Why don't they work at work. David Hensson - Remote: Office Is Not Required Why They Don't Work at Work

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 has already arrived, it's just unevenly distributed."

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

Even 5 years ago, sentimental pictures of entrepreneurs sunbathing under palm trees and successfully 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 is very possible if the profession allows us to be outside the walls of the company. You will not find super secrets of career success at a distance in this book if you have been looking closely at this format for a long time or have already taken the complexities of working from home. But, if you are just discovering the pleasure of sitting in a comfortable home chair with official registration and a stable salary, then you will have a lot to learn. The authors are the founders of 37signals, which released Basecamp, an online project management tool. They felt 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 moment for the benefit of yourself and your family. On a remote site, this is perfectly implemented. What are employers afraid of? The fact that instead of hard work, employees will by all means evade tasks. 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 nanny. And you can also take time off from work in the office: look who frantically begins to imitate activities and minimize browser windows when you suddenly enter the office?)

will be useful to all sides of the workflow: managers, subordinates, HR professionals and job seekers. How to write a cover letter, how to hold meetings with candidates, how to know when it's time to finally move to the home office or transfer your employees to work from home - Jason Fried and David Hansson talk about all this. , 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 has passed since this book was written, the less revelations it carries within itself. The thoughts inherent in it have already scattered across the notes and articles, many companies have listened to the experience of successful remote business and implemented the main provisions of remote control. However, Remote is like an expensive cognac: let everyone already know everything, let many have already tried it, but it will forever remain a classic. A manifesto for workers who do not accept stuffy offices.

Jason Fried, David Hensson

Remote: no office required

David Heinemeier Hansson

OFFICE NOT REQUIRED

Copyright © 2013 by 37signals, LLC

© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. LLC "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2014

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Legal support of the publishing house is provided by the law firm "Vegas-Lex"

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Jamie and Koltu Heinemeier Hensson: Teleworking allows the whole family to spend more time together in more places on the planet. Thank you for your love and inspiration.

David Heinemeier Hensson

Those who are on the road now.

By 2013, when we started writing this book, the popularity of remote - or remote, as it is sometimes called - had been slowly but surely growing for many years. From 2005 to 2011, the number of telecommuters in the United States rose 73 percent to 3 million.

However, in February 2013, this goodness was suddenly violated by a loud announcement from Yahoo! about minimizing the remote work program. We were just finishing the book. The topic immediately came out of 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 appreciate the CEO of Yahoo! Marissa Mayer, wait six months until the book comes out. Nevertheless, its solution 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 heard.

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 general phrases, no dust in the eyes - you will find in it only a balanced analysis of all the pros and cons of remote work and a real guide to this brave new world. Enjoy reading!

Introduction

The future has already arrived, it is just that it is still unevenly distributed.

William Gibson

Millions of workers and thousands of companies are already enjoying the benefits of telecommuting. The volume of tasks performed remotely is growing steadily from year to year, and this is true for businesses of all sizes and for almost all industries. Although they do not switch to remote work as massively as they once did to fax communication. And this is not as easy as it might seem.

Thanks to technological advances: it has never been easier to be in touch and collaborate on projects with anyone, anytime before. That leaves one fundamental problem with humans: their brains need an upgrade.

The purpose of this book is to provide such an upgrade. We'll showcase the many benefits of working remotely, including access to the most talented performers, eliminating exhausting commutes to and from work, and increased productivity over a traditional office. And let's look at all the usual excuses of opponents of this idea. In particular, such: "the engine of innovation is personal communication", "employees cannot be trusted to work from home, their effectiveness will inevitably decrease" and "corporate culture will be at risk."

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

We will talk about practical things - we will not limit ourselves to theory, since we have gained our knowledge from the real practice of remote work. It was with her help that we have grown the successful internet company 37signals from scratch over the past ten years. When we started, one of us lived in Copenhagen, the other in Chicago. Since then, the team has grown to thirty-six people, scattered across the globe and serving millions of users from almost all countries of the world.

Drawing on our wealth of experience, we will show that teleworking will usher in a new era of freedom and luxury. A new era is coming with faith in His Majesty Ophis to replace the era. A world that will leave behind the dusty notion of outsourcing as a way to increase efficiency and reduce costs, replacing it with a new ideal: remote work, which allows you to work more efficiently and get more satisfaction from your business.

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

It's time to work remotely

Why don't they work at work

Few people will answer the question “where do you work well” “in the office”. And if he does answer, 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. The office during business hours is the last place you want to be if you need to get some work done.

This is because the office has become an "interruption zone". A crowded office is like a food processor - staying here also 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 interruptions, but not necessary from the point of view of work.

