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Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

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Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#31

Post by PragmaticPulp »

stinkbomb wrote: post #27

My company started doing a serious WFH 'experiment' about 18 months before COVID hit. The team I oversee consists of a dozen or so teams of about 40-50 developers each, with a manager that reports directly to me. I don't manage the devs directly, but deal with dev productivity and budgets for (amongst other things) staffing. So our N is not small, but not huge either. 50% of our devs - randomly selected - were offere…

This matches my experience as well: Measurably reduced velocity, noticeably higher rates of rejected PRs and broken builds, and a palpable worsening of productivity and team happiness.

The strangest part is that if you asked individual developers, they would insist that WFH made them more productive and increased their efficiency. Yet managers and the data universally agreed that the opposite was true.

There’s something about WFH that puts distance between individuals and the overall big picture reality in a way that makes these overall issues difficult to see from individual perspectives. It also slowed and dampened all of the feedback loops, giving people the wrong impression that they were working on the right thing or producing proper results until much later. We tried compensating with even more manager effort and over-the-top communication repetition to try to keep everyone informed but it didn’t really help.

There were a few exceptions of people who had identical levels of performance during WFH, but they generally achieved it with significantly more work and proactive communication. Those who struggled the most were juniors who felt like they fell through the cracks.

It’s a difficult topic to discuss on HN because few of us like to admit that WFH is, on average, a struggle for companies. No one likes the idea that WFH comes at a cost.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#32

Post by PragmaticPulp »

taneq wrote: post #8

> Employees with children living at home increased hours workedmore than those without children at home, and suffered a bigger decline in productivity than thosewithout children. This tells you all you need to know about the study. You can't analyse the relative effectiveness of working from home and working in the office when you're conflating "remote work" with "trying to get something done on your laptop on the ki…

I managed mixed in-office and WFH teams before the pandemic.

There was a stark productivity drop every summer when kids were out on summer break. This includes parents with dedicated home offices who had been WFH for many years.

The effect was so predictable that we planned for lower velocity during summer months. It was also common practice for WFH employees to spend more time in the office for more focus during summer months if they lived close enough.

That’s not to say that kids are the biggest WFH productivity killer. IMO the people who struggled most were the young people who thought they could travel around and work remotely because it doesn’t matter where they’re working from. It turns out it’s plainly obvious that they don’t get much work done when they’re away from home. But that’s another story.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#33

Post by layoric »

stinkbomb wrote: post #27

My company started doing a serious WFH 'experiment' about 18 months before COVID hit. The team I oversee consists of a dozen or so teams of about 40-50 developers each, with a manager that reports directly to me. I don't manage the devs directly, but deal with dev productivity and budgets for (amongst other things) staffing. So our N is not small, but not huge either. 50% of our devs - randomly selected - were offere…

Would make a great write up. Interested in the details around what was changed in the company to support this hybrid approach. Also breakdown of devs first time WFH.

From my experience, office->hybrid doesn’t work well as the the staff don’t have the same level of support and processes don’t change to adjust to the change. My first year of WFH (nearly 7 years ago now) was a pretty rough adjustment even though I wanted to do it (glad I stuck with it).

Like most things in life, “Is WFH is more productive?”, “it depends”. Props for doing the experiment and sharing details.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#34

Post by throwaway256978 »

throwasquirrel wrote: post #16
adflux wrote: post #6

I have been unfortunate enough to be "diagnosed" with ADHD at a young age. Oh how strange it is that a child can't concentrate with 25 of his peers hopping and chatting around him, let's medicate him as soon as possible! /rant off Well, a few years ago I rented an office space with a friend of mine, just the two of us in a very spacious (100m2), light and well-ventilated office. We received no phone calls, there were…

I have been unfortunate enough to not be diagnosed with ADHD until middle age, and I'm sorry to hear about your apparent misdiagnosis but for people who actually do have the condition, it's very real and it very much sucks. It's not just "someone walked into the room and I lost my train of thought", it's "I have one simple task to do and I know exactly how to do it and it's been hours but I still can't make myself do…

I haven't been diagnosed and don't know where to start. One of my teachers had suggested in early grade school that I had a "developmental disability" but my parents resisted and prevented me from being assessed and prevented me from being in the special needs program. Partially because they didn't really believe in the concept and partially because they feared that it would negatively affect my social development.

I struggled throughout school, struggled even harder throughout university (it took me _many_ years to graduate) and am currently floundering in my job.

