I’ve been working remotely for five companies over the last 10 years. Because its popularity has declined again, I want to shed some light on how I think it should be done. It’s not all sugar but it’s not that bitter either. Shall we?

Let’s quickly point out that I am a software engineer and that is my perspective. I work for others on stuff that interests me for any reason, depending on a project. These observations are of my own and do not state any obligations nor requirements imposed by other parties. Now, on the topic:

What is Remote Work?

It’s an alternative to going to a physical workplace, made for employers to perform some tasks. The alternative has a potential to much more than just staying home. It is not reserved to those who work with computers but I have only experience in exactly that, thus let’s focus on working with computers at home.

There are usually 2 sides of perspective: the employee and the employer. Sometimes there’s more interested entities when we count employees’ clients but let’s just assume that’s a concern that goes too far between managers who seem untrustworthy or are not trusting. A completely different topic so let’s focus on 2 core perspectives: those who order and the one who delivers.

The Ordering Party and The Delivery. Let’s compare these perspectives.

Async Remote as a product

Let’s promote remote cooperation a little bit first. For both sides. Let’s go! (imagine light commercial music playing in the background)

Ordering party

You can acquire workforce beyond geographical limits, due to either costs or missing skill sets in you area. Not wanting to spend money on offices, managing real estate assets, cleaning desks, A/Cs, toilets, caring about parking lots and showers for bikers, and so on? Tired of relocating people who aren’t actually fit for the job? This is for you! Find the talent you need at a lower cost. Present yourself as company open to fully remote work, showing that you give a credit for trust, potentially being trustworthy in return.

Delivery party

Hoping for a place where you don’t need to smell others, challenge productivity with too cold or too hot space, commute during in crazy busy hours? Think about how healthy you can become when you work in hours preferred by you instead someone else!

Take control now: nap on your own couch, prepare food your body needs, replace car/bus commute with healthy refreshing walks, and don’t worry about distracting office noises anymore!

(music stops)

Who needs this?

OK, but who actually needs this? I mean it - not wanting, but needing.

Ordering party

The Ordering party should be obvious, it’s mostly about cost versus trust. If you can consider a different way of thinking about who you work with, i.e. not monkeys, then the trust issue is almost solved. Then you can save money but that should not be a top priority. What you might really need is a right skill set. Quality products come from quality work.

Delivery party

For the Delivery party it’s much less obvious. Everybody is different and since the Delivery party in this discussion is one person, and not a group (as for the Ordering party), the perspective is not averaged but rather more direct and specific.

Some examples of needs include:

• prefer organizing work schedule on your own rather than “office hours”
• the working space that exactly matches the needs: 4 screens? Fancy chair? Standing desk? It’s your choice!
• a need for quiet uncontrolled space, easy to nap anytime. Some bodies simply need that.
• ability for movement. Not seeing the same 4 walls all the time. Coffee shops? Hiking mixed with work in the weekend? Why not?
• caring for some people, e.g. family who is close but regularly needs small help in the middle of the day
• people who like fresh air, e.g. can’t stand individuals who smoke and stink in the office
• being close to the nature. In the big cities, like L.A., a park is just not enough. Some get the efficience from suburbs or even less crowded environments.
• people with pets. Some may say “do not get a pet in the first place” but that is simply cynical. It’s like saying “do not get mother in the first place”. Some poeple decide this being grown ups, some don’t. Sometimes they inherit. Treat any life the way you’d want it to treat you.
• safe environment. Life happens, some people have traumas or other difficulties. Sometimes even commute is scary to some.

And last but not least: no pat on your shoulder from manager when you’re hyper focused while debugging the code.

Any benefits for The Ordering party?

The personal needs of The Delivery party, when matched, figure as investment.

A happy person is a person who may stay there longer for you. If you like rotation instead, yeah, tell them to come to the office, limit the amount of screens they have, and don’t clean A/C ever. We’ve seen this over and over for years.

• “Why did you left that company?”
• “Well, coworkers were not that skilled, but the worst of all was the office itself - and my manager patting me on my shoulder when I least expected it. It’s scary.”

You can’t fix people, ever. But you can fix the environment. Once the latter piece is good, you have a leverage over other companies.

The grand perspective is to not get your employees caught in burnout.

How to do it?

The Ordering party

First of all, a chat application is what you need. No emails, no Teams, sorry, those is garbage. People need to talk in groups (channels), not just DM. And without making non-editable titles of threads.

