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The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#251

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

computerthings wrote: post #177
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "cliché" is to offer up "McKinsey is this shady organization we all hate!" as some sort of evidence that they could conspire to organize this sort of thing. Getting back to the original thesis of the article, the author is stating that people making the decision on RTO (the "elites", another nebulous scary term...) are doing so because commercial real estate is so critical to their decision making process. If…

The claim was that "the world is not this coordinated", not that McKinsey specifically is orchestrating it all by themselves. And my response to that claim was that it doesn't even have to be "coordinated". Do you disagree? I'm talking about the most rudimentary social dynamics we can observe and take part in daily. We can "conspire with" total strangers even, ad hoc, if we both realize our interests are otherwise en…

Yes, I thoroughly believe that behaviors can be coordinated without explicit agreements. That is essentially what the entire field of economics is about: decomposing how people respond to different incentives to act in an "agglomerated" fashion.

The thing I hate about articles like this one, and claims like "look at the shady stuff McKinsey has done" is that they never really even attempt to provide evidence about how the incentives around propping up com. real estate values would be enough to sway decision makers. They just try to tie some loose threads together, and use scary terms like "elites" as if all of the elites acted with one mind.

There have been plenty of comments elsewhere in this thread making the argument that the connection between com. real estate values and people making the actual RTO decisions is far too tenuous to have that be a primary motivator. Also, having been a director and had lots of interactions with C-suite folks, I find it laughable to think that of all the concerns high-level execs have that "helping the stock portfolios of other rich people" is their primary driver.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#252

Post by kweingar »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #229
sensanaty wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if they're working an 8 hour work day it's because they're working two remote jobs at the same time. I'd love to see actual stats on this, because I hear it a lot on HN (pretty much exclusively from the pro-office side) but I can't imagine there's that many people doing this. Even if there was, why is this a problem? Presumably they're getting work done in those 4 hours that is satisfactory to the business, so…

> Who cares? Your manager, because your employment contract is about time spent, not works delivered.

My contract mentions nothing about time spent.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#253

Post by oooyay »

fire_lake wrote: post #2

Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured fo…

There's two curious things happening at once that are not often talked about together: there are RTO mandates and tech companies are also dropping stock compensation without a replacement.

Whether that lends credence to the authors theory or not is an open question, but it's another financial motivator.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#254

Post by surgical_fire »

lnenad wrote: post #247
surgical_fire wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All those things are part of the office and you don't have to pay for them. I gladly paid for them so I don't have to commute. Since going remote I could move to the countryside too. Bigger house, nicer environment, cheaper. My home office setup follows me if I switch jobs. > Yes hanging out at home is nice for you/me, you can rest, nap, be with your kids, do chores, but how would this matter to the company when pe…

> If you don't have the discipline to work when you are supposed to, that's a you problem. Actually it's a company problem, that is precisely why this is one of the main reasons they are doing it and why it actually makes sense.

People always slacked off in the office. Probably a lot more than at home.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#255

Post by chairmansteve »

slippy wrote: post #165
slg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels a lot worse to deliver a lame joke at the start of an all hands meeting to a bunch of muted zoom windows with their cameras off. How much of the return to office is leaders wanting that polite chuckle from that captured audience back? I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control…

Alas, it's a nuclear option. People are going to stay or leave based on random criteria. Your company is going to be left with various deficits and it will take a long while to sort out the hiring mess. This feels more like it's about power. Those with the power leave, likely to competitors.

The good people always have other options. The bad ones don't.

Immediate supervisors usually know who is good and should be empowered to decide who can WFH. And who they don't want to lose.

Diktats from god are a sign of a disfunctional org.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#256

Post by TeMPOraL »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #46
rblatz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve long suspected it’s a PR campaign/propaganda and talking points aimed directly at the c suite class. A lot of people with a lot of money stand to lose a lot. Banks, investors, retirement funds… Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.

If it would be bad for people's pension funds and such, shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?

No? My impression of US (and by extension) global finance state of things is, pension funds are holding the society hostage, preventing positive changes in some sectors of the economy, real estate being particularly blatant case. "Propping up those real estate values", in general, works for the benefits of "haves" at the expense of hoping to have when they get older - i.e. it works against the interest of younger generations.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#257

Post by antisthenes »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #155
amjnsx wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe most people can get all their work done in 4 hours so sitting in an office for 8 is pointless

Maybe, maybe not. However, management bought 8 hours of your time and not 4 when they hired you.

> However, management bought 8 hours of your time and not 4 when they hired you.

Nowhere in my employment contract does it say that.

Realistically, I am allowed to spend up to 8 hours to work on goals that my employer says I should work on. It is also understood that if the goals are completed earlier, I am free to fill the "free" part of 8 hours with self-learning.

There's also an implicit understanding that certain life activities may happen/overlap with that free time, e.g. eating/picking up kids.

Only in the most pedantic bad take world would your statement be correct.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#258

Post by RestlessMind »

kitsune_ wrote: post #49
klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.

In addition to what you mentioned, most of today's corporate leaders rose through the ranks in 2010's or even before. They have thrived in offices and hence have habits and cultural norms more suitable for in-office work. No wonder they think offices are a better setup.

In addition, a lot of people facing functions (Sales, Management etc) were done in person. There might be a world where those are possible on Zoom, but the workforce has to be trained for that. Why should a company train their 35+ management stack about online people management, when they can just force the RTO?

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#259

Post by RestlessMind »

n_ary wrote: post #129
Saline9515 wrote: post #47

I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends. The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects. For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection…

I do not think that you need to be around to make connections. I have had colleagues who were at office once every blue moon but everyone in the office knew them and invited them everywhere. And I also know of people who sit on opposite desks for years and only have greetings and coffee chit-chats when forced to. Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regard…

> If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.

You are putting too much faith in human nature. Lot of times, people are simply greedy and abuse the cultural norms put in place to allow slacks when truly warranted. Seen those stories first hand, and then there is https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#260

Post by joquarky »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #146
klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

There is no conspiracy theory here. Most people will work 4 hour work days when working remotely. (And if they're working an 8 hour work day it's because they're working two remote jobs at the same time.) "No loss of productivity" is a flat out lie.

Psychological projection?
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