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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

#271

Post by [deleted] »

adriand wrote: post #216
zimbatm wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because us remote-workers can keep the Hacker News tabs open with nobody watching :) OP is suggesting that the research is invalid because it didn't look at the company level productivity, which is then an excuse to validate his own preference. It's fine to have preferences, everybody does. Making broad claims is generally what gets you in hot water when communicating online. It would have been more informative…

I'm not suggesting that the research is invalid. I have no reason to think it is and in fact I believe - as I stated - that maximizing individual productivity by working from home is effective. However, I don't believe that every company needs to optimize for individual productivity. It is entirely valid to choose to optimize for other things, such as group productivity, or collaboration, or culture, or really whatev…

[deleted]

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#272

Post by isostatic »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #61
inglor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to find this. Precisely what I thought - I think that some people work better remotely and some work better in an office setting (like myself). If you ask people to volunteer for remote work then people who are better remote workers are likely to volunteer and more likely to work harder to prove it can work.

Still interesting that people who volunteer for remote work are more productive on average than those who prefer office work.

And cheaper of course - no need for a desk ($2k/yr), means they should be paid more.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#273

Post by isostatic »

GordonS wrote: post #46
piyush_soni wrote: post #26

Did 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.

Of course it's not, sounds like the OP has a problem with discipline, both his own (actually work rather than play with child), and the child (who hasn't been told to leave alone)

I'm assuming that there is someone else actually looking after the child, you can't leave a 2 year old alone for more than a couple of minutes (and even then you have to keep one eye on them)

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#274

Post by isostatic »

OpenDrapery wrote: post #192
detaro wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, you could have said your last paragraph 10 years ago too. So while I hope you're right, it's far from clear that your arguments will win now. Still lots of companies building massive campuses instead of distributing.

Things that have gotten better in the last 10 years: ubiquity of high speed internet, tools such as voip, screen share, chat, cloud hosting across regions, lower cost of home office hardware like monitors Things that have gotten worse: traffic and congestion, real estate prices The needle is moving in the direction of wfh, I definitely believe that those that embrace it will be ahead of the game.

I said exactly the same thing in 2010, and I've worked away from the office most of the time for 6 years (not necessarily working from home - I visit a lot of locations for work, next week it's Windsor, last week was Nairobi, Moscow's coming up early next month)

Because I have to be able to work from anywhere, it makes working from home easy.

I may see the rest of my team on the 22nd, and we have an away day to a supplier on the 30th.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#275

Post by mto »

adriand wrote: post #114

I 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 pers…

Most gamers will object to the last paragraph. There are really a lot of strong friendships without ever meeting in person. Back then eben without ever hearing each other's voice. I've been working for a startup at the other end of the world for 2 years now and rejected lots of much better (remote) offers because I like the team... Which I've never met in person.

But I grew up in that ICQ/IRC/Forums culture and as a teenie stayed home alone for weeks while my parents were on vacation, didn't bother me. So certainly a personality thing. Now with wife and kids, my remote working times are the only lone times I have,so I love it.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#276

Post by yosito »

OpenDrapery wrote: post #179

As usual, the workers and managers are playing different games. As a developer, it's easy to assume that productivity is the game. Form a strong team and add business value through execution, right? Wrong. Management is playing a game of consistency and control. Blanket policies are the name of the game. I don't care if you are 100x more productive at home. I can't have all these other losers asking me why they aren'…

Some managers play the game of productivity. But many who do probably find that they work themselves out of a job.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#277

Post by svnsets »

cameldrv wrote: post #91
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…

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…

If you assign a task that is estimated at 2 days of work and it actually is going to take 2 weeks, it should be pretty clear way before that 2 weeks has elapsed. At that point you could get a second opinion from another employee in the same role as the assignee. That kind of difference in LOE vs actual development time should be rare. If it isn't, then your team needs to spend more time researching LOEs up front, getting solid requirements, and assigning tasks to someone that has the proper experience to complete the task on time.

I've worked as an engineer for a company that had ridiculous engineering turnover rates because engineers were treated like children, and management would always give these kind of excuses where one guy was a slacker one time so everyone has to abide by ridiculous policies around required office hours. If you want to retain talent and accurately measure employee performance, you need to put effort into measuring outcome rather than working hours.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#278

Post by Karrot_Kream »

otakucode wrote: post #255
throwawaymath wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment seems like a great microcosm of remote work discussions on Hacker News. You didn't dismiss remote working in a thread about it, but you tried (maybe imperfectly) to suggest times when it would be a good idea to not work remotely. It is not being received well! In response most commenters are criticizing your point by focusing on whether or not it is technically possible to achieve any of those things whi…

The difference is that one side is trying to justify the traditional designed-for-repetitive-manufacturing-work office setup, while the other is trying to justify remote work. One side is content to point out that there are limitations to remote work while almost totally ignoring the limitations to office work, while the other does the inverse. Both scenarios have advantages, and both scenarios have disadvantages. Wh…

Your comment is fantastic but this:

> Some people are exceptionally invested in office work because they rely upon their gregarious nature to navigate the working world. Some are exceptionally invested in remote work because they are introverted and constantly overruled by more aggressive colleagues (to the detriment of the business, not just themselves).

really is a gem. I think this really offers clarity into why there are 2 "sides" of this debate.

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#279

Post by jakebaker »

I think that the productivity boost may be somewhat binary -- some people are AMAZINGLY more productive at home vs an office environment. For me, I've personally struggled with the home environment at times.

The shared team construct of an office setting helps me get over my common obstacle of procrastination. When I do work from home, I've used some forms of productivity and accountability tools to get over that barrier.

These have included services like Focusmate [1] which lets you schedule co-working video sessions with a partner. That has been incredibly helpful for me, getting me to move immediately to working on whatever the difficult task at hand is.

[1] https://www.focusmate.com

Re: Study Shows a Productivity Boost of Working From Home

#280

Post by eksemplar »

konschubert wrote: post #178
eksemplar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I manage a mix of developers, architects, project managers and business processors/developers. I measure their productivity on team results compared to their team predictions as well as my own experience. I do have a long history of doing development projects in the public sector with a primary focus on increasing efficiency and benefit realization, but a lot of it is honestly gut feeling and softer management strate…

> I understand why this would worry some managers, but I don’t believe you can apply factory line thinking or strategies to brain-workers because it doesn’t suit them, especially not if you want them to cooperate in actual teams and not just be a bunch of grouped individuals competing not to be measured as the bottom 15%. I agree and I hope you're not suggesting that I'm doing that. My problem is that "I trust my gut…

For development stuff like planning poker works in that it gives you an estimate to go from. Maybe they exceeded their estimate for good reasons, but it’s a good place to start a discussion from. It also makes your programmers better at estimating.

For things like project management you have schedules and plans.

And then there is always customer/client satisfaction.

Aside from that you also have a boss who has expectations for you, are you meeting those? If your boss is not just satisfied but happy with your perfomance output you’re probably doing well.

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