www.fastcompany.com: New York-based startup Muck Rack is a team of 50 people who can work from home whenever they want. About one-third of the company’s team is based outside New York and therefore, always remote. CEO Greg Galant says he set Muck Rack up to be a completely remote company, meaning that if the startup’s building burned down tomorrow, business would go on as usual the next day.
2 comments:
This article was very helpful when looking through the lens of a production manager who a lot the times is trying to facilitate the design process with people who are in different cities or countries even. In the introduction, a very good point was brought up about how remote work is just like managing people who are there because you aren't sitting in everyone's office looking to make sure that they are doing the work, and brought up the great point that remote work means that people will have their personal time encroached in more. I think the tip about being aware of people's time helps deal with this most, which is something I've never thought about as it is such a simple solution. In the real world, management doesn't just mean you are hovering over a person so even when someone is remote you can't do the same. I have also never heard of Slack, the workflow application, and I looked it up. It seems to be like a Google drive and a text group all at the same time. This might be in an interesting thing to use for a creative team when they are collaborating as much of the design process in the real world happens when people aren’t in a room together.
I think the biggest thing you lose by working remotely is a decrease in communication. Obviously you can still communicate remotely, but if everyone is in the same building, potentially in the same room, it is much easier to quickly ask someone a question. You might think of something relevant to them when you walk past them, or if something pops into your head and the person you need to tell is sitting next to you, you can just say it without even switching windows on your computer. I think having instant messaging systems intended for work can help with this, since they feel more like informal conversations and good for quick questions in a way that email just feels too official for. I think there is a lot to be said for allowing people to work from home if that is what works best for them, it is just a matter of making sure there isn’t a drop off in communications caused by the separation.
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