In my experience having all local employees works well or having all remote employees works well. It becomes a logistical nightmare when you start to mix local and remote employees.
More than logistics, the problem is a cultural divide. 6 people talk to each other constantly, but the other 3 guys are stuck on chat.
There's also the problem of remoting requiring a different skillset. I know many developers that are very good, yet they are terrible remote developers. I know one that would spend her days tweeting or enjoying her boyfriend. Another one that will fight a problem for a week instead of asking a 5 minute question. Another will undertake major refactors without telling anyone. And all those three are amazing developers while on site: You just have to keep them on an extremely short leash while remoting, and they really don't like that.
I don't like the words you're using to describe the people in your second paragraph, it doesn't sound like a problem with skillsets as we normally think of the word, or culture necessarily, at least the "culture" of workplaces.
It sounds like these people have to be on a short leash, period. It's just that the leash is implicit on site, but has to become explicit in a bad way when they're remote.
Although I do empathize in other contexts (especially the long term unemployed, or those not making it into the job marketplace) the general "skillsets" of working, of "showing up on time", being diligent, properly subordinate to your superiors, etc.
It depends on the culture. I'm one of 3 remote employees at my company and there's no support from management or recognition that remote is different. It makes it tough. I'm the only dev on my team that signs in to IM reliably.
That must be frustrating, have you tried bringing up your concerns with management? Sometimes they just don't realize you're having difficulties until there is a major issue.
Yeah I've brought it up to management. The lead dev on my current assignment doesn't like to use Skype because it "slows his computer down"
I tried to get a yammer site going but it died as well. My boss said that he prefers face-to-face interaction so I got a high-quality webcam but it's already enough of a pain to make sure he has his microphone plugged in.
-.- sounds like lazy management to me. It really shouldn't be that hard for you boss to be available on a video chat service when he knows he has remote workers.
it's more like management that's too busy working and not managing.
that might sound ridiculous but the CEO is the lead PM on the biggest project we've ever taken on as a company. He's so busy going to planning and user meetings and managing the requirements that he doesn't have time to work on the company. I love the work and I live in the middle of nowhere which are two lame reasons I haven't seriously pursued other options.
