Work From Home: Kicked Up a Notch

Remote: Office Not Required – Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (Crown Business)

Earlier this year Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer caused a firestorm of controversy when she announced that her company would be pulling the proverbial plug on their remote-work program and that those employees in the program would have to make their way into one Yahoo!’s traditional office outposts if they wanted continued employment. They outpouring of vitriolic response was staggering and aimed squarely at Mayer; ranging from questioning her intellect to downright rude street punk name calling. Oh so classy and professional.

Then came the story of the remote software developer who took a portion of his sizeable income and outsourced his work to China so he could wile away his days surfing the web and watching cat videos. Not exactly the best endorsements for the concept of using available technology to free workers from the constraints of the traditional office setting.

 

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (the co-founders of 37 Signals, the software development company that produced Basecamp, a project management program) are out with their follow up to the bestselling Rework; Remote: Office Not Required, which makes the case that remote work is the way to go for companies to succeed. I found this book interesting based on the perspective that I live and work in both worlds; holding down a traditional office based, 9 to 5 job, while operating a successful content marketing company on the side and working remotely with clients.

There’s nothing too dynamic here; as Fried and Hansson make a pretty straight forward case for why remote work is the way to go. The book falls short of a how-to manual for pulling the trigger on making the transition to remote work. I think there are clearly huge advantages for creatives, developers and even engineers that can be gained by remote work settings. As technology continues its inevitable march, those opportunities will continue to expand. It also doesn’t provide actionable material for those already doing remote work to make their operations more robust.

The more traditionalist side of me kept looking for tools to measure the progress and success of remote work. I literally burst out in laughter when I read the section of one-on-one check in calls that the authors conduct with their own remote employees; that they conduct “every couple months.” I have direct reports that I trust to get their job done and I don’t spend anytime micromanaging what they do on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, but I do check in with them a whole heck of a lot more often than every couple months.  I think its management 101 that folks in those positions know that I want them to have the tools and resources they need to succeed, so it’s only natural to check in on a regular basis.

While we certainly live in age where the tools to succeed working remotely are in place and new and advanced tools are coming online almost daily, that dynamic has not changed the need for traditional, results oriented measurements to be put in place. The innovator that develops an effective measurement tool for remote work will be the one who energizes traditional businesses to make the all in leap to remote work.