Remote: Office Not Required Kindle Edition

The office was a response to a need.To get work done we needed groups of people in the same place at the same time. To be at work at the same time, 8:30 to 4:30, people needed to live close to their workplaces. Towns grew into cities and housing grew upward. Those who could not or would not live close to their workplaces spend more time in traffic.This book raises the issues of whether we all need offices. Why don’t we work from the place most convenient to us that day, at a time most convenient to us that day. The issue of remote and asynchonomous work could not be realistically raised ten years ago, but can certainly be today. We now have all the enabling technology to allow many types of work to be performed remotely. This includes the obvious call centre staff, but also the specialist repairman who can perform his work from afar.“Office not required,” the subtitle of this book, is not the future, the authors argue, it is the present.Why would anyone want to work remotely? There a many compelling reasons not least the wasted time spent on your daily commute. Stop and calculate the number of hours each week you spend getting to work. You could also add in the time it takes to get to clients for meetings. Then ask yourself what you would do with the time saved by not travelling.So, why do we not work remotely? Some types of office work cannot be done remotely, and that is not at issue. The issue is that much work can be done remotely.Before I pursue the argument for remote work further, let me answer the question of why large, thoughtful companies, are not doing it. The answer is they are. IBM, for example, has had their staff telecommuting since 1995 with a saving on office space of 7.2 million square metres.The authors offer various reasons for the resistance to remote work.A common argument is that innovation only happens through the magic of face to face contact. Let us presume for a moment that it is true and that creativity requires a group of people to be in the same place at the same time. How much time is spent creativity solving big problems? Very little, most of our time at work is spent executing the “big problems” and that can be done in so many cases, remotely.Even if there is a need for people to be together to work on issues, only a few moments on Skype or FaceTime is enough to establish who is present. Thereafter most of the work will be conducted on a shared computer screen where designs, text, or numbers are formulated and manipulated. These modes of collaboration are relatively low tech and inexpensive to use.Many are afraid that people cannot be trusted to be productive at home. The fact is that people can come to work and not be productive either. The real difference between coming to work and staying at home to work is little more than whether you wear a T-shirt or a dress shirt.As the authors point out: “If you can’t let your employees work from home out of fear they’ll slack off without your supervision, you’re a babysitter, not a manager. Remote work is very likely the least of your problems.”An argument against remote work is the effect it would have on the company culture which would wither away. Remote work is not an “all or nothing” type choice. Staff can be brought together a few times a week or a month to connect and preserve the culture. It is also worth noting that “culture” is not embodied in the company events, but in the manner in which the company works. It manifests in the behaviour of staff to one another, in the manner of treating customers, in the quality of work accepted, and so on. None of these culture building blocks are absent if people work remotely.The real question any discussion on remote work would need to address is why bother with the question of staff working remotely at all?I have already mentioned the time wasted on your daily commute to the office, but there also many work related issues.Where do you go when you want to do serious work? Very few people answer to the office without the qualification – very early in the morning, before anyone gets in, or after everyone leaves, or on weekends.Offices have become “interruption factories,” observe the authors. When a colleague is only a step away why not ask for information or an opinion or a document, now. If you were working remotely, would you send an email or a sms, or if it is really urgent, make phone for the same request.Of course, there are interruptions at home or in a coffee shop, but these are interruptions you can control more easily than a manager or colleague.Remote work allows, in many cases, for better quality work. “Squeezing slightly more words per hour out of a copywriter is not going to make anyone rich. Writing the best ad just very well might,” the authors note.Not having to live in Johannesburg to work for a firm in Johannesburg could be a huge incentive for someone who enjoys the more gentle life in the Paarl. For the firm it allows the search for talent to extend much wider than the immediate surroundings of the office. There is talent scattered all around the country and the world.Provided the type of work you do does not require you to be present at the office, there is no longer any compelling reason for being there all the time. The most difficult challenge many only be the mental shift – you are still working even if you don’t have an office.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- LowIan Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

The majority (maybe all?) of this book was about selling the idea that remote work is > colocated work with some very obvious arguments as to why.With COVID-19, a lot of us were forced into a remote situation and have learned the benefits because there was no choice.I was looking for more advice on the implementation of remote processes like onboarding new hires, team building, and general tips. You won’t find that here.

