Hensson david heinemeier remote office is optional. Remote: Office is not required. Talents are not tied to major cities

David Heinemeier Hansson

OFFICE NOT REQUIRED

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Jamie and Colt Heinemeier Hansson: Remote work allows the whole family to spend more time together in more places on the planet. Thank you for the love and inspiration.

David Heinemeier Hansson

For those who are on the road.

Jason Fried

From the authors

By 2013, when we began writing this book, the popularity of remote work—or remote work as it is sometimes called—had been slowly but surely growing for many years. From 2005 to 2011, the number of remote workers in the US increased by 73 percent, to 3 million people. 1
URL: http://www.globalworkplaceanalytics.com/telecommuting-statistics.

However, in February 2013, this goodness was suddenly broken by a loud statement from Yahoo! about curtailing the remote work program. We were just finishing the book. The topic immediately emerged from the academic shadow and became the subject of close international attention. Hundreds, if not thousands, of articles appeared, the authors of which defended opposing points of view.

Of course, we would be grateful to the CEO 2
Chief Executive Officer - General Director. Note. ed.

Yahoo! Marissa Mayer, wait six months for her book to come out. Those

...

Here is an excerpt from the book.
Only part of the text is open for free reading (restriction of the copyright holder). If you liked the book full text can be obtained from our partner's website.

If you are an employer and are looking for people only in your region, you risk not finding the best. If you're an employee and only choose companies that are easy to get to, you may be missing out on a better job.

Is it possible to work effectively outside the office? Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, founders of 37signals and authors of the best-selling book Rework, take a fresh look at a hotly debated question. Presenting full list problems associated with remote work, they convincingly prove that the advantages of working away from the office largely outweigh its possible disadvantages.

From the authors

By 2013, when we began writing this book, the popularity of remote work—or remote work as it is sometimes called—had been slowly but surely growing for many years. From 2005 to 2011, the number of people working remotely in the US increased by 73 percent to 3 million people.

Of course, we would be grateful to the CEO

Yahoo! Marissa Mayer, wait six months for her book to come out. Nevertheless, her decision provides a unique opportunity to test all our arguments. As it turned out, during a brainstorming session at Yahoo! all those excuses that we listed in the chapter "How to deal with excuses" were voiced.

From our point of view, Yahoo! made the wrong choice. But we are grateful to the company for the attention it has drawn to the topic of remote work. In the new book, we wanted to analyze this phenomenon in a much more balanced way. No generalities, no dust in the eyes - you will find in it only a balanced analysis of the pros and cons of remote work and a real guide to this brave new world. Enjoy reading!

Introduction

Millions of workers and thousands of companies are already enjoying the benefits of remote work. The volume of tasks performed remotely is steadily growing year by year, and this is true for businesses of any size and in almost all industries. Although the transition to remote work is far from being as massive as at one time to facsimile. And it's not as easy as it might seem.

Thanks to advances in technology, it has never been easier to be connected and collaborate on projects with anyone, anytime. This leaves one fundamental problem with humans: their brain needs an upgrade.

The purpose of our book is to provide such an upgrade. We'll show you the many benefits of working remotely, including access to the most talented performers, the elimination of exhausting commutes to and from work, and increased productivity compared to the traditional office. And we will analyze all the usual excuses of opponents of this idea. In particular, such as: "the engine of innovation is personal communication", "employees cannot be trusted to work from home, their efficiency will inevitably decrease" and "corporate culture will be under threat."

Among other things, the book will make you a specialist in remote work. You'll find an overview of the tools and techniques to help you get the most out of it, as well as the pitfalls and limitations that can make you fail (everything has a downside).

We will talk about practical things - we will not limit ourselves to theory, since we have drawn our knowledge from the real practice of remote work. It was with her help that over the past ten years we have grown a successful Internet company 37signals from scratch.

When we started, one of us lived in Copenhagen, the other in Chicago. Since then, the team has grown to thirty-six people scattered around the globe and serving millions of users from almost all countries of the world.

Chapter 1 It's time to work remotely

Why are they not working at work?

To the question “where do you work well”, few people will answer “in the office”. And if he answers, he will definitely clarify: “very early in the morning, while no one is there” or “on the weekend.”

It turns out that it is impossible to fully work in the office. Office in work time is the last place you want to be if you need to do some work.

