[haswell]

I experienced this when we brought on junior members and an intern right as COVID hit. The short answer is that you do it like anything else you do remotely.

Zoom, chat, email, regular check-ins. They join the standups and team calls, learn who to reach out to for help, are assigned a buddy, etc.

There can be benefits in terms of teambuilding and camaraderie in a collocated environment, but I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally different about a newer employee. Their lack of experience will be more about what they don’t know about the company, and not a lack of ability to collaborate remotely, a skill that they have most likely learned by now. And if they can’t collaborate remotely, they may not be a good fit for a remote company.

[ghaff]

>a skill that they have most likely learned by now. And if they can’t collaborate remotely, they may not be a good fit for a remote company.

Those are both good points.

To the first, you really can't look at it through a "when I was a boy" lens. A lot of things are different with respect to communications today, especially those who went through school during the pandemic. Even outside of work, although I certainly still get together with people, I find that a lot of the time, we're quicker to setup a zoom call rather than go to someone's house or travel to some meeting.

And, it's a bit harsh, but you're also right with your second point. Maybe (assuming the company has decent practices) if remote doesn't work for them as an intern or other new hire, they may not be a good fit if that's also going to be the primary mode of work going forward.

[Corrado]

> And if they can’t collaborate remotely, they may not be a good fit for a remote company.

I work for a REMOTE first company and we had a junior developer that was struggling with not being in the office. The good news is that they were able to move to another company with a local office. The bad news is we didn't see that they were struggling until it was too late. Maybe if we were in the office we might have been able to reach out and help sooner.

I feel like employee happiness and job satisfaction is harder to manage remotely. Or it just might be that this employee wouldn't have worked out anyway. Who knows.

[red-iron-pine]

> I feel like employee happiness and job satisfaction is harder to manage remotely. Or it just might be that this employee wouldn't have worked out anyway. Who knows.

It is, but there are mitigations. The big one is that you have to ask. You can't bump into an employee and have a chat on the way to lunch or in an elevator and get a candid take on X or Y. You gotta ask directly, and often take the temperature a few times.

Experienced employees will vent or direct complaints -- squeaky wheels, grease, etc. -- but the noobs may not know how to complain, or if they should feel invalidated, dumb, etc. Hard to know what condition your condition is in.