Earlier quoted context omitted.
Big if there, Dan. You sound a bit bitter about meetings, that's not the case everywhere.
I’d put money on it being the case everywhere.
I have meetings with my research group and I look forward to them!
Work from Home and Productivity
91–100 of 139 posts
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#92A 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!".
Confirmation bias. Honestly, IMO most of economics "research" is just a random assortment of bullshit viewed through a lens of confirmation bias. Results don't match your priors? Make adjustments to your model assumptions until it does. Disagree with a result? Point out at all the ways in which those assumptions are imperfect. Results match your priors? LGTM.
The research papers go through reviewers who can very easily spot these things. In fact in most research articles you have to explicitly show that relaxing certain assumptions don't completely invalidate your results.
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#93COVID 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…
Just curious, who said it is a natural experiment? Certainly not the authors
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
i learned my entire curriculum from youtube 2014-2018 so i dispute that remote college is inefficient. however i would not dispute that universities would have any motivation to make the remote learning process work well for fear of future consequences.
Perhaps 'inefficient' was a poor choice of terms on my part. What I mean to say is that getting your education at an institution yields superior results compared to watching youtube videos. When learning in-person, cheating is less easily facilitated, student engagement is more naturally promoted, discussion and interaction is inherently encouraged, distractions are much fewer, and the general atmosphere is fully con…
Cheating only matters from the credentialing side of college, not from the learning component. I'm not arguing there is no room for credentialing, just that cheating isn't really important when it comes to learning.
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#95A 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!".
It might be because a global pandemic is assumed to depress people's spirits, which isn't what we'd expect to increase productivity. So we rely on our intuition for directionality?
Should be studied more, but wouldn't you be surprised to know that the pandemic itself (stress, isolation, deferred medical care, etc.) caused an increase?
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#96A 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!".
Confirmation bias. Honestly, IMO most of economics "research" is just a random assortment of bullshit viewed through a lens of confirmation bias. Results don't match your priors? Make adjustments to your model assumptions until it does. Disagree with a result? Point out at all the ways in which those assumptions are imperfect. Results match your priors? LGTM.
Ironically, your comment can be interpreted as confirmation bias. Predisposed to not trusting economic research -> see an article about economic research -> confirms previous beliefs.
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#97"You are not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work."
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#98I'd question how conclusions are being drawn here. I think the key takeaway is that output did not change. The authors then go on to say that since hours worked increased, productivity decreased. But how do we define what an "hour worked" really means? I know that I definitely spend more time "working" during WFH in the sense that I am either being responsive to colleagues or actively working on my own work. However…
They go into this in the paper; it sounds like they have a quite granular level of detail here:
> The data also include information on hours worked, our primary input measure. This is measured in a sophisticated way, as the analytics software takes into account whether an employee actually engages in a relevant task (which counts as work time) or merely procrastinates at their desk (not counted), by monitoring which software tools the employee uses. Our key outcome measure is Productivity, output divided by hours worked. Thus, in contrast to studies of productivity during WFH based on surveys, our outcome variables are based on relatively objective analytics and monitoring data.
> Moreover, our data include (for a subset of employees) how time was allocated to various activities. That includes meetings, collaboration, and time focused on performing work without distractions. It also includes information on networking activities (contacts) with colleagues inside and outside the firm. Finally, we have data on employee characteristics such as age, experience, tenure at the company, gender, whether or not there is a child in the home, and an estimate of commute time during WFO
This sounds overall quite invasive, so at least from the description, they claim to be able to tell the difference between "an hour logged into slack doing household tasks" and "an hour working with 100% focus on a task".
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#99It seems like the overwhelming majority of people here are positive to WFH. I can't stand it. To me, a "remote first" workplace sounds abysmal. I like to have a physical workplace where our company can gather and focus on our goals together, in person. Picking up business related discussions, small talking, sharing music, joking around. Attempting this through video meetings or voice chats feels like a bad simulacrum…
It's possible to have that remotely! It takes effort and requires intentionality, but you can make it happen.
We do daily 30 minute standups - which we intentionally run inefficiently at this point. It's a great time for watercooler talk, catching up, and generally building rapport that's hard to build at remote companies.
We also do twice weekly hang-out sessions. It takes some time to develop the habit. It's probably not for everyone but it's been incredibly positive for our team.
Re: Work from Home and Productivity
#100I'd question how conclusions are being drawn here. I think the key takeaway is that output did not change. The authors then go on to say that since hours worked increased, productivity decreased. But how do we define what an "hour worked" really means? I know that I definitely spend more time "working" during WFH in the sense that I am either being responsive to colleagues or actively working on my own work. However…
They go into this in the paper; it sounds like they have a quite granular level of detail here: > The data also include information on hours worked, our primary input measure. This is measured in a sophisticated way, as the analytics software takes into account whether an employee actually engages in a relevant task (which counts as work time) or merely procrastinates at their desk (not counted), by monitoring which…
This is unethical research, full stop.