I've been telecommuting for a decade now. Before that, I grew up on a farm where everyone I was surrounded with also worked from home. Working in an office, or other away-from-home location, is a very strange concept to me.
With that said, it seems like this is something that is easily sorted by the market. If top talent want to work from remote locations, top talent will make telecommuting-friendly businesses rise to hire even more workers.
If the on-site businesses hiring B and C players, for lack of a better description, are still winning in the marketplace, perhaps it is the telecommuting that is the downfall?
I don't think it works that way. People who are good at coding are not necesarilly people who are good at creating businesses (not always, but usually).
My post was made under the common assumption that top developers/engineers/etc. drive the success of the business just as much as the business people. It is why companies go looking to hire the very best programmers, engineers, etc. Otherwise everyone would hire the not-so-good, but inexpensive people.
If we assume the top people are choosing to telecommute, yet the best companies do not allow telecommuters, it means that those businesses are succeeding in spite of not having the very best people.
Since telecommuting is still not common in our industry, either:
A. Not hiring top employees does not impact the success of a business. In fact, top businessmen might have a better chance of success hiring poorer talent.
- or -
B. Telecommuting is preventing some companies, that would otherwise be successful, from succeeding.
- or -
C. Top talent would rather work on-site, and are choosing to work for the companies that support that kind of culture instead.
With that said, it seems like this is something that is easily sorted by the market. If top talent want to work from remote locations, top talent will make telecommuting-friendly businesses rise to hire even more workers.
If the on-site businesses hiring B and C players, for lack of a better description, are still winning in the marketplace, perhaps it is the telecommuting that is the downfall?