Airbnb Commits To Fully Remote Workplace: 'Live and Work Anywhere' (techcrunch.com) 60
Airbnb is going all in on the "live anywhere, work anywhere" philosophy that much of the business world has been forced to adopt, committing to full-time remote work for most employees and a handful of perks like 90 days of international work/travel. It's a strong, simple policy that so few large companies have had the guts to match. From a report: In an email to employees posted to the company blog, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky outlined the new policy, summing it up in five points:
1. You can work from home or the office
2. You can move anywhere in the country you work in and your compensation won't change
3. You have the flexibility to travel and work around the world
4. We'll meet up regularly for gatherings
5. We'll continue to work in a highly coordinated way.
1. You can work from home or the office
2. You can move anywhere in the country you work in and your compensation won't change
3. You have the flexibility to travel and work around the world
4. We'll meet up regularly for gatherings
5. We'll continue to work in a highly coordinated way.
Re: Bravo! (Score:2)
I keep getting job postingsâ¦they say âoeRemote until COVIDâ.
Why would we work remote until COVID? Isnâ(TM)t it supposed to say âoeRemote until AFTER COVIDâ?
And, yeahâ¦why not just keep things remote with, maybe, periodic/weekly mtgs once per week (at least on same day)?
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Re:Bravo! (Score:4, Insightful)
I was with you until your last sentence - why be an ass? There are lots of reasons for working from home - and 99% of them don't have anything to do with "cowering".
My job has done much the same as what Airbnb is doing here: they gave everyone the choice to work from home, go hybrid, or work fully from the office. Most people have chosen to do hybrid - with my own group working in the office Tues-Thurs and having Monday and Friday be at home. It's been nice to get back to the office and have those spontaneous interactions again... but it's also nice to be sitting by my fire at home today while it's snowing.
We do have some team members that have chosen to be fully remote... and we have set up lots of "collaboration" areas with nice teleconferencing systems so that we can easily pull them into the conversations as well.
We'll see how it all goes over the years - but I'm pretty happy with this new working arrangement.
Re:Bravo! (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the social/human interaction aspects of an office. I like the serendipity and randomness of taking transit to get there. I like the fact that my living and working spaces are separated.
Glad you like those things. In person work sounds good for you.
You can cower at home for eternity ... if you don't want to work in person, can I have your job when you join the dole line?
Cower? Really? Some people like getting at least an hour and a half of life back from commuting, and get very little out of the experience itself. Given the inherent decreased cost, I'm doubtful remote work opportunities are going to go away barring a complete breakdown of the Internet. It's cool that you enjoy the traditional commute; those jobs are not going away either.
Re:Bravo! (Score:4, Insightful)
To each his own.
I have always separated work and real life.
My co-workers at work are only just that. They are not friends, and outside of work, I do not socialize with them.
VERY few exceptions to that rule ever in my working history.
I'm a nice person at work, easy to get along with, etc....but to keep things simple and no problems of conflict I keep those people away from my personal life.
So, I can take or leave them.
I've been working remotely for 9+ years....everyone is remote to me and I'm used to it and like it.
I found work had many more distractions, people dropping in with nothing to say, meetings last a bit too long, etc.
I prefer my looser hours WFH. I sometimes start earlier or later and end earlier or later as the day warrants.
I've not had a package stolen off my doorstep in almost a decade. If I have to run weekday errands, no problem.
And best of all, NO COMMUTE.
I have PLENTY of friends in real life.
I spend my time with them in person, we go out, we see concerts (just saw Primus the other night with them playing Rush's A Farewell to Kings).
I'm far from a shut in...my life without masks or fears has been the norm since I got my 2nd shot last April.
We had Mardi Gras this year, French Quarter Fest just ended last weekend and today JazzFest starts.
Work is work....WFH gives me the ultimate in flexibility.
But hey, whatever floats your boat buddy.
I like the serendipity and randomness of jumping on my bicycle early in the morning and riding around before work during the time you have your commute.
Per my earlier remarks, I'm far from cowering.
It's just that being on site at work offers me absolutely nothing in terms of benefits vs working from home.
And as far as being on the dole...I'm well in the 6 figures away from having to go "on the dole".
And have been while working remotely for almost a decade.
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Ah yes wasting my hours away in a daily commute. Time lost that can never be recovered.
Looks like a personal problem (Score:2)
Many of us can develop human relationships without a captive audience.
Many of us value our time and consider commuting an expensive waste. Commuting contributes to climate change by wasting energy making it inherently less ethical than WFH.
Many us are capable of separating our home and work spaces at home. My father ran his successful business from home before the internet. All that took was a dedicated room with a locking door.
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I can't. I need a captive audience. When you're STARVING, you'll take scraps and rummage through the trash for broken plates.
If we were ethical as a country, we'd build nuclear power plants to power electric trains so that people can commute and travel without carbon-spewing. SAVE! SAVE! SAVE OUR TRAINS!
