Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

Problem

"I have had two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. While we shouldn't have agreed, as they hadn't proven their performance, ultimately, we agreed, but ended up parting ways three to six months after they started working remotely."

Actions taken

"You can have very productive people who produce a lot of code and productive people who don't produce much code, so it was difficult to determine whether those employees were producing productive code. However, what I've noticed is that with those who are underperforming, they never produce much code. I didn't want to say no, as I wanted to believe that things would get better. When a team member is good, they will generally remain good employees when working remotely. However, when an employee is average or below average, things only tend to get worse. If employees want to be successful when working remotely, they not only need to be productive, but they need to go the extra mile to communicate well and be really present."

Lessons learned

"Remote work works well for employees when people have already been working well in the office. At the point, they know what quality work looks like, they have relationships with others, and it's a lot easier for them to communicate with others."