I must be one of the few devs who doesn't like working from home. I do it when I have to but feel lonelier, out of the loop on the project/news, don't like that there's no distinction between home and work place. I think it's important to be able to switch off and mixing the worlds doesn't do it for me.
Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
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Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#42Well, I can testify that. Also, If you follow Pomodoro technique, it further boost your productivity
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#43As a manager: some people can work from home, and some just can’t. The problem is, you don’t know which is which when recruiting, and firing someone even remotely in a protected class is a huge hassle.
Even so, if I were to start a company today, I would try very hard to hire remote, for many reasons, the most important of which is this would dramatically expand the talent pool, and (I believe) lead to less stressed employees and better results. People who lack intrinsic motivation typically don’t perform well even in the office.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#44> 500 employees were divided into two groups--a control group (who continued working at HQ) and volunteer work-from-homers (who had to have a private room at home, at least six-month tenure with Ctrip, and decent broadband access as conditions).
That's a huge selection bias - if the 'treatment' group are self-selecting volunteers from your pool of all employees then that causes a whole host of issues.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#45Library etiquette = staying quiet, don't disturb people
But suddenly if you are programming, reading and writing code, you require less concentration?
TV dramas show people talking over their desks and try to convince people this is what being productive looks like, but that's far from reality.
Joel Spolsky said it in 2000: "Do you programmers have quiet working conditions?" https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#46Did their sample involve men with a 2 year old at home that constantly needs their attention as long as they are at home, and thinks that when their father is sitting on the laptop, he's making pink and blue spheres in paintbrush? Honestly, I can achieve little at home these days and feel like I'm doing injustice to both, work and the kid.
I don't think it's possible to work from home and look after a child at the same time - that won't give your work or your child sufficient focus.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#47Did their sample involve men with a 2 year old at home that constantly needs their attention as long as they are at home, and thinks that when their father is sitting on the laptop, he's making pink and blue spheres in paintbrush? Honestly, I can achieve little at home these days and feel like I'm doing injustice to both, work and the kid.
Honestly one of the biggest motivations I have to work from home which I otherwise dislike is to be there for my children when they're 2. Especially since where I live (Israel) like most of the world men and women are still usually not equally responsible regarding child care and I personally think remote work could help with that (as well as personal motivation to be there for my kids).
I work from home, and my wife looks after our children during the day.
Working from home has been great for us all - we get to have breakfast and lunch together every day, and I'm around to help out at those times (if you've got young kids, you'll know meal times can be stressful at times!).
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#48First para hits the nail on the head. The issue is: trust between managers and employees. Also, "work from home" paradigm will only succeed when management paradigm changes from managing time to managing outcome. And changing that management style is not easy. Managing outcomes requires managers to understand not only the strategic agendas set by the bosses higher up but also the technical paths to achieve them confr…
> managing time to managing outcome
A task will take the time that have been reserved for it. That is inefficient. Changing to a result-orientated approach where an employee is giving weekly or daily tasks (if it isn't too complicated - which is really a good question) would also mean that if an employee is finished with his weekly tasks after 3 days, he gets to go home. For many seems counterintuitive (fixed time management is essentially used from the first day of school and is pervasive in society) and it does have it own difficulties changing. For instance, how does co-workers feel when one fast employee always gets to leave early? How easy is it to pick tasks for employees?
Freelance programmers are one group where this result-orientated approach works, not sure it can be extended to other sectors easily.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#49Looks like this is summary of a 2014 paper:
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/1/165/2337... (paywalled :-/ )
I wonder how many years of rediscovery of basic knowledge about productivity it will take before these ideas are widly accepted: open plans offices are bad, remote work can be done, etc.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> lonelier How can being at home ever make you lonely when it gives you more time to focus on relationships that actually matter. Am I alone in thinking that those who expect any kind of meaningful bonding at work are misguided? Yeah, one can enjoy smalltalk and the like but I'd much rather change that for a chat with a friend or my dad early in the morning.
> How can being at home ever make you lonely when it gives you more time to focus on relationships that actually matter. Not all of us have kids or live with our family, and as such those 8 hours of office work are the only option for having a human presence around us during the day. Working 8 hours trapped in the loneliness of your house's walls each day, every day can be quite unsettling in the long run.
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