Recently I was listening to the podcast “Distributed” hosted by Matt Mulleneg, who’s the founder and CEO of WordPress and Automattic. Interestingly, a company with over 800 employees has no physical offices, and for the last 15+ years, they have seen steady growth and have been crushing it. WordPress’s distributed model is not unique to just WordPress; large companies with over 1000 employees have started providing the option to either work from home or come to the office during the pandemic. Some companies have stated they will allow employees to work from home for the remainder of the year and well into 2022.
Why distributed?
The main reason why a company may decide to go entirely distributed is to reduce cost and maximize efficiency. By utilizing a large talent pool from overseas engineers and developers, companies can stretch their budget. Companies located in smaller cities can’t find talent for projects, often having to relocate staff to fulfill their requirements. This means a higher cost of acquisition of talent. With the recent development of freelancing websites, companies have to rely on freelance developers or hire remote employees located in a different city. This might be the case for some companies, but many companies will eventually adopt this model and go fully distributed.
Downsides with a distributed workforce
There is always a downside with new models, such as a distributed workforce. One is staying in sync throughout the organization and meeting goals. Project management is crucial for any organization, but once a company adapts to the distributed work model, its project management methodology must also adjust to this new model. This means a company should evaluate what’s important and determine the KPI’s for each team member. There are also technical challenges with a distributed workforce, including choosing the right communication tools and software to keep the line of communication open for the whole organization. There are tools such as basecamp, Trello, skype, zoom, Microsoft teams, along with a large variety of project management tools and communication software available. The management should choose the tools that will best fit the companies’ model and enforce this through the organization. Still, one should keep an open mind and stay adaptable to change and quick implementation, as technology is constantly evolving.
Suppose you or an organization you know want to explore distributed workforce models and learn how to take advantage of software engineering augmentation; we can schedule a quick call to explore this further.
