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Home office produces hardest workers

theage.com.au

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Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#21

Post by justanother »

jdotjdot wrote: post #19
justanother wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If you're determined to pound-out a good 8 hour day for a client, and do a fine job that shows fine results, it doesn't matter what your surroundings are. Unfortunately thi s debate is showing up daily in HN lately, and I don't anticipate swaying any minds. Disclosure: Teleworker for 10 years, often for Californians (who themselves often assume I'm in the same state or timezone as them, and I'm set up to antici…

I often aspire to a life like the one you have. What type of telework do you do?

I do whatever gets thrown my way by my 'boots on the ground' partners in LA in San Francisco (without whom I'd get a lot less work). Primarily Rails and Node, sometimes even PHP (with Zend or other MVC frameworks at least though). I'll even write Java plugins for your Wowza Media Server, if that's what you need. After taxes, the paycheck isn't quite as good as a senior developer in San Francisco, despite the work being hard and engaging. But hey, the nights and weekends are beyond comparison.

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#23

Post by ollysb »

I work remotely but also have space in a shared office about 10 minutes walk from my house. There's some great benefits to this setup, if I want some social contact I head down to the office and if I want to really focus for the day I can stay at home. When I am in the office it's easier to focus than if I was at my company office because I'm not getting bugged by people about work, it's just general chat, lunch etc. when I want it. Because I'm so close it's very easy to pick and choose as well, I'll work at home in the morning then head in for lunch with the guys and maybe finish up in the office for the afternoon. You still have to make some extra effort for team building but with regular nights out and a couple of days here and there in the company office it works out pretty well.

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#24

Post by joedev »

When I compare my 15 years in the office to my 7 years full-time telecommute, I can say without a doubt that I get a lot more work done working form home. Anyone who hasn't experienced the huge amount of time wasted in big-corp office environments hasn't worked in big-corp offices.

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#25

Post by mrbgty »

eitally wrote: post #13

I don't see why common sense hasn't prevailed on this topic after being beaten to death for years. The only ones who can decide whether telecommuting or remote working makes sense are the managers of each company asking themselves that question. There are too many variables, and no obvious answer. The best researchers should strive for is to identify the common variables with their inputs & outputs, and publicize tha…

Why is it the managers that have to figure it out rather than individual employees figuring out for themselves what makes the most sense?

To be fair it the individual, their team and manager should know when working remotely is and isn't working on a case by case basis

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#26

Post by aantix »

brandon272 wrote: post #6

In this local vs. remote work debate I find that the truth, as it often does, lies somewhere in the middle. There are pros and cons to both environments and what matters is what each environment offers how an employee chooses to deal with the challenges associated with each. Some people are more equipped than others to deal with work distractions and some people are more equipped than others to deal with loneliness o…

Agree.

I like "studies" such as this, not because I think a survey based study really validates my position but because I can point to this article to progress my own agenda with the hiring managers of the world.. Just being honest (or honest about dishonesty I guess..)

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#27

Post by mwsherman »

It may also be that productive people are over-represented among those that work from home. Or, those for whom working from home increases productivity…tend to work from home. (Another commenter mentions survivorship bias, similar idea.)

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#28

Post by rglover »

Yep. I can attribute a lot of my progress as a designer/developer coming from switching to working at home (and for myself). I can safely say that by removing the daily updates on silly things cats did the night before, I picked up a good three to four hours of work per week.

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#29

Post by warren_s »

milanello1 wrote: post #20

working from home is great and all but I currently work in an environment where 'working from home' is the norm and it is not good for team-building at all. I've been here for months and still don't know what people look like or actually do even though I might send them reports or talk with them on lync. Also, I guess this boils down to personality but I much rather work in the office where it is much harder to get d…

This is where regular company or team-wide meetups are worthwhile. GitHub do this semi-annually I think, I know Engine Yard do it with their remote support staff, and the company I work with does a monthly hack day.

Distractions can be overcome if you're willing to work on them. I find with daily standups, it's pretty hard to hide from a lack of progress, but if you don't have these then teaming up with a few colleagues to keep each other accountable is one option.

I stay away from TV, movies, etc during work hours, but I do tend to prepare proper meals in my lunch hour, rather than just grabbing whatever junk I can find. It's a good way to combat the extra weight you can gain when you start working from home too.

Re: Home office produces hardest workers

#30

Post by shrughes »

brandon272 wrote: post #6

In this local vs. remote work debate I find that the truth, as it often does, lies somewhere in the middle. There are pros and cons to both environments and what matters is what each environment offers how an employee chooses to deal with the challenges associated with each. Some people are more equipped than others to deal with work distractions and some people are more equipped than others to deal with loneliness o…

Usually the truth doesn't lie in the middle, especially not when opinion-havers influence one another or are otherwise infected by the same culture. Consider historical distributions of opinions on the employer/employee relationship and compare the overlap between that of today. See also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1470261
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