Now, the “Async remote” is the keyword. Asynchronous environment means you document things, make all the discussion results accessible by anyone at anytime, and you let people decide when they work. No core hours are needed. Those are for people who can’t organize their work and need external motivation. Think of all parties agreement on meeting times instead! When people prepare for meetings, they don’t spend the juice on just showing up and not really listening in the background. They show up because there is something to talk about.

You could set up a rule of response window to 24 hours. It’s especially useful when you don’t know where somebody is. People might move in a day and it’s their choice and their business when and where they are, including changing continents.

Require good microphones. Really, some people think they sound good because they own anything from Apple. Wrong. Earbuds are not for talking but for listening. We do not need anything more expensive than about 50-70 euro/USD. Use some software for noise cancellation, e.g. Discord has a pretty good one built-in. Simply ensure everybody is a breeze to understand when they talk on voice channel.

Be open to less hours of work. I find it silly when people say so much yes to hiring me but completely no because 40 hours requirement feel much more crucial to them than 32 hours of honest and good work. Then I say no, and they get 0 hours. Is that a really good strategy? Everyone slacks on Fridays anyway, be honest!

Lastly, spend time designing your recruitment process. Tests, questions and talks topics. Don’t cut people’s answers because time window is 1 hour. Do you want somebody who convinces you right away? Are you looking for an engineer or a seller who can make you buy the pen you don’t need?

The Delivery party

Have a separate room for work, especially if you don’t live alone. For most, it’s best to not associate work with sleeping room or sofa. You need cozy and healthy space. Fresh air. Invest in A/C for hot days if those happen in your area. You need motivational pictures on your wall? Good speakers for the music that keeps you going? Go for it, no one can stop you! Whiteboard for design thinking? Sure, don’t sit all day.

Really think about ergonomics. You don’t need a very expensive chair but a comfortable for you, not for your favorite YouTuber who has a different back. Standing desk, grounding matt, walking pad? Why not? Have a separate keyboard, mouse, and screens when working on a laptop. Laptops are absolutely not designed for long use, these are designed for portability only!

If you want to present yourself as a more trustworthy person, just turn on your camera often. Don’t say you have bad hair day. You always have. However, don’t jump on another extreme. Look OK. Try to keep the background at least somewhat clean (I mean, no dirt etc.) Be natural on your camera. Nobody worries how do you exactly look like or what mimic expressions you have. They care more about themselves than you. Just be together in it.

Lastly, it’s completely OK to prove The Ordering party that you’re worthy even hiring. If they require a coding test that takes a couple of hours, and it’s very unique (no leet code websites etc.), do it! It says they actually need honest skills, not dumb workforce who “will learn anyway”.

How to NOT do it?

The Ordering party

No requirement for “hybrid”. No, absolute no. I can understand a visit like every 2 months. Not every week, that is absolute canceller for reasons behind somebody’s environment, schedule and life rhythm. You’re missing the point and your skillful employee might find a better place very soon.

Some other extreme shows that somebody crosses many countries, travelling for 16 hours, to sit in an office where they still have to use laptops to talk to their peers. Come on. If you want to see people IRL in your office or anywhere else, organize it, and let them see each other too. Otherwise, it’s lost money and motivation. Why would they fly so far the next time?

Office and hybrid is the biggest topic here. The real reasons to require “hybrid” I could only think of are: 1) real estate to be used somehow, and 2) a lack of trust to epmloyees, thus putting some control on them. Feel like you need control? You will never have it. If you have wrong people, they will not deliver anyway.

People who work for money, not for a product, maybe that’s an issue? Dear manager, you will never improve it if your approach is same as theirs. In other words, compatibility is what drives this world. Change your mindset, you can control only the effort, not the results. You can change only yourself, not others.

No dailies. Seriously. Unless you’re . Ad-hoc meetings are what you actually need in place of dailies but give other peers enough time to co-decide of when.

Closing thoughts

There is a myriad of reasons to do things this or the other way. There is a lot more to say. I’ve given the ones that I believe are the most important ones.

The perspectives above are not just my experience. It’s also experience of people who I worked with or just talked to. I value them a lot as I’ve seen what the real investment is. It’s not money, assets, products. It’s teams who can deliver. It’s really hard to build a team where some of members are just not happy about daily life. Guess what, tens of hours per week is a daily life. Just make it good to satisfy all the parties.