My group is considering hiring a new person and there’s someone I know who has great qualifications who is interested in joining us. The problem is they are located on the opposite coast and is unwilling to relocate to headquarters. If they were to work with us, they would have to do so remotely, physically isolated from everyone else since no one else in the group works anywhere near them. This is not that unusual in my group; half the staff are scattered in three different locations outside of HQ.
I personally know this candidate and believe they have skills that could greatly benefit the organization. My concern is the whole remote thing. A part of me thinks that over time, feeling disconnected from everyone has a warping effect on people’s perspective and ability to play well with others. I’ve seen this to some degree in almost everyone who works outside of HQ.
In meetings, for instance, the remote folks tend speak way too long for what they have to actually say. It is very difficult for them to get right to the point. It’s as if they feel as though they aren’t getting enough attention, so they subconsciously use meetings as a way to be noticed. But this is counterproductive because over time, people stop listening to them. This happened this morning. A guy rambled for 15 min about a new initiative of his and no one could figure out what it was he wanted us to do, because listening to him requires too much time and concentration.
Insecurity also seems to be rampant among these folks too. Because people at headquarters inarguably have an advantage when it comes to information exchange since communication can occur informally and spontaneously, the remote people always assume they are being kept in the dark about certain things, even when they are not. This assumption manifests itself in passive aggressiveness and constant complaints about not being included on emails about a particular subject, even those that aren’t directly pertinent to their roles. But when someone takes pity on them and copies them on emails, they interject unnecessarily and start speaking as though they are a target recipient. In other words, they don’t know how to stay in their lanes or function in teams without trying to take over.
Generalized social dysfunction is another thing I’ve seen. Like not knowing how to disagree with someone without being obnoxious and arrogant about it. Reacting defensively to questions about their work. Criticizing something dogmatically, with a passion that is out of proportion.
Am I the only one who has noticed these traits among those who work remotely? I’m not saying those in HQ never act this way, but it seems like it’s worse in those outside of HQ.
There’s a distinct possibility that I might be prejudiced on this topic but…
Not everyone has the temperament to work remotely and not everyone has the skills to manage remote workers. The issues you’re talking about would manifest because of one of those issues. It also sounds like those would have been issues with those people just shown up differently even if they were in an office.
My manager is awesome with our remote team. Out of 18 of us, 3 work in the office on a regular basis, 2 because they’re new and one because she prefers it.
Tools for communication are critical - with OCS, I chat with my team members regularly, we are able to keep up socially as well as work wise. All internal changes, ie, promotions, policy changes etc should be sent to the entire team via email even if you’re also talking to people.
Consideration of remote people during conference calls (tapping pens near microphones, side conversations that drown out the main speaker etc) need to be managed as well.
Some people are just sociopaths, and will be at home or at the office.
My group has become primarily telecommuters and we don’t have the problems you describe, possibly because even when we were all in the office before regular telecommuting was allowed, we were never in the same office, being strewn across the planet in six or seven buildings on two continents.
As a result of such broad geographic diversity, we all figured out how to be highly collaborative with email, phones and instant messaging. Something else that may help is that we’re long-timers. Most of us have been with the company for 15 years or more.
I manage a team of remote people and sometimes work remotely myself. I do think it’s a challenge, particularly in a large company, for remote individuals to remain engaged and interested. We all have meetings all day long and sometimes if you don’t get non-work-related discussion during a workday, you start getting pissed off and stop caring about what you do.
Or people forget about you, particularly if you have some people in an office and some people remote. So you have to be really persistent just to form relationships with people. And getting promotions can be a challenge because since you’re not visible, no one sees what you do unless you’re vocal. So I can see why someone working remotely might get kinda wacky.
Plus, my team works insane hours. And not just because most people in my company works insane hours, but because at least one of them just cannot step away. It’s hard to be disciplined enough to shut off your work life at a specific time and not allow it to creep into your personal time if you work remotely. Maybe that contributes to the insanity.
So much of communication is non-verbal. If you’re on a speaker phone, you can’t see if people are getting what you are saying, are interested, are bored, or whatever. I think it takes a certain amount of skill to work remotely, and people who do so might benefit from some training to develop those skills. I think of when I was doing lots of business in Japan, and we were given cultural training that was indispensable. Obviously not exactly the same thing, but similar.
