[eledumb]

I've worked in 4 very successful organization that were almost 100% remote work, the percentage of remote work employees by company, 98%, 99%, 92%, 98%.

These companies were no different than the 3 successful companies that didn't support remote work at all.

All 7 companies were process driven companies, with discipline. The processes were not overly complicated, nor bureaucratic in nature, but they were followed religiously. If the process wasn't working everyone still followed it, but the issues were raised and addressed quickly. Which meant everything worked and made sense.

I've worked at 4 unsuccessful companies 2 that were almost 100% remote, and 2 that were almost 100% not remote. What these 4 companies had in common was a lack of process, or discipline. Chasing the "next thing", blowing up schedules because "we need it now", zero planning. These companies need everyone in the same location because nothing is written down, everything is rumor, tribal knowledge is key and if you don't get to sit in a room and look at everyone to figure out the politics nothing works.

Bottom line is if you want to be successful you need to plan, have process and be disciplined in your approach to running the business. If you do these things managing remote employees is no different than having everyone in the same room. If however your company is a mess, trying to manage remote employees is next to impossible.

[bryanrasmussen]

What do you mean by success? I have worked at three highly successful companies by the metric most people quantify success in a company - making lots and lots of money - and process at these companies was something of a joke.

I have also worked at companies that were highly successful and followed processes as you say religiously.

I haven't ever worked anywhere with a sizable remote worker employee pool though.

[heymijo]

That Andy Rachleff quote about product/market fit comes to mind "when you have it, you can screw up almost everything and still succeed"

An example: Larry and Sergey deciding to do away with managers back in the early 00's would have decimated a startup that didn't have a burgeoning monopoly. Was barely a bump in the road for Google.

[ivanhoe]

> and if you don't get to sit in a room and look at everyone to figure out the politics nothing works

This is actually a big problem in my experience, because remote workers are cut out of the "inner-circle of people" when office politics kick in. Face to face time helps networking a lot and creates much stronger ties than slack chats ever can.

[LegitShady]

The flip side of that is being remote and away from the politics can sometimes mean y u get work done when those in the thick of bullshit don't.

[cdavid]

> All 7 companies were process driven companies, with discipline. The processes were not overly complicated, nor bureaucratic in nature, but they were followed religiously. If the process wasn't working everyone still followed it, but the issues were raised and addressed quickly. Which meant everything worked and made sense.

That sounds like a strict requirement for remote work to work, and intuitively so. In your experience, how was the training done for less experienced IC ?

[crustacean]

I’m just as curious about how the managers were trained to be process-driven. Manager behavior seems to me just as if not more important than IC behavior here.

Since managers have power, and engineers usually don’t personally know their skip levels, managers can easily replace async documented process with lovely hours-long face-to-face 20-person meetings. And they can silence dissent! They can wreak havoc in a way no IC could ever do.

[ben_jones]

If anyone else was wondering, IC seems to mean Independent Contractor.

[enraged_camel]

In my experience, tribal knowledge is the biggest issue. Some people (and teams) hold on to critical pieces of information and treat it as political and social currency in order to climb the ladder. You know the type: they might casually drop hints that they are in-the-know, or humbly brag about having been made privy to certain important information. This tends to build up their perceived image in the workplace, as everyone starts to see them as an influencer and gatekeeper, and try to gain their favor.

Good processes, specifically those that favor radical transparency, are a good way of getting in front of these types of issues, and are especially important for making remote setups work well.

[soneca]

Not that relevant, but caught my eye. A 98% or 99% remote company is effectively a 100% company right? 1% or 2% is not enough to be considered a "headquarters".

[WorldMaker]

There's an old adage that headquarters is wherever the CEO works. Most major corporate headquarters moves are to be closer to wherever the CEO calls home. Taking that adage to its literal extreme there will only ever be 99% remote companies as effectively the corporate headquarters is still the CEO's home. Though of course the adage isn't meant to be taken solely literally, and its more just a lens into a power relationship, and even a "majority remote" company may still need (or unintentionally build) the power of a headquarters on paper. (Maybe not directly to make the CEO happy, but accountants for tax reasons, shareholders for accountability reasons, or other reasons.)

[kaikai]

Seems like it would depend on role distribution. If all the senior leadership work from an office together and everyone else is remote, I'd call that office the headquarters regardless of employee percentage.

[gizmo385]

Even a 92% remote-working company would seem to me to be functionally indistinguishable from a 100% remote work company. You still need to have the processes and practices in place to support an almost entirely remote team.

[gtirloni]

> Chasing the "next thing", blowing up schedules because "we need it now", zero planning.

You're describing operations in most "agile" companies.

[loceng]

I wonder why most companies can't operate separate teams with these different flows? The "we need it now" crew having their own team who tries to line up dev with the upcoming, etc? I can understand needing functionality "urgently" - in an agile manner, however that will certainly have more costs short-term and potentially long-term if cutting corners.

[hinkley]

Every successful or even sane team I’ve worked on had discipline first and Agile second.

[notbryan]

Agile processes still require disciplined management. If you have hurricane leadership, it'll still fuck everything up, and you won't deliver any value.

[option_greek]

Very well put. My current company falls in the category of tribal knowledge. It's chaos :). People work 10 hours a day with more than 4 hours of meetings and nothing gets done. People at all levels delegate work downward and setup meetings to get 'status'.

[papln]

> 98%, 99%, 92%, 98%.

How were those extremely precise measurement obtained?

What's it like moving from a 98% remote company to a 99% remote company, and then back to a 98% remote company?

What in your opinion is holding companies back from getting past 2 9's remote?

[kenhwang]

I would assume that most companies have a physical location somewhere and it wouldn't be difficult to track the number of employees that regularly report on-site.

[posedge]

I'm sure you can have an equally controversial discussion on process-driven vs. non-process-driven companies.

[StavrosK]

Can you post an example of the sort of processes that were in place in these companies?

[eweise]

The only thing holding back remote work is leadership's ego. Remote is cheaper, more productive and healthier yet there's something about walking through an open office and not seeing a buzz of activity that makes leadership feel like nothing is happening.

[marcoseliziario]

It could be survival instinct instead of egos. Most companies have too many managers. There are places where you have one manager for every 5 engineers. Bonkers!