> From the employee point of view: Is your business so special I should sell my house, pull my kids out of school, and move so I can work for it? Do you really want to pay me the 50% pay differential I'd need in order to live in your higher-cost-of-living and lower-quality-of-life area? Is your (presumably internet-focused) company so incompetent it can't manage to use the same systems that we use in our day to day work and life to communicate?
People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered.
> Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office?
Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it.
> People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered.
Companies make the choice not to hire remote workers knowing it limits their hiring options. Since when are workers expected to accomodate every workplace and management decision an employer might desire? That's pretty myopic.
> Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it.
My point is that it's beyond the pale for anything reasonable. You don't record your offices 24/7 or install keyloggers on your computers, I hope, why would you expect anything different remotely? Can you really not measure effectiveness and communications skills except via panopticon?
It has nothing to do with measuring productivity or making sure they're at their desk instead of watching TV. It's about creating a virtual presence in the office to reduce communication barriers. I don't see anything ridiculous about that -- several people on HN have mentioned that their company does it.
Having worked nearly half my career as a remote employee, I find Skype mostly eliminates this problem...
Onsite Employee: "Hey, got a second?"
Me: "Yep"
Video chat commences
It's a horrible work habit to get into to interrupt someone like that, but sometimes it's necessary. Plus, sometimes it's nice to just chitchat with your coworkers, just like you would in an office setting.
The bottom line is, I'm good at my job and if you're not willing to let me work remotely, you are welcome to discriminate based on geographic presence and eliminate 90% of qualified employees and I'll just go work for the increasing number of enlightened companies that have figured that they can get better talent by making telecommuting a reasonable option. Not all awesome engineers live within a commutable distance to a major metropolitan hub.
People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered.
> Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office?
Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it.