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Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

economist.com

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Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#471

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Steltek wrote: post #402
evenhovercraft wrote: post #349

Very grateful that my employer has committed to remaining flexible with remote work. Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. Full time remote has done wonders for my health - instead of a 2 hour commute I get to exercise. Instead of coming home stressed, annoyed, and sitting in front of the TV, I go outside for a solid hour+ after I close my laptop. I travel more liberally now…

Just as a contrast, I think I've had the exact opposite WFH/lockdown experience as you. My quality of life has tangibly and significantly degraded across every positive point you listed. Even if my employer began offering office access, I don't think it will ever be the same as what I had before. I used to bike to work, a productive 2 hours of exercise that kept me very healthy, mentally and physically. I got to see…

I was thinking about it, but before as an academic before I always had the option to remote work, just I didn't do it at home. The cafe, the museum, just bike to my best thinking place in the morning and then bike to the university for lunch and an afternoon meeting. I never really had decent work and exercise opportunities at home, so I would spend as little time as there as possible.

These days I'm no longer an academic but ironically I've been full time WFH since I switched at the beginning of the pandemic. So now I have a nice house with a nice chair and a nicer monitor than I could get in the office. And an oculus 2 for exercise, which works out (but might not be for everyone). And those second places where I did all my best thinking outside of home and the office don't really exist anymore and might not ever exist again :(.

> and overworked as the involuntarily designated quasi-stay-at-home parent.

Ya, being at home would be really a lot worse if my 4 year old wasn't in pre-K.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#472

Post by jliptzin »

sokoloff wrote: post #292
jliptzin wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked with remote developers from Poland, Romania, and Portugal, each making approx $20-50/hr, producing code of far higher quality than stuff I’ve seen from $500k/year software engineers here. Also, their English was almost indecipherable from a native speaker.

I normally wouldn’t nitpick wording, but did you mean “indistinguishable” in your last sentence, which means nearly the opposite in context?

Yes I did thank you! I guess my own English isn't so great as a native speaker!

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#473

Post by ilammy »

icelancer wrote: post #46
EMM_386 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yep. I've said it many times here and basically anywhere I can: Clamoring for remote-only work, maximum-introvert, never fly somewhere, don't value in-person communication/meetings/etc is a dangerous game to be playing. What's interesting is that I flew in for a meeting with my company recently, the first I've had since I've been hired. This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. We spen…

>> This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. What engineers and people on this site seem to not grasp is that "working" is not a strict definition that maps to "writing code" to management, business operations, marketing, sales... basically every non-engineering department. If that concept starts to take root in the mind, then it becomes a bit more clear why people like the office. Engin…

Considering slightly broader aspect of why the work is done in the first place – to bring profits to the company – people should also factor in the creative part of work, and nonlinearity of individual contributions to that case.

It's one thing if your job is to stay at the assembly line punching holes in metal sheets 40 hours a week. And another thing if you have the capacity for improving the overall process (and profits), while still spending 10 hours punching holes part-time because it brings you joy. From management perspective, it's those 10 hours that are wasted.

Or if you're taken out of your dear assembly line and flown to the other part of the country in business class, to attend a week-long series of meeting with a customer. Somehow that ends up helping to secure a huge contract, just because your presence affected the customer's perception. From your perspective, that might look like the company has wasted a fine week of your work on useless meetings and communication. From company's perspective, just with that they have made more money than you'd bring them in a two years otherwise.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#474

Post by mbrodersen »

Steltek wrote: post #402
evenhovercraft wrote: post #349

Very grateful that my employer has committed to remaining flexible with remote work. Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. Full time remote has done wonders for my health - instead of a 2 hour commute I get to exercise. Instead of coming home stressed, annoyed, and sitting in front of the TV, I go outside for a solid hour+ after I close my laptop. I travel more liberally now…

Just as a contrast, I think I've had the exact opposite WFH/lockdown experience as you. My quality of life has tangibly and significantly degraded across every positive point you listed. Even if my employer began offering office access, I don't think it will ever be the same as what I had before. I used to bike to work, a productive 2 hours of exercise that kept me very healthy, mentally and physically. I got to see…