This is because the office has become a "break zone". A crowded office is like a food processor - staying here just likewise cuts your day into many small pieces. Fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, twenty here, five there ... And each such segment is filled with teleconferences, meetings, meetings and other standard, but optional interruptions from the point of view of work.

Stop wasting your life on the road

Let's be honest: no one likes traveling to and from work. The alarm clock rings earlier, and you return home later. You waste time, you become irritable, you don't eat anything but convenience foods in plastic packaging. You stop going to the gym, you hardly see your children, you don’t find the strength to talk to your loved one… This list is endless.

And yes, weekends are kind of boring. By Saturday, a huge list of household chores accumulates, which were forced to be postponed “for later” during the week after a grueling struggle with traffic jams. And you throw out the garbage, go to the dry cleaners and shops, deal with the bills ... lo and behold, half of the weekend is over.

Well, what about the road itself? No matter how beautiful the car is, standing in traffic jams still infuriates, and transferring to the subway or bus, you get even more tired. Each breath is saturated with the smell of someone else's sweat and general exhaustion, each exhalation takes away health and sanity.

It's all about the technology, fool

If remote work is so good, why haven't the most progressive companies used it before? It's simple: they couldn't. The required technology was not there. Try to organize joint work of many people in different cities (not to mention countries) using fax and express mail!

It is thanks to new technologies growing like mushrooms after the rain that working remotely has become so easy. The main laurels belong to the Internet. Web conferencing with WebEx, coordinating to-do lists in Basecamp, real-time discussion of projects via instant messaging systems, uploading large files to Dropbox - all this has been possible thanks to the innovations of the last fifteen years. It is not surprising that we still do not know all our possibilities.

It used to be traditionally believed that work is when you sit at your desk in an office in one of the tall buildings scattered around the city from nine in the morning until five in the evening. Why be surprised that most of those who work in this way have never thought about other options and resist even the thought that everything could be different. Maybe!

Get rid of the "9 to 17" mode

The use of distributed workforce is inexorably changing the world: synchronous collaboration is being replaced by asynchronous collaboration. To do one thing, we no longer have to not only be in the same place, but also work at the same time.

This state of affairs was a consequence of the need - after all, we are talking about the cooperation of people located in different time zones - however, it is beneficial

Even residents of the same city. If you can already work together with a colleague whose time is seven hours ahead of yours, all the other team members living in the neighborhood can also work from home whenever they want. Though from 11 am to 7 pm, even from 7 pm to 3 am.

The beauty of flexible working hours is that it suits everyone from early risers to night owls, as well as those who have to pick up their children from school in the middle of the day. At 37signals, we try to keep approximately forty hours working week, but it doesn't matter to us how employees distribute these hours within a day and by day of the week.

End of city monopoly

Initially, the city was a place of concentration of talents. The typical train of thought of the early machinists of capitalism was: "Let's gather a lot of people in one place, where they will have to live in cramped houses on top of each other, and then we will have enough human material to work in our factories." Simply wonderful, Mr. Moneybags!

Fortunately, the high population density, beneficial to the factory owners, also proved to be beneficial for many other things. We have libraries, stadiums, theaters, restaurants and all the other wonders modern culture and civilization. And cramped offices, tiny apartments, and packed buses to take us back and forth. We gave up living outside the city, exchanging freedom, fresh air and the beauty of nature for comfort and a frantic pace of life.

Luckily for us, technological progress has made it possible not only to work remotely, but also to live a culturally rich life away from the city. Imagine the reaction of a 1960s city dweller who was told that in the future everyone would have access to every movie ever made, books ever written, albums ever recorded, and practically every sports game (more than high quality and with better colors than before). He would make you laugh. Hell, he would have laughed even in the 1980s! And we live in just such a world.

Original name: Remote: Office not Required

Publisher: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2014

This book is an ode to the home office, a manifesto for any remote worker. I loved the perfectly matched quote from William Gibson:

"The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed."

Great, isn't it? After all, it is precisely for freedom (the choice of a place of work, residence, mode of work, etc.) that our future lies with you. Those who have already been able to switch to remote work have tasted all the delights of remote work. Those who are still hesitant or unable to work from home due to the nature of the profession, now and then curse their employers, standing idle in hourly traffic jams and sweating during rush hour in a crowded subway. Of course, any coin has two sides, but the reverse side of remote work is not so terrible: there are much more advantages than disadvantages.

