The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers • Hacker News Board

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#81

Post by meowface » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

phillipcarter wrote: post #14

The key thing is here: > over the first six months of 2020 Those first six months were pretty rough. The large majority of people had little to no experience working remotely, so many folks didn't have a good home office environment, and there was a general sense of being unsure if this would just be temporary or if employees should settle in for the long haul. Many orgs didn't have good practices set up for remote w…

>say what you want about MS Teams, but they improved their product by leaps and bounds over the pandemic, much of which after the first 6 months

Did they? I've been using it at my company for years, since long before the pandemic, and I don't think I've seen any improvements since the first day I started using it until now. Every issue I have with it has gone unchanged. The only change I can think of is when they added support for custom video backgrounds and blur, which is helpful but doesn't really affect the experience of the app itself.

I find it funny how at work I use this giant behemoth's chat app I hate and then when I'm done with work I use this silly app (that used to be) for people who play video games, Discord, which has had a far superior UI/UX to Teams for years and keeps getting better and better. For every issue I have with Teams, the same issue has never been present with Discord. Every time I use Teams I just wish I was using Discord.

And I'm not a Discord shill or something. It's just such a weird contrast. It feels like Discord has been enterprise-ready for years and Teams has never stopped being a toy rip-off. Trying to share anything technical or code-related has always been super seamless for Discord and is still basically a nightmare every time I try to do it with Teams.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#82

Post by timwaagh » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #62

Imagine the desperation and helplessness of managers as they brainstorm behind closed doors on how to force back people into their shitty offices. Imagine it, and smile!

I suppose it beats them thinking 'hey remote is great, why don't we start hiring more aggressively in Ukraine instead of Redmond'. If everything is remote companies won't have to pay non-remote wages anymore.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#83

Post by clcaev » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

sixdimensional wrote: post #34

civilized wrote: post #13

Next paper from these guys will say: "the shift from an open office plan to private offices caused work to become more siloed. Previous research shows this may impede the flow of information through the network" People need to stop fetishizing "breaking down silos" and "serendipitous hallway encounters" and all that nonsense and think about the big picture. You're more likely to have something worth saying, and a wor…

I'd go one step further. I have done research on "silos" and actually believe they form naturally, even virtually, and we should be looking how to take advantage of the natural tendencies and make them more effective rather than eradicate them because it sounds like a good thing to do. I'm not saying a return to pure tribalism here, but I am saying maybe realistic acknowledgement of tendencies and how to make those m…

Boundaries, especially explicit ones with clear contracts, are healthy and enable innovation (via refactoring, automation, efficient onboarding, quality control). In the organizational recesses, hiding within unaccountable reporting, away from healthy boundaries, is where sociopaths grow most influential.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#84

Post by geofft » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #10

AndreiCalazans wrote: post #9

Unintentional by accident remote work shouldn’t be considered the baseline for such comparison. This research does at best find results at Microsoft, thus it could be titled “effects of remote work at Microsoft” to not induce the sense of generalist research. For the negative results: remote work creates silos and reduces cross-network collaboration. These might easily be mitigated with strategies and tooling. Nevert…

Can you tool-in a water cooler? A walk to the cafeteria? A weird smell several people notice? [ninja edit]: someone downvoted you, it wasn't me.

Absolutely! I started a scheduled call for a weekly "monorepo morning tea" for people interested in the mechanics of our monorepo and how we build/version/distribute software in-house. No agenda, no commitment, the meeting link is posted weekly via a Slack reminder to a public channel. It gets a couple of folks from our build farm team, a couple of people who are experts in specific languages/runtimes (Python, Node, etc.), a couple of SREs, a couple of random developers across the company who find this stuff interesting, etc. The topics tend to be pretty wide-ranging but it's a good way to find people doing interesting and relevant work that you might not ordinarily think of talking to and hear what's on their minds.

Also, my company already had (before the pandemic) a voluntary program to match with random coworkers to get lunch, specifically to facilitate this sort of thing, and that's been turned into online coffee chats. Seems to work pretty well.

