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Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

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Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#51

Post by dvt »

kuriho wrote: post #33

With the population exploding and space to build new houses growing ever so scarcely I can not imagine a long-term future in which working from home would be profitable. Instead of working from home, living at work seems to be the more logical step forward. Personally I'd prefer living at a shared-workspace or company campus as long as work and living facilities are clearly separate.

> Personally I'd prefer living at a shared-workspace or company campus as long as work and living facilities are clearly separate.

May I ask why? I'd prefer living close to my family and friends, many of which may not work for the same company as I work for. I'm trying to see what your motivating factors are because I, for one, could not disagree more.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#52

Post by lozenge »

lawlorino wrote: post #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.

Not really, this increases its applicability as this is the usual case in which people are considering working from home - as an option at a non-fully-remote company, or as an option to join a fully remote company.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#53

Post by ende »

ramblerman wrote: post #24
eksemplar wrote: post #20

I’m not sure realism/positivism is the best approach to empirical data on this. Only one of my workers is more productive from home, in the IT department almost all the workers are more productive from home. We haven’t done any research on the causality, but the personality’s profiles for or digitization and IT departments are vastly different, so too is the work we donald the way we go about it. If you looked at us…

> Sometimes they come in late and leave early, sometimes they work from home and I can tell by what they produce they spent half the day doing something else. But then sometimes I’ll get an email at 2am on a Saturday because someone found his/her coding flow at an off hour. god bless you for this insight. As a contractor I've worked at multiple places, and my current gig cares more about 'asses in seats' than output.…

As a contractor, you are under no obligation to be an ass in any seat, and if client says otherwise you can point them towards IRS reclassification.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#55

Post by Rainymood »

PhD student here so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I personally love the fact that I can choose to work at home or at the office.

I can really concentrate at home (private room where I feel comfy) but on the other hand it is also significantly easier to distract yourself from work. Netflix is just one tab away and there's no one to look over your shoulder and whisper in your ear "Don't watch Netflix when you're working".

It also depends a lot on my mood. When I feel down and worthless because my research feels like its going nowhere I distract myself more easily. If I feel optimistic like I'm a predator hunting some prey because my research is leading somewhere fruitful I can work anywhere with great focus without the need for distraction.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#57

Post by thaumasiotes »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #11
heurist wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No commute, homemade lunch, more family time...?

Home gym, quiet working environment with walls and a door, ability to receive online orders, monitors as large and high res as I wish to pay for, fridge and kitchen to myself stocked as I wish. Friends and family nearby if you want to lunch with them. You bet it's healthier. Except perhaps slightly increased exposure to the three germ incubating kids under 5 that live here, but there's not much I can do about that no…

> slightly increased exposure to the three germ incubating kids under 5 that live here, but there's not much I can do about that

You could homeschool them.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#58

Post by pilingual »

“If companies want hackers to be productive, they should look at what they do at home. At home, hackers can arrange things themselves so they can get the most done. And when they work at home, hackers don't work in noisy, open spaces; they work in rooms with doors. They work in cosy, neighborhoody places with people around and somewhere to walk when they need to mull something over, instead of in glass boxes set in acres of parking lots. They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel tired, instead of sitting in a coma at their desk, pretending to work. There's no crew of people with vacuum cleaners that roars through every evening during the prime hacking hours. There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. And when you look at what they're doing on that computer, you'll find it reinforces what I said earlier about tools. They may have to use Java and Windows at work, but at home, where they can choose for themselves, you're more likely to find them using Perl and Linux.”

http://paulgraham.com/gh.html

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#59

Post by david-s »

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #48
ak39 wrote: post #13

First 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 ma…

I don't think "managing outcomes" means your tasks are strictly limited to what your manager you you could finish and then you'll go home.

In my situation, at least, there's a never ending list of tasks to accomplish.

If you finish the "must do now" tasks, it's expected that you'll let them know and pull something else off the pile; not that you'll do nothing for the rest of the sprint.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#60

Post by Promarged »

> Enter Bloom, who helped design a test whereby 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).

Did it say volunteer? That already stains the results as control group and the test group are not similar. Maybe volunteers are already more productive than people that don't want to experiment?

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