Even 5 years ago, sentimental pictures of entrepreneurs sunbathing under palm trees and safely running their businesses seemed implausible: how can you earn decent money without sitting your pants in the office from morning until late at night? Now everyone already knows for sure: it’s even possible if the profession allows us to be outside the walls of the company. You will not find super secrets of remote career success in this book if you have been looking at this format for a long time or have already taken a sip of the complexities of working from home. But, if you are just discovering the pleasure of sitting in a comfortable home chair with official employment and a stable salary, then you will have a lot to learn. The authors are the founders of 37signals, which launched Basecamp, an online project management tool. They have experienced in their own skin all the pros and cons of working in a team that meets offline only three times a year, and they believe that even this is too often.

What do workers want? Freedom, home comfort, the opportunity to spend any free minute for the benefit of yourself and your family. This works great remotely. What are employers afraid of? The fact that instead of hard work, employees will evade tasks with all their might. But wait: if you are so worried and do not trust your charges, why are they like that to you at all? You are not their babysitter. Yes, and you can also take a break from work in the office: look who frantically begins to imitate activity and minimize browser windows when you suddenly enter the office?)

will be useful to all parties of the workflow: managers, subordinates, HRs and job seekers. How to write a cover letter, how to meet with candidates, how to know when it's time to permanently move to a home office or transfer your employees to work from home - Jason Fried and David Hansson talk about it all , and they can definitely be trusted: they have gone through all the stages of the boss-subordinate relationship in their Internet company, in which, by the way, all employees are scattered all over the world.

The more time passes since the writing of this book, the less revelation it contains. The thoughts embodied in it have already scattered through notes and articles, many companies have listened to the experience of a successful remote business and have implemented the basic provisions of remote work. However, Remote is like expensive cognac: let everyone already know everything, let many have already tried it, but it will forever remain a classic. Manifesto of workers who do not accept stuffy offices.

Rated the book

... The luxury and privilege of the next twenty years will be the opportunity to leave the city.

I went to and from work... read, dreamed how cool it would be to work from home for at least three days out of five... Saving time, money and effort. Less likely to catch an infection in public transport, less unnecessary communication. Of course, it would be necessary to become more disciplined, reorganize your workflow, get used to the new regime. But the example of the company of authors and other companies mentioned in the book is inspiring! I easily imagined myself, if not in the place of an employee traveling around the world, then at least in the role of a pajama content manager. It remains to be regretted that in the native land such a practice, if it spreads, takes root, then only someday, far from now. The book is small, practical, positive, and will be of interest to both ordinary employees and heads of organizations. You can give it to your leaders, especially informal ones. With hint ;)

Rated the book

Yesterday I finished reading the book "Remote" from the creators of Basecamp and once again confirmed my decision to never return to the office.
Senseless bureaucracy, endless meetings and ineffective appearance of vigorous activity, which often consists either in "managing chairs" or in sitting pants on these very chairs - this is definitely not for me. Not to mention commuting to and from work, traffic jams and bad weather, the need to send a child to a kindergarten that he may not want to go to ... Well, talking near the cooler is not my favorite pastime.
So this book is a godsend for me. In it, the authors not only talk about the advantages of remote work and their own experience, but, which is especially valuable, share practical tips and a list of the most effective tools for organizing the workflow.
This book will be equally useful for managers and for ordinary employees; for those who already practice remote work, and for those who have not yet made a final decision for themselves. It clearly, without unnecessary water, provides answers to all fundamental questions: how to build a convenient schedule and organize work on joint projects, how to stay motivated, how to find and hire employees, how to combine work and personal life and much more.

The main idea that runs like a red line through the entire book is that work should bring pleasure. Psychologists have long proved that the policy of carrots and sticks - last century. "There is only one reliable way to increase motivation - to encourage people to work on what they like, and only with those people who do not leave them indifferent." In that main secret Remote.
If you like to live away from the noisy city and admire the sheep grazing on the green grass; if you like to work over a cup of coffee in a cozy cafe or have a leisurely breakfast with your family, remote work is for you.
If you want your subordinates to work conscientiously and be results-oriented, loosen control, let them work from home, changing the strict dress code to comfortable sweatpants, and they will repay you for your trust a hundredfold. Well, if work falls out of hands, maybe it's just not your job. So it's time to reconsider your life and rebuild on a new track.