I don’t think I would do well working remote 24/7, so perhaps I’m doing a bit of projection. Being an introverted, naturally non-talkative, and highly independent worker, I can totally imagine feeling invisible and then clumsily going out of my way to compensate if I worked outside of HQ. Not having to battle that feeling day in and day out keeps me productive, but most importantly it keeps my relationships with my co-workers healthy. They aren’t just disembodied voices on the other end of the line to me.
Having half the staff remote and half at HQ probably doesn’t help, either. I don’t envy them because opportunities for advancement and development are a lot easier if you’re in the mother ship. I suspect this adds to the bitter attitudes.
What qualities should one look for if they want to hire someone for a remote position?
I’ve been a remote “home office” consultant or employee (been both) since 2006. I have a wonderfully short commute, I can get up to pee at 3:20 AM and while I’m out of bed plot down remote in and verify that that 47 hour rebuild process is ticking along as it should; people who need my personal attention can Skype me, call me, email me, have me TeamViewer in (or Timbuktu or Microsoft Remote Desktop or Apple Remote Access or whatever) to see their screen.
I don’t have a dress code to worry about and they don’t have to deal with my notions of how to dress for the business office. Nearly everyone says I am a supportive and helpful resource when they’ve called me, I put in good work; the folks who see me on the domestic end agree that I perch on my office chair and remain there working for my designated 7 hours but that I don’t let work become my life, that I can leave and go to concerts with no cell phone in my pocket and be a person and so on.
In short, no, I was already like this and no one can blame working remotely for it
My group used to have a remote staff person. She was based in the same state, but five hours away. We all made work it somehow for several years, but it wasn’t ideal. Without intending to, we’d frequently forget about her when we had staff meetings. She was always the last to know when someone in the group was transferred or hired. And her job duties were often an after-thought. I also suspect that a couple of people resented the fact that she wasn’t held to the same micro-managing scrutiny that the rest of us received.
But I don’t think it would have been like this if most or all of us been remote. Because then the playing field would have been more level.
I think it takes a certain kind of person to get the best out of working remotely.
I like the short commute and the fact that I can jump in the pool during a lull between meetings, but I do feel the need to visit the Mother Ship once a month, for face-to-face meetings.
Perhaps it helps that almost everyone I deal with is at a remote location, such as one of our other sites all over the US, or an offshore team in India. Recently I have been meeting with a team based in Italy, and it just doesn’t seem any different from working with people the next state over.
I think that in addition to people needing the right temperament and attitude to successfully work remotely, it can be tricky if a person is single and hasn’t any kids or housemates.
This past February/March, between the constant heavy snows, physical office closings (we work from home in that event), and other issues related to travel and snow and whatnot, I think I ended up going into the office six or seven times.
I love working from home, and I’m an introvert. All the same…I started to feel rather isolated.
Normally, I work remotely once or twice a week, and go in the rest of the time.
OP, I see a chicken/egg problem. Are some of these people choosing to work remotely because they have issues?
At my job, we have three offices, and our teams are largely interoffice, so we do a lot of work remotely even when we go to the office. It’s not as good as being in the office, though I find that it can really help when you’re embroiled in a project to be able to say “I’m working on project X with person Y, so don’t interrupt!” and feel like you have some breathing room. Maybe that’s just me.
100% local and 100% remote both seem to work well but mixing local and remote seems to be the worst of both worlds. It takes a lot more effort to get a local/remote mixed team working well together.
I can’t see how working remotely turns anybody crazy. It has challenges, but hardly enough to do that.
People who deliberately isolate themselves may have social issues, which means they start out with problems already and they manifest in their working relationship too.
You can’t necessarily predict who will end up that way, but I am confident that it’s never caused by working remotely.
Good question. For some of the staff, working remotely wasn’t exactly a choice per se. I’m sure if given a choice they would prefer to work at HQ, if that didn’t mean uprooting their lives to move across the country.
I agree that it’s the mixture of remote and non-remote that is problematic.
Working remotely with a spouse and kids can introduce its own tricks. Especially if the kids are too young to understand why daddy is in another room not playing with them.
I can see how people with social problems might be especially lured to remote work. On the other hand working remotely is so great that it’s hard for me to see why anyone wouldn’t seek it out, unless there was a specific reason like needing to see people face to face.
I’m kind of right in the middle between introversion and extraversion and sure I do get lonely not working with people in person, but I’d rather work from home, be finished earlier due to not commuting, have more energy, etc. and see people I really like in the evening.
So I guess my point is - it’s an increasingly common and generally fabulous way to work. I would never assume it’ll make someone crazy.