I LOVE TRAINS!!!! I'm an atheist, but riding a train (subway, high-speed, or just an ordinary commuter train) is as close to a religious experience as I've ever felt.
I don't have a big apartment. I do
Does that include online? (Score:3)
If that doesn't include online meeting, then it's a thinly veiled way to say that if you're not in driving range of the office for X meetings per week/month/year, you should look for a new job.
Re:Does that include online? (Score:5, Interesting)
Usually this refers to having a travel policy that is friendly to having on-site gatherings periodically where remote teams can become not-remote for a week or so, or even having an off-site where the whole team gathers in a location that isn't an office or even in a city that isn't where an office is. The previous company I worked for had an "engineering offsite" annually where a location was chosen and we'd all show up in New Orleans or New York or Denver or wherever for a week of intense planning meetings, etc. during the day, and at least one team dinner and activity at night, with the rest of the nights free to do as you wish.
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I live 3.5 hours from the office. Haven't been there lately due to COVID. Would normally come up a few times a year, company pays for a hotel.
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I've been essentially 100% remote for at least 5 years now. Before covid I still came in to my local office sometimes but there was nobody from my team there, it was just to get out of the house, go to the gym, chat with the ladies, etc.
Since my team had like 11 people in 6 different countries, we'd do pretty much what you said and the whole team would travel to one of the locations for a week or so. Sometimes my manager's manager would have a big kick-off with all the underlings as well, so we'd have at le
Re:Does that include online? (Score:4, Informative)
Costs of living (Score:2)
I wonder how they'll adjust salaries for cost of living.
Average for the country you work in? Will make it impossible to live in many cities.
Based on your location when you hire? It might be worth "moving" to a really expensive area for a month or two while job searching to get the good salary, then move back home if they don't change your pay.
I and several of my coworkers are looking to ditch the Dallas area for a place we can get land and build a custom home for way less - the only challenge right now is r
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That is very much a value judgment. What do you want and what do you like to do determines where you will be happy.
I was looking at Apples circular headquarters on satellite view, and right next to it is my version of hell, all those nearly identical houses jammed into those tiny lots.
Shudder.
Re:Costs of living (Score:4, Insightful)
I worry about that. I live in a sem-rural area (near decent sized towns, but I can still see corn fields from my subdivision) that's starting to build up from the influx of people abandoning the higher priced 'trendy' areas of my state. On one hand the new people moving in can help build up the infrastructure and tax base of smaller towns, but it also can price people out of their own communities that they've lived in for generations. I've also seen some culture clash happening as the new people bring their own ways of doing things that don't sit well with the original population. It should be interesting to see what happens. I also fear that as these quiet little towns get built up that the whole reason these places were desirable to live in in first place will be lost.
The value of my house has almost doubled in the last two or three years, but I can't afford to sell and move anywhere because the cost of housing in those areas has also doubled. Due to the nature of my job I still have to go into the office a few times a month so moving further out into the countryside isn't an option.
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Or an incompetent manager, who can't manage his/her staff if you can't see them.
The world has changed, get used to it. I love my hybrid in office and WFH arrangement. My employer is currently looking at any company trying to force staff back into the office as a potential source of new employees.
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Just curious, what makes you so pro city, pro urban?
If that's what you like, more power to you, but what makes you very enthusiastic about it....and also apparently makes you sad/angry at people that choose not to live in urban areas?
Myself, I hope I never have to share walls with neighbors again.
I like having a yard with room for my veggie garden, place for my log burning smoker, my grill, and room to have outdoor parties with my friends (external to work co
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I love my city. I love public transit. SAVE OUR TRAINS! I don't want to see urban life crumble around me because COVID turned people into FUCKING COWARDS about urban life
I hate the city. I loathe public transit. I reject your categorization of anyone who disagrees with you as a "FUCKING COWARD". I hated the office before COVID, and it is still the least productive place for me to work. I go in once a week to push buttons that need my finger to press them, and other than that I will fight tooth and nail to avoid going back to the office full time. My boss if fine with this, so it will not be happening.
The world has changed. For years I put up with going to the office in t
Re: Fucking bastard (Score:2)
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Thankfully I changed jobs from tech to an industry that can't be as easily "homescummed.". I adapted by running away from the world that techbros like yourself want to lock us all into.
Good for you. I hope that works out for you. But the name calling suggests it probably won't. For the record, I am an old man, and about a far from being a "Techbro" as you can possibly get.
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Really? Please define "interesting people", because as much as you hate change, working from home, and new normal... You seem like you'd fit right in rural location.
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Cities are more efficient because trips are shorter and more walls are shared, reducing both wall cost and more importantly, heating and cooling costs.
I don't want to live in them either, at least not our shitty cities. But that's not because cities are bad, it's because America is bad. Lots of other countries have lovely cities. We don't because of the automotive, road, and oil cartels.
