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Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

nytimes.com

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Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#51

Post by flashgordon »

sharkweek wrote: post #11

Company I work for implemented more RTO recently and when someone asked in an all hands for data showing that the first RTO decision was leading to an improvement in productivity or some other key metric and the CTO responded saying (paraphrasing) “this isn’t a data based decision leadership is making. It’s because we want to build a culture where people are working next to each other more frequently. We FEEL that th…

I can't wait for the irony where they do build a culture where people all want to be working next to each there - not for the company but only to brainstorm and work on their own startup ideas (not necessarily tech) as a big final FU!

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#52

Post by jader201 »

sharkweek wrote: post #11

Company I work for implemented more RTO recently and when someone asked in an all hands for data showing that the first RTO decision was leading to an improvement in productivity or some other key metric and the CTO responded saying (paraphrasing) “this isn’t a data based decision leadership is making. It’s because we want to build a culture where people are working next to each other more frequently. We FEEL that th…

I’ve been WFH 100% (aside from the occasional 1-week remote offsite) for over 10 years. I will always want to work somewhere that is at the very least supportive of distributed teams, if not remote-first. I also chime in on HN articles like this with an endorsement for remote work.

And I also agree that execs are biased, and either ignore or are blatantly against any supporting evidence for remote work.

Having said all that, I’m not 100% sure that we have enough data to prove remote work is a benefit or detriment to long term success.

I think, without a doubt, there are a number of benefits to employees. And, if for no other reason, happy employees definitely help a company be successful.

But I can’t say with 100% certainty that that’s enough to offset the benefits of being together — for the company.

I’ve worked with people that I’m convinced don’t put in near 8-hour days (or even the equivalent in productivity), but it’s very hard to prove, and not enough evidence to support taking action (e.g. PIP/firing).

I also personally, without a doubt, feel disconnected in ways I didn’t when I used to work at the office.

I think the whole “work remotely” debate and trying to come up with evidence of how it impacts the success of a company is about like trying to determine whether eggs are good for you, or whether the occasional drink of alcohol/coffee is beneficial vs. abstaining — there will always be conflicting data, and we may not know for decades. There are just too many variables.

And we probably know way less about how remote work affects success vs. how eggs/coffee/alcohol affects our health.

But since I know the impacts of remote work are more beneficial to me, that’s more important to me than the impacts it has on the success of the company.

And execs know that (most) employees feel the same way, and they feel the need to fight it, especially if they sense that some (many?) take advantage of WFH, but can’t do anything about it.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#53

Post by namaria »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #48
namaria wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They truly don't understand why people may want to leave work Exactly. Leadership typically sees the workplace as a rewarding experience where they exercise control and get lots of dopamine. They truly can't understand that it's the exact opposite for everyone else.

I would frame what I think is the same observation as, leadership optimizes for the experience of passionate people who find work rewarding. If you’re just putting in your 40 hours so you have money for the stuff that really matters, yeah, I don’t see how anyone could dispute that remote work is better for that.

Management roles certainly filter for people who find workplace dynamics rewarding. As much as technical roles filter for people who like to solve problems and dislike social games.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#54

Post by LaGrange »

i_am_jl wrote: post #18
gryfft wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Leadership is a lot less fulfilling and a lot less fun when you’re doing it remotely,” Bock said. There's also this, which makes a great deal of sense to me even as it angers me from the other end of the power gradient. Management likes to do things that feel good to management.

I dunno. I feel like if executives believed they were hamstringing their teams with RTO edicts they wouldn't see them as so fulfilling or fun. Maybe I'm giving executives too much credit but I believe that, for the most part, they believe they're better managers when their employees are in the office. I think that's true in a lot of cases, but it also ignores that employees can be better workers when they're hybrid o…

> Maybe I'm giving executives too much credit but I believe that, for the most part, they believe they're better managers when their employees are in the office.

I don't know, I'd say a usual expectation of a worker is to learn how to adapt to a changing understanding of their work, but like, maybe I'm expecting too much. Why would I expect managers to keep up to date on management research, it's not like they're being paid for doing their jobs well or anything.

