The productivity metrics at my company were consistently up by around 150% month by month for the entire duration that we were all permanently working from home without the distraction of the office and the time sink of in person meetings where nothing is achieved.
The only reason we were forced back to a hybrid arrangement is that none of the middle managers had any work to do and it became painfully obvious how little they actually contribute. They don’t actually generate any value.
Instead of restructuring, and distributing the heinous waste of money that they and our real estate holdings represent they made the decision to limit WFH arrangements to two days per week and our metrics went right back where they were previously.
If you design for work in office, WFH probably isn’t going to be more productive and the other way around. A lot of companies made the mistake thinking that WFH is the same as regular office but with everyone being home. This is not the case.
I have experience with company without WFH employees, where any team that wasn’t literary all in the same building had some serious communication and cooperation isuues. I have experience with company where there was no office whatsoever, people were across globe and time zones and we managed to cooperate effectively.
I’m not saying that WFH can be always more effective. But in many cases it’s just terribly implemented change and companies are just moving back to investing into office space instead of investing into proper WFH culture.
Folks at Zapier wrote an excellent guide if anyone is interested. It’s serious effort, sure. People often feel like this is extra work to keep WFH viable, but they tend to forget that keeping the office running is also a serious effort. Many companies probably have office manager, how many of these have some alternative of that for WFH?
I would agree that implementation of WFH could be better. I also appreciate the link you shared. WFH can also be a viable option provided you set up for it.
However, I tend to find that a lot of the people who work best in WFH situations are generally friendly and productive people who will reach out on issues and cultivate relationships.
In contrast, those who seem to advocate the most for WFH online seem to want their direct manager to plug them into a system that will turn them into a cog that doesn’t need to be proactive in solving problems. That isn’t everyone who wants WFH, but they seem to be a loud minority.
Yeah, you absolutely have to set up for WFH. Which is no different than working from office. We just take that effort for granted.
Another issue is, that lot of the office work cost is not paid by companies. (At least not directly) For example the commute to work can easily be 10% of overall time spent from leaving your house until returning back home from work. But both the commute cost and time spent is paid by employee. So obviously companies are reluctant invest into WFH, because that does generate some expenses.
source? even before WFH, even before the internet it’s just common sense that if I need something from the Phillippines office or the London office or the California office while I’m in New York it’s much more efficient to call them than it is for me to get on a plane and go there.
Anecdotally, I can’t get shit done in the office. I like to talk to people, people interrupt me with questions, and towards the end of the day I’m watching the clock and dreading traffic.
When I need to get something done I work from home. My coworkers are the same way.
Every efficiency study, environmental model, and psychological model disagrees with your sentiments that WFH productivity is less than in office productivity. I am a software engineer, so it might be anecdotal and industry specific, but my experience as well as the studies done by my employer show that they get more out of WFH employees or Hybrid (1-2 days a week in office) than the traditional route. Commutes, in office distractions, etc are massive drains on the employee.
That article is pretty trash, a half finished doctoral study from 2020 and it draws some wild conclusions from this authors work who comes to the opposite conclusion than what was provided by the article. You can see more information mathematically here in this paper that seems to suggest that a lot of the WFH productivity might be eaten up by the lack of effective tools at the disposal of the worker provided by the company. You can also find more data driven, finished papers on WFH efficiency here:
Here is a study on jobs that could be done from home.
The above study allows you to see that the environmental impact from having those jobs actually be done from home could be massive. Especially since most of those jobs are located in urban centers and require commuting and/or massive carbon footprints.
The problem with the argument is that it is reductionist, it makes it seem like the ONLY thing that matters is how much more productive it is. It is more productive, and it can have a HUGE benefit to both the mental health of the individuals who are able to WFH as well as the environment.
So, like I said. The large company I work for is 80% WFH, with an optional hybrid approach and spent a bunch of money researching this and are looking to keep it up because their workers are happier, healthier, and more productive… That single economist piece that misrepresents data and uses kind of trash studies isn’t really a great one to be leaning on.
Edit: There are absolutely jobs that cannot be done from home, and people who can’t handle WFH because of their personality. However, WFH is primarily a good thing. All these hit pieces and garbo articles trying to justify people returning to these monolithic buildings without any value are trash and shouldn’t be promoted as information. At their core they’re opinion pieces.
The second study is about employee satisfaction, which I didn’t argue as well. The third study may be a thing, but it doesn’t outright compare those who work in an office to those who work full remote.
