids, pets, or roommates, and who
are also very disciplined, may work from home." As someone who does work from
home 2-3 days per week, and who also has a spouse, a kid, 2 dogs, TV, and
internet, I find that there are a lot of days when I'm working from home that
I would have gotten significantly more done at our office.

 _> Some bosses _need_ to see you in the office otherwise they feel uneasy and
lose sense of control over a team. This is both funny and sad.._

This is probably not the man keeping you down, or a twisted need for control,
or whatever. This probably has much more to do with the chosen business model,
and the fact that most employees are not going to be a good fit for remote
work. While you may be the ideal case, that is definitely not the norm. The
company has to set policies based on all employees, and unfortunately that
means the weakest link wins.

