"you'd have to be pretty ignorant to claim remote workers are able to communicate as well as on-site workers. If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately."
And here's why, Skype overcomes this problem... I've worked remotely in plenty of team situations where I've sent a chat message, and got instant response, consistently.
When I get a Skype message in these situations, the only reason I wouldn't respond is if I wasn't at my desk for the same reasons someone wouldn't be at their desk in a face-to-face office situation.
I think, as a business community, we just need to get more and more comfortable with remote working arrangements, and implement policies that could cover the various productivity issues (if you don't respond to a message within 'X'... this happens etc...).
I also think we have to remember there are productivity issues in the face-to-face office scenario as well, when people get together they tend to "talk around the water cooler," they tend to "go out for drinks, then call in sick the next day" etc... and other social-oriented productivity issues.
Not all productivity issues are bad either, if someone working remotely doesn't answer a chat message in 7 seconds, they might be improving themselves in some manner. ;)
"you'd have to be pretty ignorant to claim remote workers are able to communicate as well as on-site workers. If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately."
And here's why, Skype overcomes this problem... I've worked remotely in plenty of team situations where I've sent a chat message, and got instant response, consistently.
When I get a Skype message in these situations, the only reason I wouldn't respond is if I wasn't at my desk for the same reasons someone wouldn't be at their desk in a face-to-face office situation.
I think, as a business community, we just need to get more and more comfortable with remote working arrangements, and implement policies that could cover the various productivity issues (if you don't respond to a message within 'X'... this happens etc...).
I also think we have to remember there are productivity issues in the face-to-face office scenario as well, when people get together they tend to "talk around the water cooler," they tend to "go out for drinks, then call in sick the next day" etc... and other social-oriented productivity issues.
Not all productivity issues are bad either, if someone working remotely doesn't answer a chat message in 7 seconds, they might be improving themselves in some manner. ;)