And as I’ve said earlier, it is fine if you want to make arguments for WFH outside of productivity. However, none of the studies you provided tries to directly measure the two. Thank you for providing some studies, though. You were the only one who tried to argue this via academic studies.
If you want to want to make the argument that productivity isn’t the be all end all reason, that is fine. WFH is a great perk and I can see why people like it. I also agree that it can work, but there is a difference between being able to work and being the best option.
But the argument is always that WFH is the best and most productive option where that may not be the case.
Basically there has been a mantra from people that WFH will always be productive and that, therefore, going into work is a waste. What is being found is that there seems to be a minor productivity hit, but it isn’t the end of the world and there may be reasons to allow WFH even if workers are less productive.
Saying that WFH isn’t anything but good gets a lot of people pissed off.
I took a remote job for 18 months before leaving and getting a new job back in an office. For me personally, I found it great for the first 12 months, however over time it became obvious that the company wasn’t structured well for remote work and I couldn’t get anything meaningful done. I loved all the extra time working from home gave me, but I finished every day feeling like I was wasting my life in a room at home and not achieving anything. This was largely due to the organisation itself, but I also found that working remote created an extra barrier to trying to fix that company’s culture. So I quit and went back to working face to face with people. Since then I’ve found it easier to push for changes and influence people, process etc now that I’m back working face to face. I do miss the WFH lifestyle though and think I’d be happiest in a hybrid model.
The problem is that the idea of WFH being more productive is slowly being shown to be false.
It can be a viable business strategy of you design for it, but WFH being the best in all cases has shown itself to be false.
Edit: The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
That is the source. Feel free to post your own sources.
What you’re saying is absolute bullshit. But, even IF it was true, I’d still be for WFH.
Society should make things better for people. Less time spent in cars, more time spent with family is worth the 5% stock dip for the investor class.
The worker has been taking it up the ass since the 60s and getting more and more productive while wages have stagnated.
So yea what you say is nonsense, but even if it was true in the immortal words of Red: I don’t give a shit.
It is fine to want to WFH, I get it. It is a great perk for some people.
I’m not saying that WFH is horrible for companies.
I’m just saying that there seems to be productivity reasons why employers want their employees to work in an office.
IMHO it’s more of a management issue than productivity. Managers like seeing you work.
The good news is I don’t care if it’s more productive fuck offices :)
And I like that answer because you’re being honest. You don’t like working in an office, and that is fair.
The productivity metrics at my company were consistently up by around 150% month by month for the entire duration that we were all permanently working from home without the distraction of the office and the time sink of in person meetings where nothing is achieved.
The only reason we were forced back to a hybrid arrangement is that none of the middle managers had any work to do and it became painfully obvious how little they actually contribute. They don’t actually generate any value.
Instead of restructuring, and distributing the heinous waste of money that they and our real estate holdings represent they made the decision to limit WFH arrangements to two days per week and our metrics went right back where they were previously.
If you design for work in office, WFH probably isn’t going to be more productive and the other way around. A lot of companies made the mistake thinking that WFH is the same as regular office but with everyone being home. This is not the case.
I have experience with company without WFH employees, where any team that wasn’t literary all in the same building had some serious communication and cooperation isuues. I have experience with company where there was no office whatsoever, people were across globe and time zones and we managed to cooperate effectively.
I’m not saying that WFH can be always more effective. But in many cases it’s just terribly implemented change and companies are just moving back to investing into office space instead of investing into proper WFH culture.
Folks at Zapier wrote an excellent guide if anyone is interested. It’s serious effort, sure. People often feel like this is extra work to keep WFH viable, but they tend to forget that keeping the office running is also a serious effort. Many companies probably have office manager, how many of these have some alternative of that for WFH?
I would agree that implementation of WFH could be better. I also appreciate the link you shared. WFH can also be a viable option provided you set up for it.
However, I tend to find that a lot of the people who work best in WFH situations are generally friendly and productive people who will reach out on issues and cultivate relationships.
In contrast, those who seem to advocate the most for WFH online seem to want their direct manager to plug them into a system that will turn them into a cog that doesn’t need to be proactive in solving problems. That isn’t everyone who wants WFH, but they seem to be a loud minority.
Yeah, you absolutely have to set up for WFH. Which is no different than working from office. We just take that effort for granted.
