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Work from Home and Productivity

bfi.uchicago.edu

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Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#61

Post by andersource »

jfengel wrote: post #60
andersource wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but then giving the title "Work from Home & Productivity" is misleading, giving the (IMO false) impression that results are generalizable for WFH beyond COVID. And there are some pretty strong claims: > Therefore, productivity fell by about 20% > Employees also spent less time networking, and received less coaching and 1:1 meetings with supervisors > Employees with children living at home increased hour…

Very true. It does help that the full title has a colon followed by "Evidence from Personnel & Analytics Data on IT Professionals". That word "evidence" does help limit the expectations for how much we can generalize.

True. But then why not explicitly state that this evidence is from COVID? That would immediately allow people to calibrate their expectations. In relation to GP, COVID is the "natural experiment" here, not WFH.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#62

Post by xhrpost »

A lot of comments here saying that this is a flawed study because we don't know how the pandemic may have impacted a statistical decline in productivity. I must ask, why is this not a concern when someone anecdotally or statistically shows an increase in productivity from Covid WFH? The response is instead something like "we've known it all along! WFH is better!".

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#63

Post by akiselev »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #56
tdeck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind also that this is a consulting company, where people are always encouraged to report more hours in order to bill the client.

That's kind of bizarre - I've worked in a couple of consulting gigs now and the hours have always been tightly reigned in - the company wanted all the hours for sure, but they wanted you producing things constantly, just throwing more hours at something and going over estimates was a way to get yourself in trouble quick.

You're talking about the interface between the worker and the employer, the GP is talking about the interface between employer and client. The employer doesn't want the worker slacking off but that doesn't mean that they won't create situations that result in more billable work, such as by taking an inefficient path under the cover of intangible factors.

The irony is optimizing for productivity in one while optimizing for billing in the other.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#64

Post by tayo42 »

xhrpost wrote: post #62

A lot of comments here saying that this is a flawed study because we don't know how the pandemic may have impacted a statistical decline in productivity. I must ask, why is this not a concern when someone anecdotally or statistically shows an increase in productivity from Covid WFH? The response is instead something like "we've known it all along! WFH is better!".

Probably just intuition, wfh was more productive despite a global pandemic. Intuitively covid is a disruption that would decrease in productivity like other distractions

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#65

Post by dominotw »

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…

> Why are you trying to make it seem like they told you to come in every day starting this week, whether you're vaccinated or not?

where did you get "every day starting this week" , pulled it out of your ass?

I'll send you my managers email address you can ask him personally if you are so curious. Maybe you'd have better luck finding out than me.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#66

Post by andersource »

xhrpost wrote: post #62

A lot of comments here saying that this is a flawed study because we don't know how the pandemic may have impacted a statistical decline in productivity. I must ask, why is this not a concern when someone anecdotally or statistically shows an increase in productivity from Covid WFH? The response is instead something like "we've known it all along! WFH is better!".

For me personally, the reason is that I fully expect the pandemic to negatively impact productivity in ways completely unrelated to WFH (children in home instead of school, stress, lack of preparedness to proper WFH, etc.). In contrast, I find it difficult to think of pandemic-related but not WFH-related aspects that I expect to improve productivity. I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#68

Post by geodel »

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #35
macd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (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.

Besides what you said which is very likely true. These type of things are always verbal communication all the way to top. So it would not be surprise either if management made very measured release and written communication but internally/verbally it is hustling to get everyone back asap.

We have roughly about same announcement. It is confounding to hear "You all did great working from home. Now be back asap to work and meet face to face." Apparently working via slack/webex from office is vastly more productive than doing same from home.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#69

Post by theleftfielder »

andersource wrote: post #66
xhrpost wrote: post #62

A lot of comments here saying that this is a flawed study because we don't know how the pandemic may have impacted a statistical decline in productivity. I must ask, why is this not a concern when someone anecdotally or statistically shows an increase in productivity from Covid WFH? The response is instead something like "we've known it all along! WFH is better!".

For me personally, the reason is that I fully expect the pandemic to negatively impact productivity in ways completely unrelated to WFH (children in home instead of school, stress, lack of preparedness to proper WFH, etc.). In contrast, I find it difficult to think of pandemic-related but not WFH-related aspects that I expect to improve productivity. I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise.

I think the biggest one is that most people's social lives also dried up during the pandemic. You weren't finishing up WFH and then rushing out to get dinner and see a movie with friends. You weren't traveling or taking vacation. I've had a lot of conversations with people on my team over the last year that were some version of:

Them: "I finished this over the weekend."

Me: "That's great, but you're to be clear you're not expected to do that. You should feel free to take weekends off to recharge!"

Them: "Yeah but what else am I going to do right now?"

If there hadn't been a pandemic, they would've been doing all of these other things and then more likely to cut back on work when the end of work hours roll around.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#70

Post by pjungwir »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #14

COVID does not constitute a natural experiment! A useful natural experiment is when something changes in a way that can only (or at least almost entirely) affect your outcome by way of the cause you're interested in. In the cause and effect chain of A -> B -> C, if A affects B, but not C, then you can exploit wild things in A to learn about how B affects C. But if A affects C outside of B, you can't tell the effects…

That seems like a good point. I've worked from home for 15 years, and my productivity (and billable hours) took a big hit last spring, just from the distraction of trying to learn what I could and be prepared. Subjectively I'd say my focus suffered as well. I imagine businesses have lost productivity in all kinds of ways the last ~15 months.
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