And when the working day is roughly cut into working minutes, it is incredibly difficult to do something meaningful.

Meaningful, creative, challenging and important work requires long periods of concentration, when nothing distracts and you can immerse yourself in what you are doing. In today's office, there is no need to dream of such a luxury as the opportunity not to be distracted by anything. On the contrary, they are constantly distracting.

In fact, being able to be alone with your thoughts is one of the main benefits of working remotely. Working on your own, away from the buzzing office swarm, you stay in your maximum efficiency zone. And you really achieve the result - the very one that you vainly expected from yourself at work!

Of course, working outside the office has its challenges. And you may have to be distracted for other reasons. There are many of them. There is a TV at home. In a cafe, someone is talking loudly at the next table. But the point is, you can control these distractions. They are passive. They do not bind you hand and foot. You can always find a quiet spot or even put on your headphones, but don't worry about a loitering colleague tapping you on the shoulder once you finally focus. Or that you will be called to the next meeting that nobody needs. This is your workplace, your zone - and only yours.

Don't believe me? Ask people. Or ask yourself: where do you work when really want to get the result? The answer is unlikely to be "in the office during office hours."

Stop wasting your life on the road

Let's be honest: nobody likes trips to and from work. The alarm clock rings earlier, and you return home later. You waste time, get irritable, eat nothing but plastic-wrapped convenience foods. You stop going to the gym, you hardly see the children, you don’t find the strength to talk to your loved one ... The list is endless.

Yes, and the weekend is becoming somehow incomplete. By Saturday, a huge list of household chores is accumulated, for a week forcedly postponed "for later" after a grueling struggle with traffic jams. And you throw out the trash, go to the dry cleaner and shop, sort out the bills ... look, and half the weekend is already over.

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

The smart guys in white coats are actively studying the consequences of regular trips to and from work - supposedly indispensable companions of our life - and their verdict is disappointing: regular long trips make us fat, nervous and unhappy. And the short ones? And they lower the level of happiness.

Studies show that regular commuting to and from work increases stress, and with it the risk of obesity, insomnia, back and neck pain, hypertension, and even heart attacks and depression. In addition, the likelihood of divorce increases.

Your next ordinary day begins. Routine has already wrapped its tentacles tightly around your shoulders. You are leaving your apartment. Everything is already bad. You got up early, because it is so far to the place of work ... You enter a hot, stuffy and fetid bus. Beads of sweat roll down, taking with them the molecules of your good mood. You suffer from your robots, from the road to it, from the inappropriate use of your time. And so, day after day, from month to month, from second to second. Things are good. There is a salary, there is a cat in the house, there is such a distant confidence in the future.

Arranges? Then you shouldn't have read the last 93 words. You can forget why you read them. And, of course, sorry for the inappropriate use of your time.

Not satisfied? Then you've come to the right place. You came on the same bus, but the ends justify the means? You must read one book. It's called “Remote. Office is not required. " It was written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hensson, two British entrepreneurs, authors of one of the most popular blogs in the world, Signal vs. Noise, creators of workflow optimization software for large companies. These are two personalities who have significantly improved our world.

What is this book about? In the theses:

• You can work anywhere, anytime. You should not be tied to a specific office, specific timing, specific algorithms and norms. Do you want to work? Work in the park, at home, on the stinking bus. Work wherever you want. Do you want to work? Work now, work two days later, work two nights away. Work whenever you want.
• Enough to make excuses and make excuses. You don't have to show your creative talents lest you show up for work today. Tell your boss straight out, “I'll do it better. I'll do it outside the office. "
• You see before you the best and most enticing resume on this planet. The company is located on the other side of the world. It's not a problem. Why is it impossible to work in Asia for an Australian company. Perhaps! If you don't think so, read the second paragraph again.

The author's blow in every possible way focuses the reader's attention on one principle, as simple as the formula of water. Work is not tied either to a specific place on earth, or to a specific time of day. The world is open to work. And the work opens up for you. Remember the name of the book. "Remote. Office is not required ”- everything is extremely elementary. The office is the very place and time. This is the very evil. The force that takes you in hand every working day, puts you on the bus, and then transfers you from it to the office. You are a strong person who can overcome this evil force. You will forget about any framework in your work, you will make the latter as effective as possible, you will turn it into a highly paid hobby. Everything is very simple. Just how to forget about the office forever. The earth was flat until someone knew it was round. Your life will be the same as it is now, until you know that it may be different.

Who is this book for?
This question can be answered instantly. It is for all those who are not satisfied with the realities of work, those who do not agree with the time-coordinate reference to the workplace. It is for those who just want to forget about the office.