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Well, I've reached a point in my life where I can afford to not share walls.
I'm not concerned with efficiency really...I'm concerned with my creature comforts. Hell at this point I'm pretty much over the halfway point in my life, so, I intend to make the remainder of it as fun, comfy and pleasurable as I possibly can afford.
Over the years, I've built up a
Re: Fucking bastard (Score:1)
Tell us about growing up in your village, and then moving to some slum in LA or NYC while your mother worked three jobs to give you the education she never had.
That's all your little story is missing.
While I too liked to travel to the US I'd never live there. Too much crime and poverty, plus a full third of the adult population is effectively retarded.
That's true by the way. It would take a truly enormous figure to make me consider a move there, and it'd only be temporary. In that respect it's like any othe
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Tell us all about how you had to walk 6 miles to school everyday...
in blinding snowstorms...
up hill in both directions...
while being completely shoeless...
and only wearing a long, knee-length sleep shirt handed down from your older sister...
after eating a meagre breakfast of thin gruel and plants scavenged from the nearby hillsides.
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No, I had an average lifestyle growing up, lower middle class...dual parent home, something that was quite in vogue when I was a kid.
I never said I had it tough, I just said I didn't have it easy and wasn't from a wealthy family
My parents grew up closer to poverty and their parents really did.
No you can't work in any country around the world. (Score:2)
There are laws in every country that only citizens, or people with special work-authorized visas, can work while in that country. I am not saying the laws make any sense, but that it is what it is. You have to follow the law or go to jail. End result is a global reduction in goods & services production output and thereby overall reduction in quality of life for more people. Humanity can't reap the benefits of a global workforce as long as the vestiges of nationalism exist.
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Or you break the law and don't get caught. In most countries, if you do get caught, worst thing that will happen is you get deported.
As far as the law. Fuck the law. Fuck those who made it. Fuck those who enforce it. In general, it's a crying shame that more cops, politicians, and judges didn't get COVID and die gurgling and thrashing about in an isolation ward, unable to even hold a family member's hand as it got harder and harder to breathe. Goes for almost all countries.
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There are companies that help with that. Lookup OysterHR. They help companies hire remotely from nearly any country. They have "Employer of Record" offices in most nations, have forms that deal with visa requirements, multiple payment gateways in different financial networks and tax calculators to help estimate the cost of hiring someone with taxes and currency conversion.
Practically speaking, how would they know (Score:2)
There are laws in every country that only citizens, or people with special work-authorized visas, can work while in that country.
Those laws are meant to prevent visitors from taking jobs forms local citizens.
You aren't taking any jobs, you just happen to be sitting in some other country while still working for the company in your home country.
Your living there in fact, puts money into the economy they didn't have before, so it's welcome.
Aside form that, how would they know? It's not like the company has to
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Aside form that, how would they know? It's not like the company has to report wrk done by employees who are in other countries.
Do you not pay taxes? Generally your pay statements and W-2 (or country equivalent) shows who's paying you. And yes, last I checked, companies do have to report on their workers in other countries. Try having Apple (for example) set up shop in some foreign country and not tell that country. See how that works out.
You don't pay taxes where you travel to work (Score:1)
Do you not pay taxes? Generally your pay statements and W-2 (or country equivalent) shows who's paying you.
I pay taxes in the U.S. I work for a company in the U.S.
So if I work for a month in Germany, I repeat: How would Germany know?
Because that's what we are talking about, simply living somewhere else for a few months while still being paid by the company you work for at home.
Re: Practically speaking, how would they know (Score:1)
It's not the same.
Apple sets up a subsidiary in a country that pays people in that country in local currency, through local banks, under local laws, paying local taxes.
If you're working for Apple US you get paid US dollars into a US bank and you'd pay US taxes. As far as the local country is concerned you're not working at all, you're just spending overseas money into the local economy. Win/win !
The Bad Side of this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Bad Side of this (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, if there is no need to hire locally, unless you're a star, why wouldn't they hire in low-cost countries instead, e.g India? They can do the same job for a fraction of the price compared to the USA.
What you suggest is great in theory. But my experience with Indian developers is that the good ones leave india, and the cheap ones that are still working in India are just not worth the money.
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I came here to confirm exactly that. If dev jobs could be simply outsourced to India, they would have been a long time ago.
If they could offshore the jobs they would (Score:1)
But as for lower pay, who cares? Right now I'm making a lot of money but the high cost of living means most of it goes into the pockets of some rich rent seeker. If you cut my pay 15% and my expenses 25% everyone comes out ahead ex
They can all work from Airbnbs! (Score:4, Funny)
Companies Take Note (Score:1)
If you try to lock your employees into your little box of an office, they're not going to do as well and some of them are just going to bail. That dinosaur-style workplace is over.