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Working from home is powering productivity

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Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#71

Post by JoshTriplett »

kvmet wrote: post #44
JoshTriplett wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Globally much of the pro-office camp's public position is driven by personal leanings of CEOs who genuinely seem to have made the decisions without evidence In some cases, the pressure is also coming from external to the company, from cities and VCs and similar who care about the commercial real-estate value of now-abandoned offices.

Is this actually happening? I have seen this idea thrown out a lot online but it always feels like a conspiracy theory to me (akin to "fine art is a tax write-off")

The conspiracy theory version is that it's the sole cause, rather than one of many causes.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#72

Post by tomjakubowski »

beaconify wrote: post #59
hu3 wrote: post #35

I love working from home and I plan to keep doing it. But I can't deny that when a coworker needs help, rolling my chair next to theirs in office allows for a much larger bandwidth of knowledge sharing. On the other hand my production skyrockets at home.

I am not sure. Remote working allows you to instantly pair with someone. No shuffling keyboards. There are a lot of software tools that help. Things like Loom let you async stuff. What isn't is as good is social connection. I have not seen going out to a restaurant emulated well remotely.

Zoom's latency is a killer. It is still harder to have the kind of natural back and forth conversation I'm used to having in meatspace pairing. Maybe I should try Discord.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#73

Post by notyourwork »

Terr_ wrote: post #45
JoshTriplett wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Globally much of the pro-office camp's public position is driven by personal leanings of CEOs who genuinely seem to have made the decisions without evidence In some cases, the pressure is also coming from external to the company, from cities and VCs and similar who care about the commercial real-estate value of now-abandoned offices.

> real-estate value Separately but simultaneously, there are often local tax-benefits which depend on the company "creating jobs", and that's often defined in a way that means butts-in-offices downtown.

Ding ding ding … this is the most overlooked aspect of the RTO/WFH dynamic.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#74

Post by BhavdeepSethi »

mullingitover wrote: post #65

I would wager that there's a dead sea effect happening at these 'my way or the highway' RTO companies. Top tier, upber-productive, marketable talents don't have to tolerate bullying, even in a weak employment market. So the companies pushing RTO the hardest see their hardest to replace talent evaporate quickly, and their most desperate (but thoroughly demoralized) staff cling on for dear life. Not as a rule, but defi…

> Meanwhile the most flexible companies can pick up talent easily, picking and choosing and building very tough rosters for quite reasonable prices.

While it sounds good on paper, hiring decent remote folks for a company is actually much harder, especially if you're a startup. It's way easier taking a bet on someone local where you don't have to second guess how productive they are. For similar interview performance, most companies would prefer folks who can come to office instead of full remote. Obviously, there are companies who have made it work (eg. Gitlab) for a long time, but I'd say they are the exception rather than the norm.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#75

Post by notyourwork »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #37
nmstoker wrote: post #16

It's good to see some serious arguments for WFH. Globally much of the pro-office camp's public position is driven by personal leanings of CEOs who genuinely seem to have made the decisions without evidence, often it's something they're very grumpy about (hardly the best state of mind for good judgement) and often based on the assumption that company productivity is based on workers doing what they do (usually far fro…

[flagged]

I don’t follow the male, female, disabled person argument at all.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#76

Post by rgblambda »

ozim wrote: post #57
criddell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think framing the WFH argument in terms of productivity is a bad idea. It’s difficult to win that argument and it might not even be true. Instead, call it a benefit, like paid vacation or health insurance. Nobody argues that employers contributing to an employees 401(k) plan is good for productivity. They do it to attract and retain talent.

Benefit for the employee can be cut off any time. Benefit for the company will go on forever. I will stay on the ground where WFH is benefit for the company. That is what I believe and I want everyone to believe and I do not care what any kind of research will say. Just if employees will force it in that way it will be.

Consistency and stability is a benefit to the company, but execs still periodically fuck that up for no reason with random reorgs.

Though I agree that framing WFH as a productivity gain makes RTO in the name of productivity harder to sell.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#77

Post by witx »

hu3 wrote: post #35

I love working from home and I plan to keep doing it. But I can't deny that when a coworker needs help, rolling my chair next to theirs in office allows for a much larger bandwidth of knowledge sharing. On the other hand my production skyrockets at home.

How is that different from just making a call? It's much faster and you can both be looking at your respective screens with the same information

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#78

Post by [deleted] »

l33tbro wrote: post #27

I despair a little at this. If I can do my job at home, then surely somebody can do it in the global south in tandem with AI for peanuts. Client-facing stuff gets centralised to a smaller team of specialists, and the ship gets much tighter. How long until megacorps and SMEs actually execute this reality? The management class and their unnecessary underlings like me have only been so resilient because companies are st…

[deleted]

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#79

Post by rgblambda »

purple-leafy wrote: post #55
criddell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think framing the WFH argument in terms of productivity is a bad idea. It’s difficult to win that argument and it might not even be true. Instead, call it a benefit, like paid vacation or health insurance. Nobody argues that employers contributing to an employees 401(k) plan is good for productivity. They do it to attract and retain talent.

I think though, that for hybrid or work from home to win in the shared mindset - productivity has to be accounted for. It feels like employers that switch to RTO office mandates do so on a “hunch” that WFH is less productive. At least that’s what my company is doing. They have not shared any stats that hybrid work has affected outcomes. Yes the company was down in outcomes for 2 quarters, but that’s mostly related to…

Think it was the FT that reported, there's no data indicating RTO improves productivity. It is being done either on a hunch or as a form of stealth layoff.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#80

Post by CapeTheory »

beaconify wrote: post #70
zeusk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an open secret that it is no longer day 1 at Amazon.

What does that mean (genuine question?)

Amazon used to pride itself on behaving like a (very big) startup, trying to be scrappy and focused - but now it has very definitely joined the league of ordinary corporations.
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