Chips of the book
Illustrations. They are pleasing to the eye, they are informative, there are many of them. Water. It is not enough, it seems that it is completely absent. Only advice, only the most valuable, only here. "Remote. Office is optional ”- this is a wonderful book for those who are not satisfied with the second word in the title, for those who are ready to get up and do it.

(formerly 37signals) is an iconic organization in a wide range of developers and young entrepreneurs. They always seem to be cool. One of the most popular frameworks for building Ruby on Rails web applications is their brainchild, but most of this American company is known for its online project management service Basecamp, in the course of which Ruby on Rails was created.

In the company of Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hensson, we strive to share their experience with the world from the very beginning. Their Signal vs. Noise has been around for almost 15 years. Two bestselling books emerged from the depths of Basecamp, and a third came out late last year. It all started in 2006 with Getting Real. In it, the founders of a successful company talk about how they managed to create an effective team that produces software with a million customers, while not using corporate norms and established practices. Many of the ideas voiced in Getting Real seemed (and still seem to many) too harsh to be true, too bold to be taken literally. Do less, don’t attract outside funding, find an enemy, ignore details at first, say no more often, don’t hold meetings ... Exhausted by ten layers of management, bureaucracy and corporate events, programmers from all over the world read the book like gospel. "Am I not the only one," they thought and dreamed of a company like 37signals.

In his anthem to remote work, Sir Richard Branson wrote: “To work successfully with other people, you must trust each other. In many ways, this means trusting your employees to do their job, wherever they are, unattended. "

It was interesting for me to read Getting Real not because some completely new and innovative ideas are voiced in it. No, most of the book is obvious thoughts and rational reasoning. First of all, I was attracted not by the thoughts themselves, but by the fact of their presence, the fact of their adequate discussion and generation of logical conclusions. Yes, I suspected that a two-hour meeting in the middle of a workflow was not doing anything really useful for me or the company. Yes, I have never thought that by planning a thousand features in a new project, we will not make a great product. Yes, my colleagues and I regularly complained about the quality of the code that results from this approach to business. And yes, I often felt myself in a ridiculous fairy tale, and not in a rational reality. After reading Getting Real, I just made sure that my considerations are not devoid of meaning, that habitual and well-established principles can be wrong, and a lot of people simply do not notice changes in conditions because they live and work by inertia. “Stop and realize what you already know” is how I would describe the experience of reading this wonderful book.

The next book was published in 2010, it was called Rework. Partially repeating theses of the previous book, the authors of Rework question the usual workflow mechanism. Urgent tasks and time pressure are poison, the authors say. Planning is a fortune-telling, they continue under the silent smiles of hundreds of thousands of programmers. And again this feeling “yes, I know that! will everyone around now also understand this ?! ”

And so, last year Jason Fraid and David Heinemeier Hensson finally release their third book - "Remote: An Office Is Not Necessary." She talks about the obvious advantages of remote work, and like previous books, in a prophetic, almost biblical style, talks about the imminent transition to the remote work model of an increasing number of companies.

The typical line of thought of the early capitalists was: "Let's gather a lot of people at one point, where they will have to live in cramped houses on each other's heads, and then we will have enough human material to work in our factories." Just fine, Mr. Fat Bag.

The first and main idea is: “obvious is not bad”. This is a perfectly adequate statement, but, unfortunately, many people believe in its mandatory falsity. Simple and obvious to these people, these are signs of something wrong. I think you have met with such an opinion, they say, the correct one is necessarily difficult and not obvious.

Armed with the idea of ​​“obvious is not bad,” the authors consider the obvious advantages of remote work: high efficiency, saving time and money, and more opportunities for finding personnel (instead of finding people in a specific city, you can search for them all over the world). The authors then describe the status quo and surprise with the fact that a large number of companies (and maybe even your company) have been using remote work for a long time. Moreover, many government and public organizations do this. The turning point has already arrived, remote work has already won, we just do not always notice it.

By introducing the practice of remote work, IBM has reduced the used office space by 7 million square meters since 1995. m. Of these, about 5 million square meters. m were sold, which brought in $ 1.9 billion.

The authors devote part of the book to the classic excuses that company leaders come up with in order not to switch to remote work. Probably all of you have heard them: “how am I going to keep an eye on the workers?”, “How can I get them if an urgent matter appears?”, “Why did we buy this new luxurious office?” ... For every excuse, the authors offer again, an obvious and rational explanation.

In the end, the authors admit that you have understood everything and are now asking the question: “how can all this be organized?”. Remote work, despite its flexibility, requires significant changes in the mechanics of the team and in the mental model of its members. Several chapters are devoted to solving the basic problems associated with partial and complete transition to remote mode.

