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Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

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Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#91

Post by ttul »

pram wrote: post #52
ttul wrote: post #46

All of the tech CEOs I talk to have plans to downsize their offices. All of them. Employee surveys strongly indicate a desire to work remotely as a permanent option, with the office being for meetings. The OpEx on office space is significant - 10-15% of salary costs. So getting rid of the office or reducing its size and cost is like cutting pay by perhaps 5-7%. That’s a big deal.

Yeah this has to be long-term catastrophic for commercial real estate, which was already on the rocks. My previous company commissioned/leased and furnished an entire 12 story building in 2019, and now it's practically abandoned. Who is going lease such a thing afterwards? Seems grim to me.

I’m a party of one, but I definitely won’t be renewing my lease in November. The floor above and below are already empty with no sign of interest. This is in a typical, formerly pricy “brick and timber” loft office area of a tech heavy city.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#92

Post by news_to_me »

ameister14 wrote: post #36
news_to_me wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I still see the need for brick and mortar work for certain....job types Maybe you wanted to say "certain people"? Working from home is definitely more difficult for some people's work style than others, plus a ton of other factors like how well one's home is suited to working in, how much skill a person has working in that environment, etc. Time theft is a bummer, especially on the team-level where you just wan…

>Time theft is a bummer, especially on the team-level where you just want to get things done. I've dealt with this in execs and team leaders before - why do you care about time theft? If it's about the productivity loss, that should be measurable in its own right. Most of the time, I find that people just want to be able to see the team working for them and don't like the idea of paying people 'not to work' despite t…

Totally agree — I was trying to frame my comment in the terms of the GP. For better or worse, managers are often forced to think in terms of time rather than output, and I wanted to respond on that level.

For jobs where time spent correlates with output, time is a good way to think about it (and should be paid hourly), but obviously this isn't 99% of white collar jobs.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#93

Post by news_to_me »

mech422 wrote: post #37
news_to_me wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully we can get some legislation to correct for this. It seems like the sort of thing the labor market should balance out eventually, but... the labor market is pretty irrational all over the place, so I wouldn't trust it.

TBH, I don't think companies will fight it - its still cheaper to give an employee a budget and let them kit out a home office then to pay for cubicles, desks, etc. Office furniture is dam expensive! Oh! can't forget conference rooms! Those tables ain't cheap either.

I think you're right, but I get the feeling that companies will still come out ahead in the end — and employees will be stuck with some amount of loss.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#94

Post by varjag »

ameister14 wrote: post #84
varjag wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say worker B draws 2x salary of worker A, because he is known to be twice more experienced/skilled/productive.

Ah, but didn't you say it was impossible to measure quality of work? You could only measure the time spent in the seat, right? Now you're saying people should be judged on their outputs. Interesting change of pace. In reality he's unlikely to draw 2x the salary for 2x the output, though, because he's operating from a deficit of information and again, the manager/hr person's main goal isn't actually efficiency. If the…

You made a ton of implicit assumptions with your widget factory at home, it's not really like you caught me on anything here. I just brought in a bit of realism into your model.

Point is you expected to do an honest day of work for your pay with a good effort. That's the social contract which may well be changed in the future, but so far it isn't.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#95

Post by dccoolgai »

croutonwagon wrote: post #86
lrossi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, somehow I missed the time “theft” part. He thinks of his people as if they’re criminals. This is like a textbook example of manager red flags that you should check for and avoid when joining a company.

I wasn’t necessarily talking about my team. In fact mine has remained productive. But it has taken more effort on my part to keep them organized and on task. I’m the opposite of a micromanager, I hate that stuff. But the fact is I’m having to probe more and more as time goes on to keep things moving. Heck it not cuts into my productivity which also cuts into my teams. Heck Just last week I had an admin that it took 4…

When you ask or expect an employee to work late or longer (say, sending them a message at 530), do you think of yourself/your company as a "thief" of their time?

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#96

Post by ameister14 »

varjag wrote: post #94
ameister14 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but didn't you say it was impossible to measure quality of work? You could only measure the time spent in the seat, right? Now you're saying people should be judged on their outputs. Interesting change of pace. In reality he's unlikely to draw 2x the salary for 2x the output, though, because he's operating from a deficit of information and again, the manager/hr person's main goal isn't actually efficiency. If the…

You made a ton of implicit assumptions with your widget factory at home, it's not really like you caught me on anything here. I just brought in a bit of realism into your model. Point is you expected to do an honest day of work for your pay with a good effort. That's the social contract which may well be changed in the future, but so far it isn't.

You say time in the seat is the only thing you can measure objectively. I don't agree, then give a simple example that shows you can measure productivity and you immediately switch to measuring productivity. I don't think you introduced any realism at all, you were just wrong at the start.

