REMOTE

benefits of remote work

fight the commute: 1 hour/day * 20 days/month * 12 months = 6 weeks / year just on your commute
save money: employers (on office space) employees (on commute)
easier to hire and retain: can get right person for the job irrespective of proximity, and if company located in hot job market (SF, NYC) less worry about employee leaving for next big raise
it’s not all or nothing: can have employees work from home in the morning on personal stuff, come in after lunch for collaborative work

false equivalence: Hansson tries to bolster claims that remote is already prevalent by using CPAs or government workers in the EPA as examples, big difference between working remotely from client site vs. your own living room (i.e. client becomes temporary overseer vs. absence of oversite)
control: biggest challenge is psychological; managers have deep-seated attachment to seeing their charges in the office
how to try remote: try for at least 3 months with significant number of employees, can’t pick a single employee and have them become remote guinea pig, remote is a serious cultural shift, need significant sample size
culture: it’s not a ping-pong table or a holiday party but rather how type of work that’s valued and the processes behind how it gets done
tax complications: out of state could potentially lead government to consider your company as having tax presence in state of employee, out of country you’ll need to make sure employees incorporate and can work as contractors
remote = insistent on documentation

“What we’ve learned from GitLab,” Munichiello says, “is that when you have a leadership team that’s as committed to remote-only as they are, and as communicative and transparent as they are, and as insistent on documentation as they are, it can work.”