Now I am on maternity leave and slowly freelancing. I like to sleep longer in the morning and work hard in the evening. I don't see myself locked up in the office anymore. But my husband and I are increasingly thinking about organizing our own small business. And, of course, first of all, we are considering the possibility of hiring remote workers (even on the scale of our city). Therefore, this book was especially useful for me: it helped to study the issue of remote work from all sides, with all its pluses and minuses, and gave me new ideas. And most importantly, it inspired me to take the first steps.

Rated the book

The 21st century is the century of new technologies and breakthrough ideas. And now you think that people live in a completely, completely different way: after all, we have super iPads, Macbooks, the Internet (!), cool cars and everything our heart desires. However, if you drop into the very essence of life, nothing has changed. People are born then Kindergarten, school, university, work and finally - pension. And after all, people spend most of their time, that is, their lives, on work. And how many people can boast of their incredible love for work? I'm afraid the answer is obvious.
The vast majority of jobs require you to get up in the morning, sit in the office from and to. Every employee's day starts with their favorite alarm clock, the way to work, waiting for the end of the work day, the way home, and a pillow. You begin to notice how your time for family and friends is shrinking. Sometimes you remember how much you wanted to travel, learn languages, draw, play an instrument, dance, or eventually find time for a book that you always looked at with a “not now” sigh.
It's time to change the most important part of our lives. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hensson's Remote. An office is not required” reveals to us the first steps in this. Namely:
1. Ability to work outside the office. And this is beneficial not only for employees, but also for the employer himself - to save on renting premises.
2. Follows from the first. Save time and travel costs. You no longer need to stand in traffic jams, make transfers, be on the bus during rush hours (!).
3. Have a flexible work schedule. How many hours, let's say from 10 to 6, do you really work? Wouldn't it be better to catch the very time when you feel that the work will be productive?
4. Evaluation of the work itself. You will no longer be judged by what time you deigned to come to work today, how many cups of tea / coffee you drank, how long you talked with employees at the cooler, and what time you ran away from work.
5. Organization of remote work. The authors recommend programs that have helped them create and improve remote work.
6. Tips for managing remote workers and creating a corporate culture.
The work is read in one breath. The reason may be that I am very impressed with the very idea of not having an office and working remotely. After all, this is a unique opportunity to work from anywhere in the world. Today you need to try very hard to find a place where there is no Internet. Many professions today can safely switch to remote work and enjoy life... As the authors note, "A world without an office is not the future, it is the present." Join.

About how to work together, remotely, in any room, in any region, anytime and anywhere.

What can be better than getting up in 7 am and go on job? What could be nicer than killing a couple of hours on road, standing in endless traffic jams, or metro in rush hour jostling with not the same sleepy poor fellows? Or, for example, in summer... Seeing a hot sunny day through the windows of your office and catch a cold from conditioner. Perfect!

If these pictures evoke feelings of horror, and Do you think that only a perverted psychopath could write such a thing, You have the right book in front of you.

The founders of 37signals (and authors of the bestseller "Rework") managed to create a company in which people from different parts of the planet. In order to get into team, it is enough to have a computer and Internet access. Well be talented, of course.

AT his new book Jason and David show how companies and hired employees can effectively work remotely.

And this is the meaning and t:

You can work at home, in the country, in a cafe, in a park, or at least in a water park! Sitting, standing, lying down.
If you don’t want to get up for work, then you don’t need to come up with excuses for your boss.
You need to constantly improve in your field in order to be the best ... on the planet, and not just in your city. If the company is not limited by geography, this means that resumes from all over the world will be considered.

Not be afraid to change habits and look at "correct" mode of operation. The earth was flat until the day it turned out to be round. Owner Do you business, or a person who is looking for better working conditions,- not fixate on geography. Look at parties. The world will never was so open. Not miss great opportunities just because they are behind outside of your city.

A world without an office is not the future, it is the present. And you have the opportunity to live just like that.

Who is this book for?

For business owners who want to assemble a real Dream Team in their company and for qualified professionals striving for the fullest possible self-realization.

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