Telecommuting and the state of hiring today
Posted by Cory Comer - 18/04/11 at 06:04:32 amRecently I’ve embarked on the wonderful journey of finding a new employer. Much like a ninety something year old man, stark naked and stunned, staring you right in the eyes just as you fatefully stumble into the wrong examination wrong subsequently interrupting his routine prostate examine, so to does the technology industry bare it’s shriveled and maligned ways to an eager young buck of the cloth. You could have stumbled into any examination room Alice, but you stumbled into mine.
The mental image above aside, it seems like the technology industry just can’t catch up with itself. Browsing job ad after job ad I see many interesting hiring trends emerging. Unfortunately one of the most common of these trends seem to be a remnant of late 90s thinking. NO TELECUMMUTING! TELECUMMITING NOT AN OPTION! The stigmatization of the word telecommute just won’t seem to fade away into the history books. Even uttering the word telecommute to a recruiter or manager will summon a response analogous to some sort of dark arts ritual and will inexorably end the conversation right then and there leaving you, the humble and dashing candidate, with nothing but bobble headed nodding and caveman like grunting. Let’s be honest, you could tell someone you’ve come to work naked from the waste down before and if you’ve got a strong resume they’ll still consider you over some liberal pinko commie who wants to sleep until 1:00 PM in the afternoon and then watch Japanese cartoons on the company dollar and not get any work done. Not on my watch bucko!
So much time, energy, and money over the past decade has gone into bridging the communication gap. The internet has created an unprecedented ability for us to communicate across culture, language, and more importantly, distance. In a study done back in 1996 the primary reasons cited for a desire to adopt remote working environments are the ability to retain or attract qualified employees and to reduce costs by reducing the need of physical office space. There seems to be ample justification, so why haven’t we seen a greater adoption rate for telecommuting?
Finding qualified employees and reducing costs seem like fantastic motivators for an industry often dependent on stream lining processes and practices in an effort to minimize the ever elusive bottom line and reduce the total cost of doing business. There’s a number of technologies available today that allow for face-to-face conversation without the necessity for warm blooded mouth breathers to occupy physical space in close proximity of one another, and most of these technologies are completely free to use. How’s free sound for reducing the bottom line?
This is a trend that really needs to fade into the history of obsolescence. Being a developer is not a 9 to 5 job, and if companies would embrace these inroads we’ve made into communication, they would more than likely see a drastic improvement in their ability to deliver products faster and with a higher quality.
Who cares if your development staff sit at home in their ketchup and mustard stained Dragon Ball Z tank tops listening to Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails at ear drum bursting volumes. Everything a company does for and to it’s development staff should be done with the expressed intent of maximizing their comfort levels, ability to focus, and attention spa – SQUIRREL. Ahem. Adopting policies that support and enhance productivity as opposed to inhibit or obstruct it really should be the behest of every technical manager in the industry that cares about delivering quality.
But maybe I’m bias?
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In situations where someone knows all the work they need to do and has few dependencies then I think WFH can be effective. However most projects have too many dependencies and requires too much interaction with the business.
I think this can be overcome with video chat and screen sharing especially though I think phone conferences without video isn’t very effective.
Either can be effective but both take work and continuous improvement.
Comment by Scott White — July 13, 2011 #