Despite the fact that Remote is a book about work, it pays a lot of attention to recreation and life in general. When working from home it is very easy to switch to 24-hour work, and this is a real danger not only to become disillusioned with the idea of ​​remote work, but also to ruin your health, relationships and career. Therefore, “Remote” describes techniques for separating professional and personal life.

Remote is as easy to read as Getting Real and Rework, it looks like a logical continuation of them. But if the first book was written for web developers and team leaders, and the second for entrepreneurs, then Remote is designed for the widest circle of readers.

To be honest, for a long time I could not understand who she really was for. Programmers and computer scientists? We already know and love (most often) remote work. In our midst, this idea has gained popularity. Entrepreneurs? Perhaps, but young entrepreneurs already prefer remote mode as much as possible: this approach saves time and money. And entrepreneurs of the old school (and especially a separate popular class - soviet managers), in my opinion, will not change their minds thanks to one book. It seems that Remote is written to convince people, but those who are already convinced read it first. In English there is such an expression - "preaching to the choir" - "to preach to the church choir." That is, to convince those people who already believe.

But in the end I realized: yes, this book is being read by the church choir. But it is given to us as a tool, or as a guide to action. One book is not enough to convince people who believe in 9 to 5 work, employee tracking, dress code and time tracking. It's our job — armed with the speculations and insights of Remote and other books, articles, blogs and speeches, to convince people that working like a 1920 factory is bad in most cases. You need to understand that this will benefit primarily the managers and owners of the companies themselves. And we can help them.

Appreciated the book

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

I went to work, 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 work process, 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 if such a practice spreads and takes root in native land, it will 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 a hint;)

Appreciated 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 the seemingly ineffective semblance of hectic activity, which often consists of either "managing the chairs" or sitting in the pants on these very chairs - this is definitely not for me. Not to mention the trips to and from work, traffic jams and bad weather, the need to send a child to kindergarten, which 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 advice and a list of the most effective tools for organizing the workflow.
This book will be equally useful for managers and employees alike; for those who already practice remote work, and for those who have not yet made a final decision for themselves. It clearly, without too much 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, which runs as a red line throughout the book, is that work should be enjoyable. Psychologists have long proved that the carrot-and-stick policy is the last century. "There is only one sure-fire way to increase motivation - to encourage people to work on what they like, and only with people who do not leave them indifferent." This is the main secret of "Remote".
If you like living far from the noisy city and admiring the sheep grazing on the green grass; if you like to work with a cup of coffee in a cozy cafe or have a leisurely breakfast with your family members - remote work is for you.
If you want your employees to work conscientiously and to be results-oriented, loosen up your control, let them work from home, change the strict dress code for comfortable sweatpants, and they will repay you for your trust a hundredfold. hands, it may just not be your job. So it's time to reconsider your life and rebuild on new rails.

Now I am on maternity leave and slowly freelance. I like to sleep longer in the morning and work hard in the evening. I no longer see myself trapped in the office. 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 if it is on the scale of our city). Therefore, this book was especially useful for me: it helped to explore the issue of remote work from all sides, with all its pros and cons, and threw in new ideas. And most importantly, it inspired me to take my first steps.

Appreciated the book

XXI century is the century of new technologies and breakthrough ideas. And now you think that people live in a completely, completely different way: we have super iPads, MacBooks, Internet (!), Cool cars and everything that only our heart desires. However, if you drip into the very essence of life, nothing has changed. People are born, then kindergarten, school, university, work, and finally - pension. And after all, most of their time, that is, their lives, people spend on work. And how many people can boast of their incredible love of 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 inside and out. Every employee's day begins with a favorite alarm clock, the way to work, waiting for the end of the working day, the way home and a pillow. You start to notice how your time for family and friends is getting shorter. Sometimes you remember how much you wanted to travel, learn languages, paint, play an instrument, dance, or eventually find time for a book that you always looked at with a sigh "not now."
It's time to change the most important part of our life. The work of Jason Fraid and David Heinemeier Hensson “Remote. Office is not necessary ”reveals to us the first steps in this. Namely:
1. Ability to work outside the office. And it is beneficial not only for employees, but also for the employer himself - to save on renting premises.
2. Arises from the first. Save time and travel costs. No need to stand in traffic jams, make transfers, be on the bus during rush hours (!).
3. Have flexible work hours. How many hours, say from 10 to 6, do you really work? Wouldn't it be better to catch the very time when you feel the work will be productive?
4. Evaluation of the work itself. You will no longer be judged by what time you deigned to show up for work today, how many cups of tea / coffee you drank, how long you talked to 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 in creating and improving 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 by the very idea of ​​not having an office and working remotely. After all, this is a unique opportunity to work from anywhere on our planet. 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.