By the way, I've never seen someone be rewarded 2x the pay for being 2x as productive without a commission model.

And if they are on commission, nobody cares how much time is spent in the office.

>Point is you expected to do an honest day of work for your pay with a good effort. That's the social contract which may well be changed in the future, but so far it isn't.

I don't think that's true. I've worked construction jobs and you're expected to do what you're expected to get done in a day of work, not work hard necessarily. Sometimes you work hard, sometimes you don't. A lot of time is spent uselessly. I found the same thing in corporate environments.

An honest day's work for an honest day's pay would actually be pretty unusual, especially given that for it to be honest the workers would have to understand the labor market implicitly, what they could get at competing companies and what their labor was actually worth to the company employing them. Most of the time none of that happens.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#97

Post by mrcartmenez »

zabzonk wrote: post #76
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #29

I've been 100% remote and run remote teams since 2014 and I promise that it won't stick for the broader society. Here's why: 1. Socializing is the primary activity that happens at work for the vast majority of workers. The gal or guy coming by your desk to "check in" or "see how your weekend was" etc... is literally where they find their social outlets and personal connections. 2. Managers like to be able to watch th…

> The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. You have obviously never been on the Tube at rush-hour in London. All it offers is a sense of stress and anger.

Weirdly grounding stress and anger

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#98

Post by croutonwagon »

dccoolgai wrote: post #95
croutonwagon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t necessarily talking about my team. In fact mine has remained productive. But it has taken more effort on my part to keep them organized and on task. I’m the opposite of a micromanager, I hate that stuff. But the fact is I’m having to probe more and more as time goes on to keep things moving. Heck it not cuts into my productivity which also cuts into my teams. Heck Just last week I had an admin that it took 4…

When you ask or expect an employee to work late or longer (say, sending them a message at 530), do you think of yourself/your company as a "thief" of their time?

I do....And im very cognizant of that. In many cases i will be doing catch up or research, alpha testing something that may have a use case at work. I often spend nights reading things like net sec blogs etc and sometimes it will pertain to work. For example CISA guidance posts on Sparrow and CTR etc. Rather than post them as a reminder to looking into them in the am, I will hold messages BECAUSE i dont want to give the impression that i want them to read it or respond during personal time.

And in fact I have interjected into late sessions i wasnt a party to to ask parties to suspend their tshooting when i found out it was happening and it wasnt really....critical. My developers specifically can work some odd hours, which is perfectly fine, but they cant abuse my on call ops shifts for it at their leisure.

Or in cases where its needed, they are given comp time starting at 1.5x time to make up for it. Often times it more than that.

Not all work places act like the employee is cattle. Many do see the people as an asset.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#99

Post by chrisseaton »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #47
chrisseaton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Workplace environments prevent myself from socially isolating beyond weekends at best — I know I’m not alone in that. Can't you choose to go out and socialise if you want to outside work? (After COVID.) If we get rid of working from an office, then people who don't want to go out don't have to, and people who want to can still do anyway socially. Doesn't that sound like the best solution? Lets everyone choose what…

When I commuted to work, I was already in the centre of a huge city with lots of social opportunities after work (with friends who are nearby in other jobs). If I wanted to socialise daily it's likely I'd be doing something akin to a work commute anyway . That's partly why I enjoyed going out to work in the first place.

This sounds like you're annoyed your work no longer subsidises your social life. But why should it do that?

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#100

Post by bradlys »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #39
NestedLoopGoBrr wrote: post #6

I really hope it doesn’t. I miss the office. Workplace environments prevent myself from socially isolating beyond weekends at best — I know I’m not alone in that.

I do not miss the office one bit. I socialize much mire with my colleagues via zoom meetings than I did via emails while we were in the office. Conference room meetings felt less organized than web conferencing. Saving 80min in daily commute on top of that gives me over 7 free hours per week, over 250h per year, enough to get an extra education. 30% or more of my colleagues commute over 2.5h per day, 12.5h per week,…

I think it also depends on your commute.

I look forward to the office because I’ll always live 15 minutes away. I’ll either take my bicycle or a motorcycle. (Both of which can be fun - wheelies on either are great!)

The in person meetings were more frequent for me because I could just stop by a persons desk to see how they were doing. I can’t do that online and the culture is much more closed down. Forget about going offsite to get lunch and really hear how things are. No weekly basketball games with various people from other departments to see what’s brewing.

There are plenty of benefits to the office and I would like them to still exist. And they won’t as soon as you go remote because they rely on everyone being in one area. If you go remote, chances of seeing anyone in person will fall off a cliff compared to office life.

I’ve made some of my best friends through work and I plan to continue doing that.

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