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Working from home is powering productivity

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Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#81

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

purple-leafy wrote: post #24

Work from home makes me LOYAL to a company, and makes me work my arse off! If you want to keep good employees, give them agency. I do hybrid, I’m half-half from home and in the office. I work so hard when I work from home, and I’m so happy when I work from home, my desk is setup how I need, I get free coffee, I can listen to music, my dog sleeps on the bed. Most importantly, more of the work gets done. I think the op…

I will offer a counter-example despite being very much pro-wfh.

In my little corner of the universe, the company, its execs and some rank and file, who appear to genuinely either want to be in office or appear to bosses ( or both ) are not super keen some of the vocal anti-rto people showing others that they too could stay home, leave early.. you know, all those things management did not that long ago.

And the thing is, for me anyway, paradoxically I am waiting for the other shoe to drop by and, as a result, genuinely doing as little as possible ( 'cept for the ridiculous projects, can't do much about those ).

Companies had it. They had their gay little compromise in the form of hybrid, which I hated anyway. And now I am just saying meh. Funny thing is, I am clearly not the only one.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#82

Post by brailsafe »

purple-leafy wrote: post #60
swatcoder wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as a well-paid, introverted, technical contributor who is internally motivated by their craft, with the luxury to afford good working space and at a moment in one's life where home haunts feel secure and supportive, you can't beat it. Like any tradesman in history keeping up their own shop, it's really quite empowering. I've been doing it for pretty much all of a very long career. But it's worth keeping in mind…

That’s fair, it’s definitely not as clear cut as some make it. Anecdotally my team juggles all this well - we are relatively shielded from the rest of the business as our own unit. Within our team or 15, we have introverts, extroverts - and some work from home alot (me etc) and others come into the office. But no one in the team, not even the leaders think the RTO is the right call. I’m lucky our team leads are intel…

> I’m lucky our team leads are intelligent to form their own opinions, and they are happy with having it both ways - it works for us

Absolutely wild that you seem to have been downvoted for essentially just saying that you like working with people who thrive because you give them agency and that nobody's happy about being treated like children.

Doing the opposite—micromanaging people—is how you create distrust and poison your productivity.

When I got my first corporate dev job, everyone thought it was weird that I kept desperately looking for my own quiet space to perform the work I needed to do, instead of just sitting in the cube where my shitty assigned computer was. I'd go out into the lobby, or the cafeteria, or an empty room, and be able to get in the right headspace for hours long focus. I ended up burning out at that job, because I'd constantly be interrupted and underwater trying to get things done. People should have the options available to find an optimal path toward meeting their expectations.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#83

Post by sjsisibdjcj »

l33tbro wrote: post #62
ggm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are latent questions in your response. The fear is justified but equally, viewed from a distance, what is the "worth" of your price point, if the same job can be done and lift somebody out of poverty in the developing world? I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm asking what an economist or social historian might say, much as if a Lancashire cotton worker asked if his job was disappearing into cotton factories in Ban…

Completely agree. And it is funny how we put so much emphasis on developing our skills and abilities, when really our actual value is always determined by the market. I'm personally at peace with that, and would have a pretty hard time arguing against the logic of off-shoring my job. However, it's also rational to want to hold onto a favourable environmental niche for as long as possible!

How has western society completely forgotten the point of a country? It is not the to create the most efficient economical configuration for routing wealth from the masses to the capital holders. Your value is not determined by the market, and those who tell you it is are only looking to exploit you.

There are people out there who haven’t succumbed to the nihilistic poison of modern liberalism, though the people in power have run a very successful propaganda campaign to convince you they’re evil (and I’m absolutely not talking about staple green cards to diplomas trump).

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#84

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

datavirtue wrote: post #19
nmstoker wrote: post #16

It's good to see some serious arguments for WFH. Globally much of the pro-office camp's public position is driven by personal leanings of CEOs who genuinely seem to have made the decisions without evidence, often it's something they're very grumpy about (hardly the best state of mind for good judgement) and often based on the assumption that company productivity is based on workers doing what they do (usually far fro…

We simply are not going back, period. They are fighting the trend. Ask your analysis team and marketing about what happens to people that fight the trend.

If I am called back, I will come in, but only for as long as it takes me to move onto something else. It really is that simple.

On the other hand, executives are clearly banking on a good old-fashioned recession to rein in the unruly and ungrateful employees.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#85

Post by brailsafe »

criddell wrote: post #47
purple-leafy wrote: post #24

Work from home makes me LOYAL to a company, and makes me work my arse off! If you want to keep good employees, give them agency. I do hybrid, I’m half-half from home and in the office. I work so hard when I work from home, and I’m so happy when I work from home, my desk is setup how I need, I get free coffee, I can listen to music, my dog sleeps on the bed. Most importantly, more of the work gets done. I think the op…

I think framing the WFH argument in terms of productivity is a bad idea. It’s difficult to win that argument and it might not even be true. Instead, call it a benefit, like paid vacation or health insurance. Nobody argues that employers contributing to an employees 401(k) plan is good for productivity. They do it to attract and retain talent.

