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34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

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Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#261

Post by g051051 »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #207
g051051 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your need for an instant answer often derails my work flow. This! The office paradigm values everyone else's time over my time. It paints interruption as a virtue. My last employer (before COVID) cancelled all WFH with the statement "We all know a 15 minute face-to-face conversation is better than a 3 day email chain". What about the other 99% of my time? Any time saved by that 15 minutes interaction is dwarfed by…

I haven't see anyone mention, not only are you disrupting the person you have turned around to ask a question but likely 3-4 people in the immediate vicinity. Depending on your office layout and the loudness of your conversation maybe even more.

Ugh, yes. The other "innovation" was to redo the building as an open-plan office. The increase and noise and decrease in productivity was ridiculous.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#262

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

Spivak wrote: post #69
nend wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, but if you dig down to what the authors of the study said: "1 in 3 professionals currently working from home would look for a new job if required to return to the office." They're not saying 34% of workers are going to quit instead of returning to the office, just that they will consider it. https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/management-tips/returning-to...

My SO's office made an announcement at the beginning of the year that they're going to be requiring everyone to be local and in-office as soon as it's safe. Since then they've lost 40 people (a little less than 1/3 of their staff) who explicitly said that that they were leaving for remote work. Executive leadership is now eating their hat and holding a town hall next week to talk about reversing that decision.

Now if they can be so quick to demand either solution, my question is — is there any other reason for them to demand onsite work, except for being toxic micromanaging assholes? Does it really matter to them that much?

I'd say if you have somewhere to run, run.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#263

Post by mulmen »

citizenkeen wrote: post #257
mulmen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a five second interruption. Once my concentration has been broken that is a ~15 minute process to get back into a flow state. This is human psychology. There's nothing wrong with me being distracted by distractions. Asking "hey you got a minute?" is a waste of everyone's time because either the answer is "yes" and you could have asked your question already or the answer is "no" and you just d…

If I had a coworker who reacted to interruptions the way you describe, I just wouldn't involve them. I'd grab other people and make decisions without them. I'm sure you react to interruptions the way you describe, but I wouldn't treat it as a universal. Like I said, everything you're writing speaks to you.

I encourage you to review the concept of "flow". You may be missing out on valuable input from capable contributors by excluding them for having a regular human reaction to interruption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#264

Post by frompdx »

ryanSrich wrote: post #248

I'm 100% convinced people who do not like remote work are not doing it correctly, or their company is not providing them with the tools and culture to do it correctly. Remote work done correctly is the best option for 99.9% of all jobs that exist.

I understand where some people are coming from. If you have kids, a small house or apartment, an incompatible work dynamic with your partner (they do sales, you do code), or some combination of those, WFH likely sucks.

On the flip side, if you are in a position to do it right, it really is ideal. My partner and I have no kids, our house is large enough that we could each have our own office if we could agree on who gets stuck with the room in the basement, and our work dynamics are reasonably compatible on most days. We also purchased high quality office chairs at the start of the pandemic which have really been fantastic.

I do agree that a lot of people could do at least something to make their WFH situation better. I have coworkers with lousy wireless internet in their house and I'm often mystified as to why they don't buy a better WAP. Or, I see them sitting in a crappy chair using their laptop instead of a proper keyboard and monitor even though they have the space for proper office furniture. I think these types of things are something employers should help out with and aren't terribly costly in the grand scheme of things.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#265

Post by silicon2401 »

the_af wrote: post #231
silicon2401 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is your city/country implementing lockdowns, they have and I didn't care, because I don't need to leave my home to enjoy my life. If anything a fully remote world would be even better because then I can go live in the countryside and have my own land without having to see other humans > do you have a small apartment and/or your spouse working at the same time in the same space yep, and we get along great. I love sp…

I think you misunderstood my point about spouse and kids: it wasn't about getting away from them, but about juggling work with kids vying for attention -- how do you explain a 2 year old that daddy has to work and cannot play with her for a few hours, and that she must stay locked in because there's a lockdown outside? -- and a couple sharing very limited space working at the same time (just think of Zoom meetings!).…

> I think you misunderstood my point about spouse and kids: it wasn't about getting away from them, but about juggling work with kids vying for attention -- how do you explain a 2 year old that daddy has to work and cannot play with her for a few hours, and that she must stay locked in because there's a lockdown outside? -- and a couple sharing very limited space working at the same time (just think of Zoom meetings!).

In that case it's a very different point and I understand the difficulty. But what does that have to do with remote work? Assuming the coronavirus is eventually under control, why not just work remote and send the kids off to a babysitter or wherever they would be while at the office?

> and a couple sharing very limited space working at the same time (just think of Zoom meetings!).

