Focusing on remote-only, remote-first, remote-from-scratch companies is how I ended up at my current, and literally best company I've ever worked for, gig. Obviously the pool of such companies is smaller than in-person and they tend to have more competition for roles, but my unscientific guess is that pool is growing larger.
Bonus points for those companies because they didn't have to "figure it out" or change upper management corporate culture to go remote.
I am still flabbergasted that more companies have not gotten it through their skulls yet. Even if you keep an office, all-remote is simply a better model. Not only do you have access to a global labor pool (including the best candidates), the communication is better and work is more flexible (which literally everyone appreciates), you can lower overhead or even hire people for less based on location. The only major downside to going all-remote is the initial pain of the culture shift. You can keep an office for those that need in-person coworkers. It's all been figured out already so it's not a mystery.
A funny thing in this regard is that companies using an open office to save money are often not willing to go remote because they are worried it will hurt productivity.
I find it bizarre that so many (American?) companies make such an issue out of this. I have no idea if my experience is typical for my country (NL), but both companies I've worked for since the start of the pandemic were eager to let everybody work remotely. Both are very big and traditional: a major bank and an international accountancy firm, and one is selling off their HQ office. Both let the teams decide, and generally aim for one day at the office per week, with the rest remote. But that day is pretty optional, and we've never had the entire team present.
Here is why: extraverts who need constant hyperactive human interaction are the only people psychopathic enough to ascend into the leadership tiers that make decisions about remote vs. in-person.
So they just can't, and I mean CAN'T, handle the idea of all-remote.
I would love to go to a remote first company. How do you even find such a thing without just being super lucky?
I'm actually onboarding at a remote position right now where the people I work with are clearly used to everything happening in an office. It's Thursday, I started Monday, and I have spent a grand total of maybe 3 hours speaking to my teammates or direct manager.
I've been dumped with a ton of documentation and stuff to read, but I feel extremely isolated. No one on my team has reached out to welcome me or make themselves available for questions or anything.
If this is what some people are experiencing in the remote world I don't blame them for wanting to go back to the office. It certainly is not how I've experienced remote work in the past so far.
If there isn’t an IRC, Slack, or other instant messaging system in place, that should be the first step. Without that, I cannot imagine how remote work would actually… work.
From there, start being proactive about asking questions or starting conversations. Do not wait for others to reach out. You must initiate. That is a huge part of remote culture.
If you are initiating on instant messaging and not generating feedback or conversation, then you have a much bigger problem.
There is a Slack, of course. I've found people quite slow to reply so far.
Expecting a new hire to initiate is pretty unrealistic imo. Even in an office, leaders should be encouraging employees to reach out to the new hire and make that connection. In person new hires would be getting a team lunch of some kind at most companies I've ever worked at, some kind of scheduled time to meet and interact with people.
I don't see why remote should be different really. Onboarding should be a hands on process for the whole team to participate in, remote or not.
So, yes. I am kind of wondering if this is a bigger problem or if once I have stuff to work on things will improve.
The problem at your new company isn’t to do with location, it’s that for whatever reason, their culture is terrible. There are zero scenarios where a good-culture company doesn’t very effectively welcome new people into a team.
Remote and office work are not the same in my experience. Your expectations need adjustment, if only because they conflict with the reality that you have observed.
Moreover, senior roles absolutely require you to initiate. If you are in a junior role, proactive behavior will help you advance past those who wait for things to come to them.
In general terms, initiating is an active behavior, while expecting others to initiate is passive. If you want “hands on” from others, tell those hands that you need their engagement.
In general, I strongly advise against passive behavior, unless you want your career driven by the good graces of others.
I started searching for remote-first companies and specifically targeted them. I have 10-15 years of experience (depending on the specific needs of the company) in software, I was in a stable position at yet another zombie startup so I had time to hone my resume, interviewing skills, etc. Took me 2 tries and 2 years to land this particular position but it was worth it.
Interviewing can definitely be a numbers game but in hindsight (and just my experience) it's important to only go for companies where you think you'd be happy working.
As for onboarding, whether it's a remote first, omg-remote-because-of-covid, or an in-person company I've had varied results. My experience at most startups is that onboarding is pretty low on the priority list and quality is very dependent on the hiring manager and the team you've been hired onto.
Yours is a bad example. I on-boarded at a remote-first company (they were remote pre-COVID) a year ago and my experience was nothing like yours.
I was warmly welcomed and immediately partnered with a senior person. People were extremely helpful and if I needed help, people were always open to hopping on a call to get me unstuck. Most people respond to slack messages quickly.
The only downside is the codebase/tech stack sucks and the technical culture leaves something to be desired. But they have really nailed the remote experience.
I will never willingly go back to the office. My employer definitely gets more productivity out of me than if I were in office. It really is a win-win in my case.
[Edit]:removed repetition
I've been in all remote companies since '12, and will never go back unless forced. For what we do, it's pointless to travel to an office. Same goes for a huge majority of corporate work. It's gonna simultaneously trigger and require the economic destruction of a huge amount of office real estate investments to enable the change to remote work to become the majority.
> It's gonna simultaneously trigger and require the economic destruction of a huge amount of office real estate investments to enable the change to remote work to become the majority.
Baring in mind this could be worse than 2008. It's not going to be pretty and workers will ultimately feel the brunt.
Yet, if that cooperate real estate were converted into mixed use residential, the corporations might save themselves at the expense of every single family homeowner and investor. This is a likelihood because the single family real estate market would normalize to 1970 home prices with the amount of corporate real estate that could be converted. Don't underestimate corporations willingness to save themselves at the expense of everything else, including our planet.
Bonus points for those companies because they didn't have to "figure it out" or change upper management corporate culture to go remote.