Which is why smart employers give their employees a choice of how to work instead of a one-size-fits-all solution that doesn’t. Working two days in the office is perfect for me for example.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#475

Post by Cerium »

Steltek wrote: post #441
idrios wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar situation, WFH/lockdown massively degraded the quality of my life. Work became more stressful and metric-driven, social life died as all my friends & coworkers moved to their hometowns and I did too, and I've gained weight / fallen into a rut. I was just under a year into my first role as a software developer after a career change, and I was learning a lot from my coworkers and still meeting people. If I was…

Sorry to hear that. Any tips for mentors? I feel peer collaboration hasn't been too bad and honestly I strongly favor remote-style work even in the office. However, effectiveness in mentoring junior engineers has nosedived. There's more to programming than a pull request. Workflows, tools, and behaviors are also things that people learn from others. You don't get that over infrequent screen sharing and quick daily sy…

My experience is that impromptu mentoring has essentially gone away and only concerted efforts remain. When I was stuck on a problem or just needed a break I used to walk around the software lab and look for someone who looked frustrated and then try to solve their problem. Obviously I don't do that anymore. Instead I do have (probably not enough) screen sharing work sessions with other engineers when there is a problem that one of us needs to talk through. It is a good opportunity to learn about how others work and get some work done.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#476

Post by hiepph »

evenhovercraft wrote: post #349

Very grateful that my employer has committed to remaining flexible with remote work. Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. Full time remote has done wonders for my health - instead of a 2 hour commute I get to exercise. Instead of coming home stressed, annoyed, and sitting in front of the TV, I go outside for a solid hour+ after I close my laptop. I travel more liberally now…

Yes the most notable effect is I can eliminate the commuting time and spend that to exercise outside (for 2 hours!). Now I can come back to improve my running distance, discover the joy of bicycling and so much more! But I miss the interaction with real people. Sure you have application to help with chatting and meeting but somehow I long for the real connection. And I'm speaking from the perspective of an introvert. There's something that remote working can replace the serendipity. I felt I had much more creative ideas when working onsite.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#477

Post by koonsolo »

goodpoint wrote: post #406
koonsolo wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see your point. I think it works best when there needs to be a solution where no single expert knows enough to come up with the best idea. So a group of complementary experts where the solution is more important than individual ego's :). But when it's kind of decided already, so more 1 way, written communication works better. I was in some situations where there was long emailing back and forth between people.…

> I think it works best when there needs to be a solution where no single expert knows enough to come up with the best idea ...then you have an organizational problem that should be solved.

Sorry for breaking the news to you, but a single person cannot know everything.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#478

Post by helloguillecl »

rsj_hn wrote: post #118
Raidion wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For US, it's south America. Same time zone, cheaper labor costs.

Interesting. I've been thinking about spending some time in Chile -- what is the English situation in Chile or Peru?

Younger people speak English but it depends what you want to do. People are friendly so they will normally try to help you out anyways. Let me know if you need any advice: guillermog|at|netnotion|dot|com

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#479

Post by _y5hn »

ootsootsoots wrote: post #393
sbarre wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. I feel like this is the key thing. Instead of mandating blanket policies (whatever they are) that might not make sense for every team, trust your employees to self-organize in the way that makes the most sense for them and the way they work. I'm in the same boat, and like you, doubt I will want to work any other way again.

We say employees when we mean people, who have a history of self organizing around human need It’s mesmerizing to me how so many think office life is a necessity for data entry work Nevermind open source developers building the software world we rely on via email for decades.

Nevermind open source developers building the software world we rely on via email for decades.

While this may work, some companies insist DevOps means involving the entire organization and all processes, rendering the word meaningless. So in face of such inflexibility, open source software developed for open source developers works a bit differently, much more flexible.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#480

Post by _y5hn »

koonsolo wrote: post #477
goodpoint wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it works best when there needs to be a solution where no single expert knows enough to come up with the best idea ...then you have an organizational problem that should be solved.

Sorry for breaking the news to you, but a single person cannot know everything.

Except for everyone on HN of course. We're always fastest and know everything.
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