I feel like I often spend more time on meetings than actually coding so I can relate. Just buy a headset with a mic. Just like it's reasonable to invest thousands in a car if you have to commute to work, I think it's reasonable to invest at the very least 20 bucks on a convenience store headset to be able to focus a little better. If you can even splurge 100 bucks it's a big improvement. I'm physically closer to my partner than I was to my coworkers at my previous job, so I understand the concern, but I haven't had issues by just using headsets and muting as needed.

> ("hermits", as you put it) are doing well during this pandemic. What about the rest of us?

That was part of the point of my post. You've only had it rough for a year. What about us hermits for all the rest of human history when fully remote work has been a very rare luxury? For some of us, it's a countdown until we go back to a world that makes us as miserable for a lifetime as you've been for a year, except we won't have anybody fighting to let us keep the isolation and comfort we've been enjoying, whereas you have every world government and relevant expert sprinting to end this current way of life. It's frustrating to see people complain about being unhappy for such a short time and completely disregard how unhappy many people were with the old way of things and for how long

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#266

Post by tartoran »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #43
tdeck wrote: post #11

I've been thinking about this too. I appreciate the benefits of the office, but I'm more productive than ever now that I can control my environment, commute, and schedule. If I have to go into work, that's about two hours of commuting each day. Where are those hours going to come from? I sure as hell don't want them coming out of my personal time, which always feels too full as it is.

For me going remote was a huge improvement for my sanity. The loud office and the daily commute were wearing me down. But I understand other people prefer the office. Let's hope companies will adapt and support different personality traits. Problem is that most managers are extroverts and don't really understand the needs of introverts.

Yes and this is the best time to make ourselves heard. We are powerless if we stay quiet and let others make decisions for us.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#267

Post by jariel »

User23 wrote: post #3
MattGaiser wrote: post #2

At any given point, half of workers are contemplating leaving. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/47percent-of-workers-are-con... The typical office worker spends a half hour searching for new jobs at work every day. https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... I’m not sure this is a revolution or just that plenty of people have no real attachment to their employer.

Conversely, if an employer isn't willing to let employees do a job remotely after having had a year to see that they're perfectly capable of doing so, they clearly have no attachment to their employees.

"after having had a year to see that they're perfectly capable of doing so"

?

Who says that it worked out?

'Remote Everyone' was a forced experiment, there's no assumption that the situation was ideal.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#268

Post by Simon321 »

shaftway wrote: post #211

I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I am chomping at the bit to get back into the office. I'm a Senior SWE. I've got ADHD. Work from home has been * catastrophic* for me. I don't have the ability to focus. I have no space in my home where I can work distraction-free, and no ability to create a space separate from my family. From home I can slack off for an hour... or two... or days, and nobody notices because m…

As a person that also has ADHD, it's more than that. Being around people and working and talking with them directly stimulates me and keeps me focused.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#269

Post by mike_d »

tezzer wrote: post #129
mulmen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

34% being unwilling to work in offices does not imply not the 66% prefer to work in offices. It is entirely possible (however unlikely) that 100% of people prefer to work remotely but that 34% demand it. You just can't infer anything about the preferences of the 66% based on the preferences of the 34%. Some jobs have to be done in person, sure. But some jobs don't. Personally the extra two hours a day and reduced str…

I'm a software engineer. I can do my job 100% remotely. I can't wait to get back to the office. I like in-person collaboration, and I really like having separation between my work life and my home life. This year has been torture.

> I like in-person collaboration

This argument is rooted in a fondness for the way things used to be. I get it... I miss lunch with my coworkers and being able to spin around in my chair to ask someone a question. But are you really going to get that satisfaction when your coworker isn't in that chair, or your work friends want to have lunch alone because they have an immuno-compromised child at home?

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#270

Post by mulmen »

polymeris wrote: post #209
mulmen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Unless the world is on fire there's no reason to interrupt someone to unblock yourself. Contact them asynchronously or opportunistically. If you see them in the kitchenette getting coffee then sure, ask. If they are walking back from the bathroom, sure, grab them before they resume work. But do not delude yourself into thinking you know more about prioritizing their time than they do.

I agree in principle, but also find myself often doing my best thinking when making coffee or just "idly" staring out of a window, and would find it annoying to be interrupted just because I'm not at my desk. Luckily I work from home.

Yeah this is fair. I was considering the classic wave a hand in my face because I'm wearing headphones at my desk type of disruption but there's so many more variants.

There's another angle here which is that ad-hoc in-person conversations tend to be low value because there's no record. The process of simply writing down a question before asking it goes a long way toward finding a solution.

It's one of the things I really appreciate about working from home. There are no unwelcome interruptions because everyone controls their own time and interactions I do have are higher value because they have been more thoroughly considered.

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