I have the Kindle version. Well written with short segments on different aspects of remote working or telecommuting. I read it in an afternoon.I got the book because COVID-19 has driven me and my co-workers to social distancing by working from home. I'm finding telecommuting to be easier to implement than I expected.Trust is a central theme in the book. A second theme is culture or what I characterize as knowing what's expected. A good remote worker or telecommuters must produce good work. The authors also argue that half-hearted efforts at remote work will likely fail.Who ought to read this book? If social distancing impacts your workplace, then, whether you are a manager or worker, this book has useful lessons for you. Currently, I can see where remote working may become much more common than it has been. I strongly recommend the book.One head's up, the authors head the company that created the base camp software and base camp is mentioned frequently. I simply viewed this as establishing the authors' credentials and I wasn't bothered by this. I don't use basecamp myself.

For many years I have been working in IT for a company with an old style of management. Throughout those years I had VPN and was expected to routinely do remote work off hours yet expected to warm a chair during traditional working hours. Some days would pass by where I would never see my boss. I kept asking why can I not work from home a few days a week? Their common response was that they had no way to measure my productivity. I thought to myself “how do you measure it when I’m here?!”My first opportunity arose to work for a company with remote option. After 15 years of commuting and chained to a beige cubical I was free. I was now able to do engaging work and deliver without having to come into the office. I even found that I was also able to be more productive.This book is a great primer for understanding the concept of what today’s technology facilitates. From a company perspective, your employee selection opens up from the local market to all corners of the world. For employees it allows you to save time from commuting and spend that extra time with your family promoting even better work life balance. This is the future of work for knowledge workers.As a business owner you will gain insights on the benefits of remote work. As a manager you will gain tools to facilitate remote staff. As a remote worker you will learn additional strategies to address common concerns.

I've been a remote worker for 3 years and can't imagine going back to an office. I'm more productive than I've ever been and this book details exactly how that's accomplished. Great explanations of resources, potential obstacles and innovative solutions for getting things done, and still feeling connected.

Many of us have been forced into home working as a result of the covid 19 pandemic without much thought of planning. This book provides the roadmap to embrace the best parts of having to work fromHome so it can continue in the future. Some of the tools are a bit outdated now (no mention of zoom for example) but other that this book is entirely relevant for now.

A useful book, to the point that I will order a copy myself after reading a chunk of a borrowed one. However, my main gripe with the tools presented is the inclusion of messenger apps such as Jabber. These, from my own numerous experiences, are a major source of the "interruption factory" old-school culture that prevents people from working effectively and deeply in a modern office. They are equivalent to people walking up to your desk, shouting across the office or having a conversation next to you, and a primary source of interruption for anyone who thinks for a living. Messenger apps have their place, but they are just a text version of the telephone, and equally distracting. Great if you talk for a living, abysmal if you think for your salary. This major criticism aside (and it's a big one as I generally respect Fried's work), this is a useful book for those considering taking the leap or improving their current remote working.

The book does a good job at selling remote working to someone who isn't already.I was looking for something with more focus on how to help / improve for existing remote teams and workers.

I don't normally write reviews, but this was really, really bad. There are no original ideas in the book. For example, one of chapters is about proving that "you can't work from the office when you have a plumber coming". They actually thought it would be important and interesting to learn that. Don't waste you time.

I think the best advice regarding remote work these days can come from someone who is already doing it. And the authors of this book certainly fit that description. This book is mainly intended for those considering remote work, or those in the early stages (like me) looking for a broader perspective. It's a very light read with short and concise chapters and simple language. It is clearly in favour of remote work so one would have to look at a different book or one's own experience for the downsides of remote work depending on how different one's situation is from that described in the book.