Why does an employer prefer to hire a web developer in the office?

Question

Freelance

Good afternoon. I live in Ukraine and specialize in web development for the Magento platform, but I think other developers from other countries also face a similar problem. Recently, I have been looking for remote work for full time, because. project-based work, although it allows you to feel quite confident in terms of earnings, is still not stable, and if you are engaged in more than 5 projects at the same time, then constant switching between contexts starts to drive you crazy. In most cases, after reviewing the resume, the employer offers to move to his city and flatly refuses to consider remote cooperation, even if I am ready to work for less pay than an office worker.
I'm interested to hear the opinion of employers, why is a remote worker so bad? What difficulties may arise in communication if I am at my computer all the time during working hours and am ready to instantly respond via Skype or any other similar programs for communication?

Answer 1

Some time ago, I worked in one of the web studios as a programmer. We had layout designers and programmers on our staff, and part of the layout and programming work was given to freelance. Before that, I participated in several projects in which all participants worked remotely. Basically, I've been on both sides of it.
When I worked for a company, there were always all sorts of problems with freelancers. Both in terms of quality and speed of response. Despite all sorts of Skype and ICQ, it’s much easier to find out something from an employee or explain something to him live. Tasks are solved more efficiently.
When I was freelancing with other remote members of the project. I had the same problem, only on the other side. It was difficult to find out any details of the TOR or tasks in the tracker.
Now we are working with a remote customer. In general, the problem of communication is very noticeable.
It is much easier to find out the details from a manager or a programmer sitting in the next room than to get a tighter nifa from a person 2000 km away from you. It's easy to chat on the life of the topic on Skype, but when it comes to code, diagrams and specifications, there is no convenient mechanism for this on Skype. Live, you can poke your finger at the monitor, showing a piece of code, draw a diagram on a board or paper, explaining on your fingers what these squares and arrows are.
In general, live tasks are solved more efficiently. Plus, with remote employees, there is such a problem that at one moment they can simply stop responding in ICQ, Skype and phones. There is also such a risk with local ones, but it is much less.
If we are talking about web studios or similar companies, then they usually have experience working with freelancers. Most prefer employees to the office.

Answer 2

>what's so bad about a remote worker?
In most cases, it does everything very slowly and almost uncontrollably, it constantly disappears.
Have you tried looking for jobs on oDesk? There periodically come across with remote work.

Answer 3

I will tell you my position as the head of the development department. I just don't feel comfortable working with remote workers. You can’t drag them to the board to poke a finger at a diagram or diagram. You can’t discuss anything with him “on the fingers” - all the material has to be brought to a formalized form for transmission via ICQ / mail / Skype. That is, in fact, much more time is spent working with a remote developer. And the manager’s time is expensive (more expensive than the winnings that can be obtained by working with remote workers. This does not mean that I am generally against remote work. If there is an employee who has worked in the office for several years, from whom “you know what to expect”, who fit into the communication scheme in the company - I do not mind if he works from home for some time or even permanently.But the fact shows

Answer 4

It’s harder for a remote operator to give magic kicks

Answer 5

As a former freelancer, I am wary of other freelancers, remembering myself and my flaws. :)
In fact, what is most important and basic - in relation to the remote operator, there are much fewer points and levers of control. Actually, there is only material. The worst option. Many other things are involved in the office, psychological, social, bureaucratic, which allow you to fine-tune the system.
As they say in books on regular management - "A company at a certain level of development should be interested not only in the result, but also in how it is achieved."
This does not mean that I do not work with remote workers or that it is not worth working at all. You just need to understand that you are much less convenient for the employer. And it does not cost minus 5-10% of the market rate of a similar "office" worker.
In reality, the difference in the cost of an employee (direct and indirect) should be 30-50%, so that, for example, I make a choice in favor of a remote worker.

Answer 6

Working in an office is buying your time.
Working remotely means buying results.

Answer 7

1) Out of habit;
2) wants stability, because he has heard about illnesses of grandmothers among freelancers;
3) still does not know that there are freelancers (yep, there are some).