If you value these serendipitous interactions as part of your company culture, then it behooves you to properly support and encourage them. You can't just set off a weird smell and let the two coworkers who feel like speaking up meet each other. They're probably the least shy people on the floor and know each other anyway.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#85

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #63

phillipcarter wrote: post #14

The key thing is here: > over the first six months of 2020 Those first six months were pretty rough. The large majority of people had little to no experience working remotely, so many folks didn't have a good home office environment, and there was a general sense of being unsure if this would just be temporary or if employees should settle in for the long haul. Many orgs didn't have good practices set up for remote w…

Not to mention kids being at home. I got so little work done that first few months until daycare opened back up. You can’t do much work with a one year old and a four year old demanding your attention. Focus work was impossible, and speaking in meetings had to be timed for the few moments of quiet.

[deleted]

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#86

Post by jdavis703 » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

kahmeal wrote: post #43

goodells wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with this. Ancedotally, at least for the first 6 months until the fall of 2020, my team and its management were completely accepting of sub-par WFH setups and attitudes. We couldn't really blame the guy whose two young daughters screamed all day and tromped up and down the stairs next to his desk. Now it's different - remote hires are expected to have a decent working environment (either at home or else…

Elsewhere at their own expense? Yea that's gonna be a no from me.

It’s always at “your own expense.” Me and my partner who also works full time wound up moving to a two-bedroom unit down the hall. Why would the company pay for this?

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#87

Post by ren_engineer » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

phillipcarter wrote: post #14

The key thing is here: > over the first six months of 2020 Those first six months were pretty rough. The large majority of people had little to no experience working remotely, so many folks didn't have a good home office environment, and there was a general sense of being unsure if this would just be temporary or if employees should settle in for the long haul. Many orgs didn't have good practices set up for remote w…

I think the hardest thing remote work has to replicate is just random small talk between smart people that can lead to great ideas. This speech from Richard Hamming about Bell Labs sticks in my mind, especially the segment about open vs closed office doors. I'd say remote work is objectively better for pure productivity in terms of getting things done, but you run the risk of limiting innovation I think

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

>Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#88

Post by fragmede » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

kiklion wrote: post #68

earthscienceman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We used to pay for entire buildings to house our employees, but covid made us realize we can pass that cost on to them!"

It kind of depends on the details. My company has offices that you can go to, but if you want to work remotely then it’s up to you to manage your environment. The company already has offices. Why would they pay for more just because you don’t want to go to the offices. There is a one time budget for hardware, such as a second monitor at home, we’ll have to see how that plays out with upgrades in a few years.

Because they don't have to pay for those offices anymore. If the company is allowing for remote work, they can also downsize those offices (subject to lease conditions), saving piles of money. (Commerical space is expensive!) If some of those savings aren't passed onto their employees, those employees will choose to move to a different company that has a more general WFH allowance, probably get a raise in the process, and work with a company that's just generally less obtuse to work at/for.

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#89

Post by midasuni » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #87

phillipcarter wrote: post #14

The key thing is here: > over the first six months of 2020 Those first six months were pretty rough. The large majority of people had little to no experience working remotely, so many folks didn't have a good home office environment, and there was a general sense of being unsure if this would just be temporary or if employees should settle in for the long haul. Many orgs didn't have good practices set up for remote w…

I think the hardest thing remote work has to replicate is just random small talk between smart people that can lead to great ideas. This speech from Richard Hamming about Bell Labs sticks in my mind, especially the segment about open vs closed office doors. I'd say remote work is objectively better for pure productivity in terms of getting things done, but you run the risk of limiting innovation I think https://www.c…

> But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on

It seems normal mow to move job every 3 years so that’s not a concern

Re: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers

#90

Post by hunter-gatherer » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #81

phillipcarter wrote: post #14

The key thing is here: > over the first six months of 2020 Those first six months were pretty rough. The large majority of people had little to no experience working remotely, so many folks didn't have a good home office environment, and there was a general sense of being unsure if this would just be temporary or if employees should settle in for the long haul. Many orgs didn't have good practices set up for remote w…

>say what you want about MS Teams, but they improved their product by leaps and bounds over the pandemic, much of which after the first 6 months Did they? I've been using it at my company for years, since long before the pandemic, and I don't think I've seen any improvements since the first day I started using it until now. Every issue I have with it has gone unchanged. The only change I can think of is when they add…

This is my experience exactly. Teams is also somewhat easy to get lost in once you get a lot of rooms open. Our IT department has decided to use Teams as a ticketing system. My manager decoded to use Teams as a PTO calendar by assigning tasks to yourself. All we really needed was a good chat app for private conversations and small teams... I don't know why companies have such a hard time solving these kinds of issues.