Why We Work Remotely?
With the recent wave of "Return to Office" mandates to "boost" productivity, I decided to revisit why we work remotely in the first place.
Based on my observation, the "Return to Office" mandate has less to do with "Productivity" and more to do with commercial real estate. There is nothing wrong with that, but I just wish they would be more honest about it.
Granted, some jobs can't be done remotely. If you work in a lab, you need to be in a lab. If security is paramount, then confining employees in a building may be a reasonable choice. However, if you are a knowledge worker, you can work from home.
It's interesting how, during COVID-19, working from home was the best thing since sliced bread, with companies making record profits and employees hyperproductive, and then suddenly it became a bad thing.
Curious. Very curious - Garrick Ollivander
At YoPrint, Jason and I have worked remotely since 2013. Seeing as Jason is halfway across the world from me, we didn't really have much of a choice. I also had the pleasure of working at Microsoft when everyone had their own office and when we went to the "open office" plan.
I can summarize working in an office in one sentence: A distraction galore. Most of the time, the real work starts when everyone has gone home. Sure, meeting people and talking do wonders to build your social skills, but some of us want to do our job and go home sans distraction.
So why do we love remote work at YoPrint?
Save the Money
No office. No rent. No furniture. No maintenance. No interior decoration. No visitors. No foosball table. No coffee machine. I can go on, but you get the idea. Furthermore, we did have an office for almost a year and no one ended up using it. We had 3 employees then, and no one wanted to brave the traffic.
Headphones are Optional
I hated having to wear noise-cancelling headphones all the time. My ears hurt after a while. While my team at Microsoft is generally quiet with occasional chatter here and there, but being someone who is easily distracted with the slightest sound, it was horrible fit for me. At home, I can work in complete silence or blast music on my speakers. The only time I need headphones if I am on a call or if my wife is home. I can live with that.
Fewer Distractions
Sometimes, I get Slack notifications when I am deep into a problem that I am trying to solve. I can simply ignore the notification and continue working until I reach a good stopping point before seeing what's happening. When you are in the office, you don't have that luxury. Anyone can physically reach you anytime, regardless of your convenience.
Asynchronous By Design
I heard some teams liked to simulate an office environment by having a huddle that anyone could join and leave. Yeah - no thank you. We keep it asynchronous by design. Meetings are usually between 2 or 3 people at most. Everyone who is interested and needs to talk can ping each other and talk when they are free. Right now, we only have one big meeting every Monday, and that too is for the dev team only. 4 of us will quickly meet and go over what we are working on that week. When the Dev Team grows beyond that, I plan to do away with the meeting altogether.
Result Oriented
Being in the office, you can master the art of looking busy and get by months or even years before anyone is wiser. He is always busy; I bet he is doing some really important work.
However, in a remote work environment, that doesn't fly. We don't know when and how anyone works. All we can do is measure their results. Is my engineer producing features of acceptable quality? Did my content writer finish the article she was supposed to work on? Did my customer support guy contact affected users about the recent bug fix?
What about Innovation?
I remember getting into an argument with someone about how meeting in person fosters innovation. You can riff off of each other and come up with something extraordinary. I've been to a lot of meetings at Microsoft and Amazon, and honestly, except for the 2 or 3 people who are involved, the rest of us have always wondered why we are even in this meeting.
It turns out innovation only needs 2 or 3 people. Even at YoPrint, sometimes Jason and I get on a call and just talk about things and throw 100 ideas at each other. Ultimately, unless one of us picks up the idea and runs with it, nothing happens. So yes, we don't meet. Instead, we pitch an idea and make it happen.
You can read my more in-depth take here: https://www.codingrequired.com/post/innovations-dont-happen-in-meetings
Conclusion
Our team has grown to 8 members now and we are still happily working remotely. Everyone is enjoying the flex hours, choosing to work when is optimal for them, and producing their best work. However, it's also true that most of them never met each other in person. It's time to start planning annual items so everyone can see the person behind the avatar!
PS: We never turn on our Webcam when we do video calls.