Working from home is the product of only one person, the CEO. If the CEO approves working from home then the rest is history. Switch your CEO and the whole working from home policy in your company is in danger.
Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
111–120 of 301 posts
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#112First 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…
For some managers its not just a trust issue but also about loosing control. So even if they trust their employees to work hard from home they don't feel comfortable with the idea.
I don't know why that is happening, but I have seen it first hand.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#113of course it's a productivity boost, but is it healthy for the worker?
1. Poop any time you want 2. Take a nap vs. pretending to work 3. Less stress - no dealing with assholes in person, now you can simply click away. 4. Spend time with kids 5. No driving needed, avoid polluted highways, more sleep, less stress, less frustration. 6. Eat healthy home made. No need to ingest preservatives every day. 7. Keep sanity by working only when you are most productive vs. pretending to work when yo…
Working at home offers very little protection from the pains of working for the wrong company.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#114I think it depends on what you want to optimize for. If you want to optimize for individual productivity (and there are no trust issues) then sure, working from home is effective.
However, you may decide that the individual productivity loss of having people work in an office is outweighed by the group productivity and morale gain from having people working together. Here are some reasons from a holistic company perspective for requiring people to work out of the office:
- To more effectively add to the culture of the company.
- To take part in ad hoc training opportunities, either to teach someone who needs help, or to learn something from someone when an obstacle is encountered.
- To be able to attend in-person meetings or stand-ups when urgent things come up - without the awkwardness and delays of conferencing in multiple people.
- To provide mentorship to junior staff.
- To collaborate more effectively.
- To show clients/prospective clients, partners and recruits, a vibrant and energetic team and working environment that is worth investing in/joining.
- To build morale and a sense of teamwork and camaraderie.
At the same time, measures need to be taken in the office working environment to ensure that individuals can be productive, which means providing quiet working spaces, enforcing do-not-disturb rules, etc.
Last point. To anyone who is running a business where your employees can easily choose to work from home for any company in the world, such as software engineers: creating a vibrant company culture is one of the ways in which you can attract and retain team members. Many people like being part of an in-person team and working with each other on a regular basis. But if they're already working from home and rarely seeing their co-workers, what difference does it make if they choose to work for some startup out of SF?
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#115“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 a…
> hackers don't work in noisy, open spaces; they work in rooms with doors. > They work in cosy, neighborhoody places with people around Which is it? That article did not age well.
I guess it's about the freedom to have either one at the time your prefer. Quite environment doesn't exist at open offices. :)
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
A shared-workspace campus for you and your friends would work out then? You can picture it as a shared-workspace town if that is more appealing to you. Living quarters, parks, etc. on one side of the highway. A shared-workspace campus hosting multiple companies/teams on the other. Living and working stays strictly separate, everyone has a short commute and you still have all project members available on-site at the s…
BYOD resolves most of the factors that would make me want to provide my own office at home.
If you’re reasonably happy with open-plan offices, that might be true. If you’re not... there seem to be few alternatives nowadays.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#117I find it bizarre that most of companies I worked with had recognised working from home as a privilege and it was mostly frowned upon by colleagues who for any reason had to work in the office. It was also not recognised that people working from home got more things done and thought of compensating employee extra for using their own space, internet connection, electricity at home was a fantasy.
Some employees that tried to force others to be in the office often had problems at home and office was their escape. If work in the office would have become optional, then that would have been their bad dreams come true - if their spouse for example learned they don't have to come every day. This has a big impact on people who don't have problems, but also don't want to be subjected to open office shenanigans.
I think solution would be to pay employees more so that they can either rent their own offices or cover the use of their homes. That way those who don't want to stay at home could have their own private space to work in.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but suppose I assign you a task that I think will take two days in my limited understanding Why would the manager be the one making estimates? That's a task either for the team, if applicable, or for the implementer. edit: I work from home, every sprint we have a planning meeting where we do the estimates together, my manager isn't even involed in it. Only if we're expecting to exceed an estimate by 20% do we conta…
Assuming that "the "manager" knows his 'stuffs', should know that TaskA requires 5 hours, and TaskB requires 1 hour. Now to that add a 20% for interruptions, emails, etc. With my team(s) I (almost) always knew (more or less) the time for various tasks. I was also expecting any feedback/'negotiation' to happen at the time of task assignment OR as soon as someone can see that deadline is at risk. I know that Tasks from…
What I've often experienced is the manager estimates what he wants to happen (typically fairly arbitrary or based on company goals) then the team kills themselves trying to accomplish the timeline because they don't like to fail. This is great for short term productivity but long term leads to attrition and spitefulness from the team. I'm not saying it's not possible, but make sure what you think is happening, is happening (good sustainable estimates vs. constant crunch time estimates). Of course, situations warrant crunch time, but I've seen departments in a constant state of crunch just by the nature of their sprints. The saying goes, you can't sprint a marathon.
Also, depending on the organization, a 20% buffer seems on the low side. If you can guarantee zero distractions throughout the day, outside of 1 or two meetings a week, 20% is probably ok.
FWIW, if the developer makes the estimate, he is more likely to live up to it, because it's not just some number someone pulled out of their ass. I'm not saying that's you, I'm just saying how I've seen it happen time and time again. I like to think I give good estimates, but like you said, it's a negotiation and if a dev says it will take longer, it will take longer. They most likely know the codebase way better than some manager does.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#119I'd like to see a study that looks at commute time, commute method (e.g., car, bus, rail, bike), and commute time.
Personally, I find having to take the train to a client site and being on site invigorating (to some extent). The ride in, I read and generally get mentally prepared. The ride home I read and decompress. The defined start and end keep the time in between focused.
Mind you, we're talking a couple (or three) days a week (not all five). It's also not driving (which I'd dread.) It might just be how I'm wired and approach things; the cycle, if ypu will, might just sync well with my brain.
Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trust is a continuum. If I'm a manager, I can't afford to know every single detail of what you're doing. Managing outcome sounds nice, but suppose I assign you a task that I think will take two days in my limited understanding, and it takes you two weeks. I have to figure out the cause. Some common ones are: 1. Neither of us understood the full complexity of the task at the outset. If we want to improve, we'll have t…
In practice, being a slacker when working from home is not really an option. I know very well that if I don't perform well enough, I'll be fired. Why should I take the risk? Also, when I realize a job is going to take longer than expected, I notify my boss immediately and clearly explain the reasons. It's not that I wake up after two weeks that I'm 12 days late - I probably realize something is wrong immediately or a…
It works for you, it may not work for others. Unfortunately slackers do exist (I know some people who boast their ability to be unproductive and deceive their boss) and working from home may make cheating easier.