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SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

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Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#41

Post by exotree »

pmarreck wrote: post #37
dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

It may depend on the person and the job. Pre-pandemic I lasted only 4 months at a remote job. I kept asking to meet them (they were in Atlanta, me in Long Island, but most of them were scattered), meeting stakeholders in person gives me a charge which aids my focus and overall productivity. Anyway they kept deferring, and then one day sort of out of the blue and without warning (literally... the day prior the supervi…

Why did you take a job that you knew was remote but insist on meeting the stakeholders in person? You shouldn’t have taken that job with that expectation.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#42

Post by dleslie »

pmarreck wrote: post #37
dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

It may depend on the person and the job. Pre-pandemic I lasted only 4 months at a remote job. I kept asking to meet them (they were in Atlanta, me in Long Island, but most of them were scattered), meeting stakeholders in person gives me a charge which aids my focus and overall productivity. Anyway they kept deferring, and then one day sort of out of the blue and without warning (literally... the day prior the supervi…

I'm roughly 6 years into working from home; the pandemic isn't really a new experience for me.

The first year was concerning because it was different and weird, but it rapidly became normal. Now, I reflect on how _slow_ office work was and find myself frustrated for my past self.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#43

Post by heavyset_go »

908B64B197 wrote: post #30
heavyset_go wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. What I hear are complaints about the consequences of the pandemic. That people have to work and babysit their kids during school. That both they and their partner are forced to share a workspace. That they miss changes of scenery, or that their home works…

Quarantine work from home isn't work from home. https://www.hanselman.com/blog/quarantine-work-is-not-remote...

I agree.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#44

Post by exotree »

dleslie wrote: post #40
exotree wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is disconcerting about hybrid? This seems to be the solution that strikes a good balance between your needs and the needs of your other coworkers who probably appreciate the increased flexibility.

Have you ever tried to have a party at two locations? It doesn't work.

That’s... not at all the same concept. There are a lot of companies pre-pandemic that had hybrid offices. Many global companies have had zoom rooms and other teleconferencing solutions for years.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#45

Post by newusr415 »

dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

I advocated for remote work pretty aggressively. I've been doing it now for about a year due to the pandemic, with the option of doing it permanently at my current employer.

I'm not sure I'm that enthusiastic about it anymore. Life just seems a lot more boring to me. Every day is the same and it's become incredibly repetitive. I've been getting somewhat depressed about having this repetitive lifestyle for the next N years. I hadn't really felt this way before. It could be unrelated to remote work of course.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#46

Post by heavyset_go »

dleslie wrote: post #40
exotree wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is disconcerting about hybrid? This seems to be the solution that strikes a good balance between your needs and the needs of your other coworkers who probably appreciate the increased flexibility.

Have you ever tried to have a party at two locations? It doesn't work.

Using this logic, employers' offices and branches in other cities shouldn't work either, but they do.

Remote and hybrid companies also show that they work, too.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#47

Post by thelean12 »

gregmac wrote: post #31
thelean12 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of ideal working conditions sounds so robotic to me. Schedule everything! No off the cuff conversations! Screw the human desire for socializing, we've got shit to do! Right now my team is comprised of no one that I've met in person. I feel absolutely no connection to them and feel so incredibly disconnected from my work. Like I've been playing the same video game for 8 hours a day for a year and noth…

Curious: Do you do regular video calls? Do you ever discuss anything aside from work? Even during a "work" discussion, do people make jokes, laugh, etc? Do you have chat (slack) channels, and are they active? Does anyone ever spontaneously post something like "hey, anyone feel like talking about x that I'm trying to sort out?" Is chat pure business or do people ever discuss anything else? These are all kind of leadin…

Sure, we have all that. And maybe I'm just wired differently. I haven't made any real connections or friendships with my virtual coworkers over the past year. In the past when I joined a new IRL team, I'd have some budding friendships after a few team lunches.

Maybe it's because there are hardly any actual real personal bonding moments. For example, lunch with 10 talking heads on a VC is insane to me since you can't have more than one conversation at once, and any conversation you have has to be with the entire group. You can't pick up on something someone said, realize someone else has the same interest as you and go sit next to them and talk it out. You have to have the 1:1 conversation in front of the whole group, or leave the group.

That's just one example of why it seems so difficult to make real, genuine friendships at work now.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#48

Post by mullingitover »

ping_pong wrote: post #19

Both Yahoo and IBM rolled back their very flexible WFH strategies. I don't think super flexible WFH is a lasting trend, because it's obvious that is doesn't work for most of the people. I personally love WFH and I know a lot of HN do too, but I think human nature is that it probably won't work very well for most companies.

These don't seem like the greatest examples - eliminating WFH didn't turn Yahoo around (it might've done them in, who knows) and IBM is...well IBM.

What the last year has done was to force knee-jerk 'butts in seats' mentality managers to experiment with remote work. It sure seems like the bottom line results haven't proven remote work to be a failure, and while some old timers may force everyone back to the office, I think many are going to be a lot more open to remote work where they never would've considered it in the pre-pandemic era.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#49

Post by awillen »

I don't understand why we can't just all agree that some people are more productive at home and others are not. It depends on personality, type of role and type of business.

We're literally talking about hundreds of millions of people here, so pretty much any universal statement is going to be wrong.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#50

Post by stolenmerch »

I think the solution has to be some kind of hybrid arrangement. Anyone who is fighting strongly for 100% remote teams doesn't understand that some folks just don't have a good situation to work from home. Likewise, an aggressive office-only policy fails to see how adding flexibility to people's work lives can be a huge boon to productivity and happiness.
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