It's not difficult to win at all, if I'm more productive at home, I'm more productive at home, and a smart employer would enable me to choose that. If I'm not, I'd like to have an external space, perhaps the office, to go to and be productive. A stupid employer would ignore their employees and just decide that the office is a universal good.

Now, if you're saying that it's a difficult argument to win with an existing employer who's mandated RTO (rather than a difficult argument to win in general), I'd agree, but I'd say that's true for nearly any argument at any sufficiently traditional, large, or bureaucratic company, about anything. The same place where it'd be difficult to argue for WFM is the same place where it'd be difficult to argue for better pay, dimmer lights, a change in ambient room temperature, less meetings, different duties, less overtime, the use of a mac vs windows pc, a different chair, or any other kind of benefit package, because these decisions get made and then applied without consulting anyone lower in the org chart until those people leave the company and come back asking for them as terms. That's the nature of those hierarchical structures, it's what allows mass layoffs it's what takes agency away from people, nearly by definition.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#86

Post by candiddevmike »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #81
purple-leafy wrote: post #24

Work from home makes me LOYAL to a company, and makes me work my arse off! If you want to keep good employees, give them agency. I do hybrid, I’m half-half from home and in the office. I work so hard when I work from home, and I’m so happy when I work from home, my desk is setup how I need, I get free coffee, I can listen to music, my dog sleeps on the bed. Most importantly, more of the work gets done. I think the op…

I will offer a counter-example despite being very much pro-wfh. In my little corner of the universe, the company, its execs and some rank and file, who appear to genuinely either want to be in office or appear to bosses ( or both ) are not super keen some of the vocal anti-rto people showing others that they too could stay home, leave early.. you know, all those things management did not that long ago. And the thing…

> gay little compromise

What an odd phrase.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#87

Post by wsintra2022 »

purple-leafy wrote: post #24

Work from home makes me LOYAL to a company, and makes me work my arse off! If you want to keep good employees, give them agency. I do hybrid, I’m half-half from home and in the office. I work so hard when I work from home, and I’m so happy when I work from home, my desk is setup how I need, I get free coffee, I can listen to music, my dog sleeps on the bed. Most importantly, more of the work gets done. I think the op…

Where you getting that free coffee from? I work from home but still have to pay for mine, although did recently get a good deal in sprouts in that yellow sticker section. Real good deal! But not free ;)

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#88

Post by Terr_ »

notyourwork wrote: post #73
Terr_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> real-estate value Separately but simultaneously, there are often local tax-benefits which depend on the company "creating jobs", and that's often defined in a way that means butts-in-offices downtown.

Ding ding ding … this is the most overlooked aspect of the RTO/WFH dynamic.

"RTO is definitely the play: the CEO says all his friends are doing it; activist-investors want RTO for their own porfolios, PR says breaking the lease on our newish HQ is embarrassing while Legal says it makes more work for them; Accounting says we'll pay more in tax unless we can prove X jobs created locally; our middle-managers need it in order to tell if work is happening, and HR notes that we can slim our workforce by prompting a lot of 'voluntary' departures! Seven key stakeholder groups."

"But will the employees be happy, and will good ones stay?"

"Seven to one, my friend. They're just grumbling like always."

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#89

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #86
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will offer a counter-example despite being very much pro-wfh. In my little corner of the universe, the company, its execs and some rank and file, who appear to genuinely either want to be in office or appear to bosses ( or both ) are not super keen some of the vocal anti-rto people showing others that they too could stay home, leave early.. you know, all those things management did not that long ago. And the thing…

> gay little compromise What an odd phrase.

It really isn't. For me, hybrid is genuinely the worst of both worlds. My internal sleep rhythm is screwed each week, just because someone had a bright idea that today will be everyone in office day ( and unsurprisingly almost never is.

I get what the companies are doing. Hell, blind monkey can see what they are doing. Scale back full WFH and claim compromise and flexibility by, but also slowly putting in more required days in office and token flexible day at home ( and in Amazon's case -- full RTO ).

If you are objecting to the particular use of the world gay, then I might be just betraying my age, where gay used to mean lame.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#90

Post by Olumde »

purple-leafy wrote: post #24

Work from home makes me LOYAL to a company, and makes me work my arse off! If you want to keep good employees, give them agency. I do hybrid, I’m half-half from home and in the office. I work so hard when I work from home, and I’m so happy when I work from home, my desk is setup how I need, I get free coffee, I can listen to music, my dog sleeps on the bed. Most importantly, more of the work gets done. I think the op…

I WFH 100% of the time. This allows my spouse and I to work. Without this one of us would have to leave the workforce to take the children to school. But because I WFH I can do the school runs and I realize I have it so good, it makes me unwilling to consider any other potential job offers.

And BTW, because I don't have to commute 3 hours like I used to I can now work as late if a task requires me to. So yeah the ability to WFH makes me LOYAL.

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