Answer 8

Although not an employer, I dare to assume:

• The management of the company is not necessarily well versed in new technologies and it is wild for them to realize how it is possible to work from home
• It is not possible to communicate informally with the team, often great ideas come to mind somewhere in the dining room
• It is difficult to control a person and force him to observe discipline, (you urgently need to make changes and your cake is on fire)
• A company may have a layer of people who find it difficult to communicate with the developer via the same Skype, for example, sometimes it is much easier for designers and managers to throw a sketch on a piece of paper to show how it should work and point a finger, and it will take 5 minutes instead of writing essays in the application service floor hours and in the end you won’t understand what they need

As a result, it is easier for a firm to spend a little more money to hire a person in an office than to solve such problems.

Answer 9

There was a case with a friend. He needed to set up the server, I suggested that he find a freelance specialist “If he doesn’t do the job, can I shoot him?” - No, “Then he’s not suitable for me”

Answer 10

Yes, this is obvious:
1) There is a team spirit
in the office 2) In the office, you can shout hey Vasya, what do we have with that? Yes, everything is fine, just fixed it, go look here.
3) In the office, I can drive up to a colleague with a piece of paper in an armchair in 5 seconds and sketch something to him
. In general, communication is much, much easier. You can switch to remote work when you have already got used to each other, but from the very beginning it sucks.

Answer 11

In my experience in Germany, I can say that large companies with a huge number of projects and clients, on the contrary, love freelancers. Especially in the price of developers from Belarus and Ukraine, the quality of work is not much inferior to German, and they ask for money much less. But again, it all depends on the company and the manager.

Answer 12

In the office, it’s harder to sit back, cheat and easier to interact with the team, and the sight of a large number of people buried in monitors motivates you to work (and when at home, the view of summer outside the window, on the contrary, demotivates you to work).

Answer 13

You are bad because you disappear too often.

Answer 14

And yet, I think that you should not confuse the concepts of freelance - project work, and full-time permanent remote work, which I'm actually talking about! It seems to me that these are different concepts, although even in offices I have come across an essentially freelance practice: a developer is given a task, he evaluates it, and if everything is OK, he works within this assessment at a set hourly rate, with all the ensuing problems. By the way, it was after such an experience that I left to work "at home", because. there is essentially no difference, only time and money do not need to be spent on the road to the office.

Answer 15

work environment

Answer 16

Easier to plan work. After all, you want to work remotely so that it is more convenient for you to be absent for a short time. And that makes planning difficult.

Answer 17

Freelancer is free. It is much easier for him to send everyone and leave, you are not bound by any relationship other than virtual ones. It is much more difficult to rely on freelancers, because, as already mentioned, there are no levers.
+ Verbal communication tete-a-tete will not replace any Skype.

Answer 18

Went to read with a beer - lost about an hour.

Answer 19

Fine. Exactly about this from day to day I'm waiting for a book from 37signals. ;)

Answer 20

Does not prefer, but can afford.
If it can allow hiring in the office, then the integration of employees is better, the productivity of their work is higher.

Answer 21

> if I am at work all the time near the computer and ready to instantly respond via Skype
a) Skype is not everything. There are things that are difficult to coordinate even on Skype.
b) Risks. There is always a risk that you will react worse to communication. And if TNB forbid you still have some knowledge that is not duplicated, then not getting in touch can stop all “production”.

Answer 22

In general, as I understand it, the question was about hiring new employees, so it will be important to note here that a new employee remotely is an extremely high risk.
ps Many here argue based on the fact that they successfully work remotely with already established customers / contractors, you must admit - this is not an honest argument :)

Answer 23

This is a managerial issue, in which good managerial knowledge / experience is needed.
Working together at one point is essential when teamwork is needed: face-to-face communication helps to identify conflicts faster, manage them better, and as a result, more likely to create a cohesive team. At the same time, conflicts are not aggravated - remote communication conveys emotions much worse, so the addressee always speculates them for himself, and the conflict situation is senselessly aggravated.
For a more complete theory, google 1) "Tuckman model" 2) about differences in communication methods.

Answer 24

If you build all the processes correctly (everyone decides for himself what is right, because everyone is different), if the remote worker is interested, if he himself is motivated, then everything will go smoothly. Including from the very beginning of cooperation. Too many "ifs"? Well, it's true in every area of ​​life. There is a great measure of chaos in the world and therefore we only assume. The format of remote work is very suitable for HTML layout designers, UI designers, copywriters. It’s more difficult with UX designers, because it is believed that their effectiveness directly depends on the degree of integration with the PM, interaction with the business customer, analysts, etc. But, I am convinced that if the employee hired remotely is a Middle, then everything will go smoothly.