Technology was meant to herald a new way of working, but that’s not the case
I have managed remote employees for years and while I still think it&#x27;s a good tool in the box for providing a healthy and happy workplace, as well as recruiting&#x2F;retaining talent in situations where you couldn&#x27;t otherwise, I&#x27;ve grown increasingly jaded about the idea of functional, fully-remote organizations.<p>The trust issue referenced in this article is one element but there are many others:<p>- Many people don&#x27;t handle the level of autonomy well, or don&#x27;t stay motivated in isolation
- Harder to engage a remote employee in company culture and values
- There is a big difference between remote in the same time zone&#x2F;country and remote on the other side of the world
- Management invariably has less control over a remote employee and less ability to command their immediate attention<p>I think comparing &quot;remote work&quot; with &quot;not remote work&quot; is a massive oversimplification of the issue that does everyone a disservice. There is the group of remote contractors you&#x27;ve never met, there&#x27;s the team of fulltime employees that live within a few hours&#x27; flight of each other and meet several times a year, there&#x27;s the guy who works in the office 3 days a week and at home from 2. So what are we really talking about? Generalities are not productive.<p>The dark spectres hovering over the head of remote work are that remote employees often end up being less productive and less available when you really need them.<p>For certain types of work and certain types of people these issues are more or less pronounced... this is not a black and white thing. But I am pretty sure we will never see a future where everyone is a fully remote worker.