Work from Home and Productivity • Hacker News Board

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#31

Post by josephorjoe » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

ultrastable wrote: post #24

"Sapience time measurement is sophisticated and designed to be resilient to simple manipulatio nattempts. Merely keeping the computer on for longer or watching videos instead of working does not increase Input. Rather, it would require having the relevant work software as the active window,and giving continuous user input (via mouse, keyboard)." doesn't sound that sophisticated to me lol. in any case their claim that…

lol, this would result in engineering teams generating progressively smaller scoped tickets to maximize tasks and reviews completed.

  Update Text For Button -- started 5/10, completed 5/11

  Update Color Of Button -- started 5/11, completed 5/12

  Update Margins Of Button -- started 5/12, completed 5/13

  Update Border Radius Of Button -- started 5/13

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#32

Post by ipaddr » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

kaskakokos wrote: post #26

DeRock wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excludes commute time from work-from-office hours, which makes the comparison moot. I'd rather be unproductive at home, than unproductive in traffic. Also, this surveyed a single "large Asian IT services company". Its an anecdote with significant cultural work biases that may make this inapplicable to eg. American firms.

Understandable, in my case I commuted by bike in 20 min, I have changed 40 min of healthy biking for 2+ hours of extra work. And these are not cold numbers from an study, it is my reality and it can explain my bad mood of the last times.

Why are you working an extra two hours? Can't you bike 20 minutes around your neighbourhood finish two hours earlier and do a quick 20 minutes after work?

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#33

Post by jll29 » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

It could well be that CoVid19 led to a 50% productivity loss (processes had to be completely reengineered or stood up from scratch without setting foot in the office).

Then, if the actual measured loss is 20% then perhaps it actually went up by 30% (the difference).

One cannot really conclude much from this study due to a lack of control, and I hope this is discussed honestly in the paper.

One thing I could observe is that working from home required a lot of people that are not used to it to learn to communicate professionally in writing, which they weren't used to. With the option of clarifying via a quick personal chat on the corridor taken due to an "all remote" forced work mode, poor communicators really do need a lot of overhead in terms of extra Teams/Zoom/Slack... meetings to get their message across.

Another observation was there was suddenly a lot of extra work. Initially I expected to have more time due to less business. In reality, CoVid19 also presented new opportunities, so extra projects were launched that would not have been required without the pandemic. Another variable that can't really be controlled.

Working from home as a planned/rolled out thing for a percentage of people is vastly different from a pandemic improptu shutdown. I was actually surprised how quickly the whole business world adjusted. I've been arguing for years in favour of working from home but was told it can't be done, or people won't do enough work.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#34

Post by bcrosby95 » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

The arguments back and forth on this are always interesting to me.

I don't particularly care either way since I've been work from home for the last 15 years. All I can say is that working from home during the pandemic isn't the same as normal times. Even if you don't have kids at home, there's a huge difference between working from home and staying at home all day long every day, versus going out for lunches (especially with friends), dinners, doing things on weekends, etc.

I'm lucky enough to live in a suburb and have nice walking trails that I could use that were pretty much empty during this whole thing - for much lunch break I regularly eat lunch and take a small walk along a creek. Or take a quick dip in my swimming pool. I've had it a lot better than some of my friends in larger cities that felt like they could go practically nowhere and do almost nothing.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#35

Post by oldprogrammer2 » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

macd wrote: post #23

dominotw wrote: post #9

JP morgan is forcing me to come into office, i am still waiting for my second dose. Jamie is forcing ppl to come into work and making up stupid anecdotes about how ppl are unproductive at home. Him being "fed up" means i have to risk my life. [1] I don't understand how he is getting away with this. 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/04/jamie-dimon-fed-up-with-zoom...

> (They) would fully expect that by early July, all U.S.-based employees will be in the office on a consistent rotational schedule. > Employee rotations at JPMorgan will be subject to a 50% occupancy cap until U.S. authorities revise their social-distancing guidelines, according to Tuesday’s memo. The bank advised workers that “with this time frame in mind you should start making any needed arrangements to help with…

If I had to guess, it's overzealous middle management layers wanting to show Jamie that their teams are proactive and doing more than the minimum. You know, because of their exceptional leadership qualities.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#36

Post by esyir » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

jll29 wrote: post #33

It could well be that CoVid19 led to a 50% productivity loss (processes had to be completely reengineered or stood up from scratch without setting foot in the office). Then, if the actual measured loss is 20% then perhaps it actually went up by 30% (the difference). One cannot really conclude much from this study due to a lack of control, and I hope this is discussed honestly in the paper. One thing I could observe i…

If there's something I've realised about the hn gestalt, it's that any anecdote in favour of wfh is taken as true by default, while any critique of wfh is assumed to be bunk unless absolutely faultness.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#37

Post by Havoc » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

A big surprise to me was the impact on having "real talk" discussions with my boss.

I joined during covid and obviously working at home I was used to everything being truly 1:1 just between us. (I'm blessed with a great boss)

The few back at office days rattled me a bit in terms of "who is listening/judging" in open plan.

I've spent years in open plan so that aspect isn't new...but somehow the covid contrast rattled me

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#38

Post by Huiokko » Fri, May 14, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #37

A big surprise to me was the impact on having "real talk" discussions with my boss. I joined during covid and obviously working at home I was used to everything being truly 1:1 just between us. (I'm blessed with a great boss) The few back at office days rattled me a bit in terms of "who is listening/judging" in open plan. I've spent years in open plan so that aspect isn't new...but somehow the covid contrast rattled…

I'm not sure what you mean.

I book 1:1 with my manager and it was always in a meeting room.

Is it common for you to have 1:1 in your cubicle?

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#39

Post by js8 » Fri, May 14, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

I think it is, frankly, irrelevant. Companies need to understand that their employees are adults, and should be able to pick whichever way of working is comfortable for them. If that decreases productivity, they should get less in compensation.

I doubt it will change, though, unless employees start to organize in unions and demand to be treated in less patronizing way.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#40

Post by refactor_master » Fri, May 14, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #32

kaskakokos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understandable, in my case I commuted by bike in 20 min, I have changed 40 min of healthy biking for 2+ hours of extra work. And these are not cold numbers from an study, it is my reality and it can explain my bad mood of the last times.

Why are you working an extra two hours? Can't you bike 20 minutes around your neighbourhood finish two hours earlier and do a quick 20 minutes after work?

That’s what I do. Now I can allow myself a 20-min ride in the middle of the day. Does incredibly things for clearing your thoughts.