Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Working from home is powering productivity

imf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 481 posts

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#411

Post by r3d0c »

BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #318
seanvelasco wrote: post #181

i definitely know myself that i'm less productive working from home than working on the office. the commute (or the ritual of it) and the different environment makes all the difference.

Same, home is associated with relaxation in my mind (and I have an apartment, so no "work desk"). Being quite depressed also makes a big difference, as work gives a social life I otherwise don't have.

then the problem doesn't seem to be with wfh but from your lack of socialization ability

i have my own social groups that aren't dependant on the people at work, i don't have a job to make friends but to make money

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#412

Post by zeroonetwothree »

steveBK123 wrote: post #389
jandrewrogers wrote: post #260

I think a lot of people are talking past each other. I’ve mostly WFH since long before the pandemic, in many different capacities at many companies. A lot of people have tunnel vision and the reality is more nuanced than most allow. For IC work that requires minimal collaboration, WFH is often more productive. Fewer interruptions, more focus. However, when the role requires detailed collaboration and regular interact…

Agreed its not black&white, but theres more factors than IC. For example I think all new grads need to be house trained with some in-office period, as well as have made enough money/been subsidized to actually have a proper WFH setup. 22 year olds hunched over a 14" laptop screen on their nightstand ain't it. For people who've done 10/15/20 years in office, we know how to manage our time remotely, and many of us have…

I’m 40+ and I still just work on my laptop. I do have an office setup but I dunno I just kind of like sitting in bed with the laptop.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#413

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ajuc wrote: post #352
CalRobert wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

> Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom This works as an argument against 8h work day and 5-day work week too. Ultimately if something is better for the society (and WFH obviously is - commute time, carbon footprint, land prices, housing crisis - it helps with almost everything) - we should just force companies to use it by regulation, so that there's no "race" in that regard cause the conditions are the sam…

And many high performing companies famously expect employees to work more than 8h/day and/or weekends.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#414

Post by zeroonetwothree »

mamonster wrote: post #351
noch wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without This is unlikely. Notice the parent post said: >> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost […] So you have a situation where: - Most of your employees think of your company's success and their lifestyle as competing interests. - Most of your employees are focused on optimizing their lifestyle rather…

>I recall one of my German managers said: "The difference between workers today and the previous generation is that we lived to work, while they work to live." I know 2 Boomers who have 8 figure networths and own their own businesses(manual work, think maintenance and installing stuff). They frequently take the opportunity to self congratulate("I worked so hard for 30 years") and complain about younger people("They d…

Survivorship bias. You will see the same thing with your generation in N years. I expect you’ll be posting here about how young people are lazy now etc

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#415

Post by linotype »

steveBK123 wrote: post #402
mattpallissard wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always tell my friends and colleagues new to remote work that remote, async collaboration is a skill to be learned. You have to take a thought and distill it down to a diagram or written word before you share it. Personally, If I can't do that it tells me that my idea is still half baked. It also teaches you to avoid throwing out incomplete ideas or asking simple questions you could answer yourself as the rtt for a…

Yes, and some see this as a plus / others as a minus. For juniors, there is some learning done by being extremely annoying constant question askers of their seniors. The good ones find a balance of actually trying things & collecting their thoughts before doing so.. more quickly than others. They can often be steered in this direction if you ask the same set of questions until they internalize the checklist themselve…

Part of the job as a senior+ is training entry/mid-level software engineers. Their job, at least part of it, is to ask questions and learn.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#416

Post by seanvelasco »

r3d0c wrote: post #411
BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, home is associated with relaxation in my mind (and I have an apartment, so no "work desk"). Being quite depressed also makes a big difference, as work gives a social life I otherwise don't have.

then the problem doesn't seem to be with wfh but from your lack of socialization ability i have my own social groups that aren't dependant on the people at work, i don't have a job to make friends but to make money

i believe it's not a problem of socialization ability, it's a matter of personality - it's just who we are. as an introvert, i'm not comfortable just striking up conversations with strangers, let alone making friends with them.

even if you don't make friends at work, being physically around people has an impact on a person. being in an office has a much higher social component than working from home.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#417

Post by zanybear »

codexjourneys wrote: post #365
CalRobert wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

This will be counterbalanced by the fact that WFH is better for many employees from a work-life balance perspective, so higher-performing employees who have more choices will tend to gravitate toward companies that allow WFH. I expect many companies will arrive at an equilibrium with at least 2 days WFH for focused work and 3 days in-office for collaboration. This seems to already be happening since the % of companie…

Unfortunately, once you go one way the 2 days are no longer of focus work. Not all people schedule the same type of work at the same time .

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#418

Post by steveBK123 »

linotype wrote: post #415
steveBK123 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and some see this as a plus / others as a minus. For juniors, there is some learning done by being extremely annoying constant question askers of their seniors. The good ones find a balance of actually trying things & collecting their thoughts before doing so.. more quickly than others. They can often be steered in this direction if you ask the same set of questions until they internalize the checklist themselve…

Part of the job as a senior+ is training entry/mid-level software engineers. Their job, at least part of it, is to ask questions and learn.

Agreed, however some teams/orgs have skewed ratios such that the senior job basically becomes fielding interrupts all day and then coding at home after dinner.

Fine if thats the job, but don't call it senior engineer and treat as an IC role that is also expected to clear lots of Jiras (hey! seniors should be able to do 3X story points if juniors are doing X.. what are we paying them for!).

A lot of "flat organizations" delude themselves with 30:1 IC:manager ratios where what's really happening under the hood is - 5 seniors on the team each fielding 5 juniors worth of interrupts all day, with 1 manager on top whack-a-moling crisis management.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#419

Post by brandonmenc »

gruez wrote: post #209
brandonmenc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like, a direct marching order. It's just a general attitude that has filtered around C suites or whatever. Go watch any daytime cable news investment shows and you'll see it. Just run of the mill cohort thinking. No big conspiracy.

>Go watch any daytime cable news investment shows and you'll see it. As in "we need to RTO to prop up commercial real estate" specifically, or something more general like "we need to RTO to increase collaboration" or whatever?

As in a general, "what about city centers!" and "everyone needs to get back in the office just because!"

It's all feels and vibes.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#420

Post by noch »

greentxt wrote: post #401
noch wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, actually I haven't. Ah. Well, second hand anecdotes are certainly appreciated. Thanks for sharing. > The possibility of WFH (for those who want it) is one of the best that happened to the working class since 5-day workweek. Does "working class" have a different meaning today? When I entered the job market it meant "blue collar" or manual labourer. You seem to be indicating that you're what used to be called "kn…

>As a business owner however, the question is: what is best for the business? I would guess having employees that feel valued for their productivity and contributions would be what is best for the business, no?

> I would guess having employees that feel valued […] would be what is best for the business, no?

It depends. I think what's best for a business is having employees who want to win and want the business to win, as a primary goal.

It's not really easy to make an adult feel valued because individuals have very different motivations and personalities, so good feelings as a goal is a shifting target.

Of course, if it were easy to answer the question, probably the Harvard Business Review would be a single article and not many decades of publication, and the debate about WFH wouldn't even exist because everyone would feel valued already and the problem would be moot.

Post reply on HN