I have had the exact same experience with my taxes/laundry/reports but I have no family doctor and no way to get one. Besides a GP, the mental health options for such things in my city are limited to minors and adults in assisted living situations.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#35

Post by cecilpl2 »

throwasquirrel wrote: post #16
adflux wrote: post #6

I have been unfortunate enough to be "diagnosed" with ADHD at a young age. Oh how strange it is that a child can't concentrate with 25 of his peers hopping and chatting around him, let's medicate him as soon as possible! /rant off Well, a few years ago I rented an office space with a friend of mine, just the two of us in a very spacious (100m2), light and well-ventilated office. We received no phone calls, there were…

I have been unfortunate enough to not be diagnosed with ADHD until middle age, and I'm sorry to hear about your apparent misdiagnosis but for people who actually do have the condition, it's very real and it very much sucks. It's not just "someone walked into the room and I lost my train of thought", it's "I have one simple task to do and I know exactly how to do it and it's been hours but I still can't make myself do…

> "I have to document this project but no matter how much I want to just do it, I nevertheless continually find myself on imgur or Facebook or Hacker News or some random other website reading up about how switched-reluctance motors or Monte Carlo tree search or whatever works."

This is why I learned more about grain bins and low-head dams this week than I did the tool I was supposed to be building.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#36

Post by PragmaticPulp »

jvanderbot wrote: post #24

Vitriolic discussion around this. I'm completely unsurprised. All the key findings are easy to see in my own group. People are working longer hours because they are unaccustomed to working from home near their gaming rigs, or are making up unproductive day hours that their kids interrupted. Its harder to drop in and get quick exchange of information, leading to more meetings, etc. The danger is that people (c-suite)…

I managed mixed WFH teams before COVID. It was widely understood that WFH was a productivity obstacle long before quarantines. We usually gave it as a perk to high performing employees who had already proven their ability to get things done and self-manage, or for exceptional employees who couldn’t or wouldn’t relocate near an office.

The idea that WFH is no different than in-office work didn’t really become popular until COVID.

Offices and in-person communication are unmatched for collaboration and communication efficiency. Any company doing work that requires significant collaboration (most tech companies of size) pays a price for WFH. For many companies that overhead is fine if accounted for and managed, but it’s still a price.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#37

Post by tayo42 »

stinkbomb wrote: post #27

My company started doing a serious WFH 'experiment' about 18 months before COVID hit. The team I oversee consists of a dozen or so teams of about 40-50 developers each, with a manager that reports directly to me. I don't manage the devs directly, but deal with dev productivity and budgets for (amongst other things) staffing. So our N is not small, but not huge either. 50% of our devs - randomly selected - were offere…

Does your company help make remote work easier? I guess I could understand that if you took a group used to an office and then forced them to be remote there would be some struggles. I think effective remote work has a bit of a learning curve and needs some investment up front. I think you would need to believe the potential is there and worth chasing.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#38

Post by holoduke »

Working from home alone is nice the first couple of weeks. Then it becomes boring. Motivation to work decreases significantly. Level of trust to other (mostly new never seen) colleagues become zero. Compassion to the company seizes to exist. Connection to the product, vision and the general 'us' feeling is completely gone. No team spirit, no fun. Yes working from home isn't (in many cases) a big success in the long term.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#39

Post by rickspencer3 »

stinkbomb wrote: post #27

My company started doing a serious WFH 'experiment' about 18 months before COVID hit. The team I oversee consists of a dozen or so teams of about 40-50 developers each, with a manager that reports directly to me. I don't manage the devs directly, but deal with dev productivity and budgets for (amongst other things) staffing. So our N is not small, but not huge either. 50% of our devs - randomly selected - were offere…

> However, it's clear to me and the other execs that WFH absolutely does not work for us.

The "for us" part is refreshing humble for HN comments; thank you for the details of your experience.

I spent about 10 years working on the campus of a very large tech company, and then another 10+ years working for different remote development teams. The remote teams that I have managed were in teams that were built from the ground up to be remote, generally in companies built from the ground up to be remote. And when I say "remote" I really mean "distributed." Hiring the people with the best skills and letting them work from wherever they happen to live rather than relocating them.

I assume in your study that you divided TEAMS into WFM or office based, and did not have teams comprised of some people working remotes and some in the office?

I think that some people are wired to work effectively in distributed teams, some are not. Some managers have the "online social intelligence" to lead distributed teams, some do not. Taking a group of people attracted to working in an office or a high tech campus, and having them "work from home" while the rest of the company is still based in the office does not seem likely to work, though I am surprised by the starkness of your findings.

Re: Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

#40

Post by nmstoker »

tetranomiga wrote: post #12
st8675309 wrote: post #2

Surprised this post isn’t getting more comments. The result is pretty clear with over 10,000 participants in the study. >>Total hours worked increased by roughly 30%, including a rise of 18% in working after normal business hours. Average output did not significantly change. Therefore, productivity fell by about 20%. Time spent on coordination activities and meetings increased, but uninterrupted work hours shrank con…

>The result is pretty clear with over 10,000 participants in the study. They're all from the same Asian company, it's far from clear.

Yes, this was my concern with applying the lessons more broadly. I would love to see a similar assessment for a company that was substantially staffed from other locations to see how much this is a universal picture or not.
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