Hello! Less than a month ago, I got a job as a programmer in office 2030. How does it differ from offices in 2019? The most important difference is that it doesn't exist.
Or rather, not so. Of course he is. It's just virtual.
Every day after waking up and the usual morning rituals, I sit down at my workplace. The main rule is to start work before 10:00. From now on, appointments can be made in the calendar. I have the bare minimum: daily DSM (daily standup meeting) in the morning, that's usually all. Sometimes I need help, and then I post about it in Slack. As a rule, there is a colleague who can immediately call directly through the chat and help me. Of course, sometimes you have to write with a request for help from a lead, but this is more the exception than the rule.
Since I live in a village, there are no colleagues next to me, but in cities where five or more of our employees live, there is an opportunity to gather in coworking spaces. About 40% of our guys do just that: for example, married people with children, and not only. I have 150 km to the nearest such hub. No, no, but once a month I drive to the guys.
In addition to the routine, we have cool video meetings for developers where everyone can take part in discussing an urgent problem of the other team. We have a lot of teams and projects too. At these meetings, we exchange experiences with each other. Previously, this was not a very common practice, but in the 2030 office, the guys have been doing this for 10 years.
I would like to point out very good documentation for all internal tools. I am delighted that on all projects the guys use the same codestyle, the same flow of work with tasks and other standardized basic things. This allows colleagues from other projects to help me, and in six months I myself will be able to help newcomers on any project.
For the first two weeks, my lead called me every day, we talked about routine work questions and a ton of my why's. Why are we doing this and this is not? Why is the style like this? Why can't it be otherwise? Etc. Then we made a regular schedule of our sync - every two weeks. In addition, I regularly see the head of the department (head, this is the manager of my lead) - yes, once every 2 months, but it is! On such blues, I also shower with questions, and he talks about some plans for the year ahead. All this is interesting, of course, but I live from release to release, what are the years ahead? And plans tend to change frequently.
They say that there will be a meeting very soon! So now they call corporate parties, because almost everyone needs to fly to one place to chat live. Of course, the office-2030 pays for everything - you don't need to spend money on permanent rent of a large premises in the center of Moscow.
The event is more like a conference. On the first day, there are a lot of presentations from top managers. It's cool that you can approach them and ask any question: writing in a personal message on Slack can be kind of dumb, but here is a great opportunity to chat with CEO, COO, CTO, CPO, CFO, and with anyone.
At night - alcopati with colleagues. Even though I don't drink, I also have something to do - and, by the way, there are a lot of non-drinkers. By the way, the event takes place most often in Cyprus or Greece. I heard that it was several times in Italy and Spain.
Now let's summarize. What awaits us in the office of the future?
- The very concept of "office" will disappear forever.
Large companies are reformatting it into small coworking spaces in cities or simply allowing employees to work from home. This is convenient because there is no need to rent a large central office, which frees up a considerable part of the budget. The same applies to various office buns, if they are now. All this can be redirected to other needs of employees, more relevant in the remote format. In addition, from our own experience, we can say that the productivity of many employees does not suffer from the transfer to the home office, but only increases.
- Most communications are carried out using instant messengers and video communications.
This stems from the lack of a centralized office. This method of communication has its advantages and disadvantages, and it is not excluded by the presence of a classic office, but it makes the employee more accessible for urgent matters. Thus, more information is documented in writing, and then it is easier to recall it than after oral conversations.
- For ease of onboarding, projects have a special Wiki with various guides and tutorials.
This is convenient for new employees: all the information necessary at the start is well and clearly structured and contained in one place. If the answer is not immediately found, there are contacts where you can contact on an exciting issue.
- Hiring is carried out without reference to the place of residence, which makes it possible to equalize "Moscow" salaries with regional ones.
The demand from people for remote work is wide now. The transition of an increasing number of companies to this format of work expands the range of specialists available for hiring, although this adds hassle to the HR department - after all, there are much more candidates across the country, or even the world, than in one region. And since everyone begins to hunt not in the city, but in the country, it turns out that employers themselves warm up the market at the state level.
As a rule, legal registration of an employee for remote work is no more difficult than for an office. In our case, only one additional order is added to transfer the employee to remote work.
However, there are some nuances here. Legislation usually catches up with new trends. Basic rule: the employee must work in the country of incorporation of the company. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the employer to prove the existence of the employee, the activities of the company and, as a result, the legitimacy of the business.
For cross-border operation, there are the following main options:
- business trip is a temporary option;
- relocation with official employment is the most correct, but expensive and inflexible way: once a month you won't be able to work from different offices, and not everyone will agree to relocation;
- remote work (from home or from the office) - this option does not legally exist everywhere. So, unlike Russia in 2020, a law on remote work has already been adopted in 2030. And, for example, Estonia, Barbados, Georgia and Bermuda have visas for remote employees.
This is just one variant of the vision of what trends may affect the offices of the future in the IT industry, inspired by the changes that the pandemic conditions dictated to us. Maybe you have other opinions on this matter? What do you agree with or not, let's discuss.