Edit: fun fact, it's been so far my experience that C levels are surprised management research exists.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#55

Post by firefoxd »

The problem is everyone thinks Data will give you the answer. Does returning to office increase productivity? How do you measure productivity? Let me tell you how we increased productivity by 19% last year.

Our VP aimed to increase productivity by 10%. The Jira team went to work. They studied our workflow, found some inefficiency in our ticket statuses, and reorganized. At the end of the year, we resolved many more tickets, gaining 71 days worth of work, or 19.5%. Celebration!

The data clearly shows the improvement. But what they ignored is that on the previous year, we built a system. On the next year, the one with their Jira improvements, we used the system. We resolved more tickets after because those were small bug fixes instead of large architecture efforts. Nothing to do with the new ticket statuses. The lesson was add more ticket statuses and it will make developers more efficient...

When we are asked to return to the office and there is push back, it is someone's job to come up with metrics that will measure productivity. They will probably measure ticket completion for on-site and off-site employees, completely ignoring the context of the work.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#56

Post by marcosdumay »

indecisive_user wrote: post #40
nine_zeros wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The C-Suite is so highly paid and lives such a comfortable life that they can't even fathom how much productivity is lost by the average individual commuting for an hour and having to bounce for kids/family/home/medical issues. They truly don't understand why people may want to leave work, be at home when they themselves have ZERO chores to deal with. And they also don't understand why people are not as passionate as…

Let's not be too hyperbolic here. The average mid-level dev at Amazon is making over $250k while the average senior makes over $400k (source levels.fyi) so they're hardly "just scraping by" and can afford many of those same life comforts.

It's not the first 9 deciles of management that are making this kind of decision.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#57

Post by EPWN3D »

joshdavham wrote: post #45
sharkweek wrote: post #11

Company I work for implemented more RTO recently and when someone asked in an all hands for data showing that the first RTO decision was leading to an improvement in productivity or some other key metric and the CTO responded saying (paraphrasing) “this isn’t a data based decision leadership is making. It’s because we want to build a culture where people are working next to each other more frequently. We FEEL that th…

How would you propose they quantify company culture?

The same way you'd measure anything else at a company: productivity. A company's purpose is to make products and money, not to build the culture the CEO wants.

If there's data showing that thousands of cumulative hours of commuting leads to more productivity or innovation or whatever, then by all means let's see it. But this is just the open office fad in new clothes.

With open offices, the thing which conveniently cost less money also supposedly improved innovation and collaboration. No serious research demonstrates this.

With RTO, the thing which conveniently gives middle- and upper-management warm annd fuzzy feelings about their life choices also supposedly increases innovation and collaboration. Again, no serious research demonstrates this.

But none of this matters. If this is what the company wants to do, then that's what it wants to do. The CEO can make decisions for whatever reason they want, and if the board are okay with it and the results, then that's the decision. I do wish more C-levels would be honest and just say, "I want to see you all here, because I'm not confident that work will get done if you're not here." At least then no one's insulting anyone's intelligence.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#58

Post by EPWN3D »

indecisive_user wrote: post #40
nine_zeros wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The C-Suite is so highly paid and lives such a comfortable life that they can't even fathom how much productivity is lost by the average individual commuting for an hour and having to bounce for kids/family/home/medical issues. They truly don't understand why people may want to leave work, be at home when they themselves have ZERO chores to deal with. And they also don't understand why people are not as passionate as…

Let's not be too hyperbolic here. The average mid-level dev at Amazon is making over $250k while the average senior makes over $400k (source levels.fyi) so they're hardly "just scraping by" and can afford many of those same life comforts.

Have a family in the Bay Area or Seattle and watch that money disappear, especially if you're a sole income provider.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#59

Post by EPWN3D »

I actually like being in the office, but I'm in the bay area, so that requires hours of shitty commuting. I like the office, but I don't like it that much.

If I had access to an office that I could get to on public transit in like 20 minutes, that'd be a totally different story. But no, everyone has to have sprawling campuses in the middle of suburbia.

Re: Executives and Research Disagree About Hybrid Work. Why?

#60

Post by kermatt »

namaria wrote: post #37
jncfhnb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the problem is that the culture story just feels like a lie

It's not a lie. It just means that their culture is based on micromanagement, power trips and control.

Which makes it a lie because their stated reasons are not the actual reasons.
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