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Work from Home and Productivity

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Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#131

Post by ClumsyPilot »

theleftfielder wrote: post #69
andersource wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'r…

I think thats still a negative, becauss it's a recepie for depression and low morale

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#132

Post by nijave »

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.

If I had to guess, it's overzealous middle management layers trying to keep up the appearance they're still providing value after months of diminished ability to micromanage over Zoom

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#133

Post by nijave »

ska wrote: post #57
themanmaran wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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" That's genuinely awful. I wonder to what extent employees are aware of the analytics, and how many people just set up macros look busy.

These sort of analytics are endemic in some industries; most people will have seen some generic notification, e.g. "system usage may be monitored on company equipment" but have no idea this means "your laptop is logging everything you do, all the time".

>your laptop is logging everything you do, all the time

It seems like a lot of people don't understand that's the default behavior of lots of computer systems (the standard logs in Windows, Linux, macOS desktop operating systems will provide a decent indication of how the computer is being used regardless of installing any special tracking software).

The same thing happens without technology--managers still lurk around watching employees unless there's a high level of trust between the employer and employee (which seems to be rare)

The nuance is how it's used.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#134

Post by dd_roger »

discardable_dan wrote: post #74
dml2135 wrote: post #20

I'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…

Honestly, I think the study sort of damns itself with this line: > Time spent on coordination activities and meetings increased, but uninterrupted work hours shrank considerably. You can easily translate this as: > Without workers in the office, middle management was left to spend additional time on pointless meetings, inhibiting their workers from spending their time on work tasks. If that is true, let's consider th…

> Without workers in the office, middle management was left to spend additional time on pointless meetings, inhibiting their workers from spending their time on work tasks.

You're just drawing meaningless conclusions based on nothing but your hatred of management lol.

>I think the conclusion is that additional meetings do not play the supplemental role that many managers seem to believe it does, and in fact minimizing meetings will increase productivity.

I think the actualy conclusion is that people are less productive at home because many people can't work properly due to an unfavorable working environment. Meanwhile since there's no office hour anymore (no commute to divide personal time from working time) people work from breakfast until dinner. In the end you get the same amount of work done but the timeslot that was dedicated to work during the day was 2-3 hours longer than when working from the office.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#135

Post by throwaway3699 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #131
theleftfielder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'r…

I think thats still a negative, becauss it's a recepie for depression and low morale

And this is where I am right now after a year of this s**. Let's get reopened for those who are struggling.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#136

Post by QuercusMax »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #110
QuercusMax wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-covid, I only ever had manager 1:1s in a meeting room, or much more commonly, walking around the campus. Very occasionally a 1:1 in a deserted corner of a cafeteria during non-meal hours. A manager 1:1 in a nonprivate space sounds awful.

I would argue a meeting in a non-private space isn't a 1:1 at all. That's awful.

You're right - any conversation at people's desks in an open plan office should essentially be considered open for anyone to listen and join in. Otherwise it's just plain rude or inappropriate.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#137

Post by LionBlack8 »

I like studying from home and thus wouldn't want to go back to school unless I had to (simply to avoid the commute). I pretty successfully accomplish tasks with help of https://writinguniverse.com/essay-types/compare-and-contrast... . However, I wouldn't mind going in if I had to. Covid doesn't bother me or my family. In fact the few times I went into the office over the past year didn't scare me at all.

Re: Work from Home and Productivity

#138

Post by Giooo »

I like studying from home and thus wouldn't want to go back to school unless I had to (simply to avoid the commute). I pretty successfully accomplish tasks with help of https://writinguniverse.com/essay-types/compare-and-contrast... . However, I wouldn't mind going in if I had to. Covid doesn't bother me or my family. In fact the few times I went into the office over the past year didn't scare me at all..
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