Translation: people prefer working to commuting. Back to your regularly scheduled propaganda.
Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
81–90 of 109 posts
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#82If companies really believe that they are tracking productivity with automated metric collection, then they should tie compensation directly to the metrics. If, on the other hand, they believe that the metrics are only reliable when done in a secretive/clandestine manner then they must, by definition, not correlate very well to actual productivity. If this is the case, the "trackers" have some explaining to do in ter…
I doubt most people, even the trackers, believe that tracking these automated metrics is high-fidelity enough to be linear with value created.
See also Goodheart’s Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#83I asked one of my relative in the middle-east how working from home is for her. She said it was really tiresome and she was very unhappy. She works in the airline industry that has been the worst hit during this pandemic. A lot of people have been fired. So everyone else is expected to do more work now. One way they are exploiting work from home employees is to not fix any timing (in the name of flexible working hours) - so instructions are sent at any time of the day with the expectation that they need to be acted upon immediately or the same day, and the work pile is so much that you have to spend long hours - sometime way past midnight to complete it. She is now actually so relieved to work again at the office, as her work is now confined to the "normal" 9 AM to 6 PM. That was an interesting insight for me. And I now understand better why France and Germany have passed legislation (or are considering) on not calling or emailing employees beyond work hours (unless they are willing to pay over time pay).
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#84I can be just as unproductive in an office as I can be at home.
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#85At my company this is for-sure true, broadly across teams. Management has explicitly taken advantage of this by booking a lot of recurring meetings that start 8/8:15/8:30am in the morning when in the "before times" it was generally a 9am start. Management also feels comfortable sending Slack DMs at 6-7pm as well, knowing people aren't commuting so they can get an answer. Regardless of setting boundaries, the noise ju…
I've noticed this as well. My solution was to prominently book morning workout/wellness time.
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#86It all depends on the people. For lot of folks who love remote work, it frees up 3-4 hours every day to do things they like and at the same time increasing the productivity. There is no need for 19th century factory style work hours for most people.
Agree. If you work with physical material, you need to be where that material is. If you work with information this is obviously not necessary.
Constructing large office buildings, roads and public transit to get people from where they live to a downtown office just to work with information is illogical and very inefficient.
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#87IMHO some types of work are better suited to WFH. And some are better suited to the work office. So how efficiently you perform maybe depends more on how well you marry your work tasks to your environment and tools.
For example, If I need to read a 1000 page report or maybe code a tricky PoC/spike free of distractions I'd say it's better for me to do that at home. The isolation helps. You can turn off messaging tools and email programs but someone will always find a way to find you physically if you go "off-grid" at work.
However the flip side may be that in the office it might be easier to brain-storm around a whiteboard in a more organic/ad-hoc way or maybe overhear a conversation from one team to another (if you're in an open plan layout) that you are able to contribute some value to.
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see what worries The Economist should hold about the situation The readership of the Economist is worried about commercial real estate.
That is my takeaway also - the editorial staff at The Economist must have friends in commercial real estate.
It's convenient that Economist articles don't show bylines. They claim that it's because they want to speak with a collective voice, but it also makes it impossible to point out specific conflicts of interest. The latter seems more important than the former, in my eyes.
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#89I'm sorry, it hard to trust the Economist. Upper management wants everyone to go back to work. The Economist writes to/for that audience. Most IC's I know, do not want to go back to the office.
I work remotely (before kovid) for 2 years. I work less, learn more and deliver more results with more efficiency.
covid*
Re: Remote workers work longer, not more efficiently
#90Anecdotally, I work shorter days. Finish work much earlier than expected. I also set a hard timer to stop, save current work, log any relevant items I need to know tomorrow, do some non-tech items (updating tickets for visibility to PM), and then logoff, usually between 4-430 of each day.