Originally posted on blog.kevinlamping.com
In the past five years, four times I have made the transition from working in an office to working from...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Silos are so easy to appear when you work in the office. There is no collaboration happening in the office. Usually it is whispering that is happening, and no digital traces left how decisions were maid, and sometimes even the fact that decisions were maid is also kept secret.
Everything changes when company is remote-first with all communication logged, at worst in slack, at best in gitlab issues and special documents/files.
But even in remote companies there are people who prefer to make decisions in audio/video chats and nothing documebted again.
I see fully remote companies not only better for developers, but they improve whole business processes by forcing people to write down all things.
It is too easy to talk and then take your words back. Happened to many times with my bosses and collegues that I am fed up by that already.
I've witnessed this happening too, and indeed is total annoying.
No digital traces to confirm what I did is based on the same person's decision, who's now verbally also wants something contrary to what he or she said.
What I try to do is, after communication verbally, I put that in writing and send to this person to confirm in chat, so that at least I have that on record
And that side must send u a written confirm, this is important
Of course. Readily looking forward to their written response.
Yep, the fact that a company is fully-remote doesn't mean that silos won't appear or decision making will be transparent. It does encourage it though :)
Very nice and thorough article.
IMO, office as we see them today need to be refined a lot. Laptops should be used a lot more often. Rooms, or any space, should have policies on noise/light/temperature/etc. Productivity should not be view as tied to time spend on place.
I use to visit my parent's workplace ~20y ago and not much change from back then.
Yep, I feel that I'd be much more willing to go in to an office if it allowed me the adaptability needed to focus on my work (versus focusing on everything else going on).
As a remote worker myself, totally pumped to see more people able to take advantage of an arrangement I know to be more productive and beneficial to all parties. Great article!
One thing I've noticed though re: introvert/extrovert, it's often not as simple as "introverts are better at remote work".
I totally agree on the processing of external stimuli. I've known many introverts who describe dealing with/processing that at any length as "exhausting".
But when it comes to remote work, I feel like you need to be a communication "extrovert" to some degree. You have to over-communicate, and be extremely comfortable projecting yourself, and being highly visible/available. Some introverts may struggle even with that.
I am considering working half of my week from home or something similar. I do identify with the persona description. It's scary to take the leap. I've not made the jump yet.
I worry about all that extra communication I need to perform just for things to work remotely.
IMHO, starting off part-time working from home is a great idea. It takes time to adjust to the differences, especially in the communication arena (both on your side and your teams side).
I'd start with 2 days at home per week for a month or two and see how it goes!
Thanks, that make sense. I'll keep it in mind.
I currently wanna transition to remote work at my current employment. Doing remote is absolutely possible and I can't think of any delimiting factors that stops from happening.
My only concern now is how to present that option to my employer in a convincing way.
How did your convince your employer to transition to remote?
Thanks
That's a great question and worthy of an entirely separate post (just managing bringing up the subject and the transition).
But in short, I would start with ensuring they're okay with any sort of remote working. That means that they're okay with the occasional "work from home" say when your cable needs repair or that plumber is coming by to fix the sink.
If they're not okay with that, I highly doubt they'll be open to any sort of remote work arrangement.
But chances are they are okay, and that's when you take the step of asking. I'd start the conversation explaining the advantages of remote work for the employer (better productivity for you mainly). Explain how it's much easier for you to get work done from home, due to the lack of distractions.
Then, reassure them on all the ways they'll be able to contact you if needed. I think that's the two main concerns for an employer. Will this affect project work and how will I get in contact/know this person is being productive.
Also, start out at 1 day per week working from home. Do that for a month or so, then start the transition to 2-3 days, then 3-4, then finally if it all works, jump to full-time remote.
Best of luck!
Great post Kevin ! You tackle an oft-overlooked issue which is being inclusive of introverts. You also call out some important things to consider. I recently started working from home more frequently. I have had an office for many years but find myself double-up currently. I get more done by far when at home but confess to having a great setup that allows me to do that.
Awesome write up! Thanks
So how do I go about finding these unicorn remote working jobs?
If you already have an 'in-office' job, you can start by asking to work from home once or twice a week. Do that a few months until people are comfortable with it, then try 2-3 days a week. Again, go for a few months then see if you can do just one day a week in the office.
Heads up though that this is typically where people start raising a fuss about it all. They can handle 2-3 days, but when you're usually not there, they start getting annoyed with it (Through no fault of your own). I could write up an entire post about my experiences in this arena; unfortunately most of it wasn't fun for me.
The other thing to note is that remote work is highly competitive, since the candidate pool is so much larger. You've got to apply to a lot more jobs and deal with a lot more rejection if you want to find a remote job.
In my previous gig this "slow move to remote" was more possible. In my current it's not. So I'm asking less about transitioning to remote from my day job and more about where to find these genuinely remote job listings for a completely new role. Ideas?
try remoteok.io, weworkremotely.com and you can also search the stack overflow job board for remote-only positions.
Keep it healthy Kevin! I share your point of view one hundred %!