Another issue is, that lot of the office work cost is not paid by companies. (At least not directly) For example the commute to work can easily be 10% of overall time spent from leaving your house until returning back home from work. But both the commute cost and time spent is paid by employee. So obviously companies are reluctant invest into WFH, because that does generate some expenses.
Please provide sources with who funded the study and we can provide sources that show the opposite!
If you expect results in given time and you’re not getting it, you’re gonna have talk with employee, WFH or office, doesn’t matter.
The “productivity” is an illusion and always has been.
source? even before WFH, even before the internet it’s just common sense that if I need something from the Phillippines office or the London office or the California office while I’m in New York it’s much more efficient to call them than it is for me to get on a plane and go there.
The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
The article refers to several peer reviewed studies which you can look up.
Source?
Anecdotally, I can’t get shit done in the office. I like to talk to people, people interrupt me with questions, and towards the end of the day I’m watching the clock and dreading traffic.
When I need to get something done I work from home. My coworkers are the same way.
What would you expect The Economist to say?
Their reporting has a financial bent to it, but they would write an article defending WFH productivity wise if the data was there.
The article also doesn’t dismiss WFH either, noting other reasons to keep it.
Dumb opinion is dumb lol
Every efficiency study, environmental model, and psychological model disagrees with your sentiments that WFH productivity is less than in office productivity. I am a software engineer, so it might be anecdotal and industry specific, but my experience as well as the studies done by my employer show that they get more out of WFH employees or Hybrid (1-2 days a week in office) than the traditional route. Commutes, in office distractions, etc are massive drains on the employee.
The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
The studies cited in the article say otherwise. Feel free to show your studies.
That article is pretty trash, a half finished doctoral study from 2020 and it draws some wild conclusions from this authors work who comes to the opposite conclusion than what was provided by the article. You can see more information mathematically here in this paper that seems to suggest that a lot of the WFH productivity might be eaten up by the lack of effective tools at the disposal of the worker provided by the company. You can also find more data driven, finished papers on WFH efficiency here:
This is a chinese study from 2013 for a call center, similar to the unfinished 2020 paper mentioned in the beginning of the terrible Economist Paper. This was done without the current tools and innovation, so I imagine if it were to be run again the numbers would probably be higher: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment
Here is a study on jobs that could be done from home. The above study allows you to see that the environmental impact from having those jobs actually be done from home could be massive. Especially since most of those jobs are located in urban centers and require commuting and/or massive carbon footprints.
This is a small (n = 519) study showing that peoples general mental health and happiness are higher when they are WFH. Also, a study showing that people who are happy are more productive.
The problem with the argument is that it is reductionist, it makes it seem like the ONLY thing that matters is how much more productive it is. It is more productive, and it can have a HUGE benefit to both the mental health of the individuals who are able to WFH as well as the environment.
So, like I said. The large company I work for is 80% WFH, with an optional hybrid approach and spent a bunch of money researching this and are looking to keep it up because their workers are happier, healthier, and more productive… That single economist piece that misrepresents data and uses kind of trash studies isn’t really a great one to be leaning on.
Edit: There are absolutely jobs that cannot be done from home, and people who can’t handle WFH because of their personality. However, WFH is primarily a good thing. All these hit pieces and garbo articles trying to justify people returning to these monolithic buildings without any value are trash and shouldn’t be promoted as information. At their core they’re opinion pieces.
Since I’ve had more time to read your sources.
The first study you cite only discusses the ability to work from home. Nothing in the study talks about productivity. I agree that a lot of jobs can be full remote.
The second study is about employee satisfaction, which I didn’t argue as well. The third study may be a thing, but it doesn’t outright compare those who work in an office to those who work full remote.
And as I’ve said earlier, it is fine if you want to make arguments for WFH outside of productivity. However, none of the studies you provided tries to directly measure the two. Thank you for providing some studies, though. You were the only one who tried to argue this via academic studies.
If you want to want to make the argument that productivity isn’t the be all end all reason, that is fine. WFH is a great perk and I can see why people like it. I also agree that it can work, but there is a difference between being able to work and being the best option.
But the argument is always that WFH is the best and most productive option where that may not be the case.
Can you elaborate on this?
I can’t WFH so I haven’t really kept up with the trend
Don’t listen to the bootlicker below. He’s just spreading propaganda for his corporate overlords.
Basically there has been a mantra from people that WFH will always be productive and that, therefore, going into work is a waste. What is being found is that there seems to be a minor productivity hit, but it isn’t the end of the world and there may be reasons to allow WFH even if workers are less productive.
Saying that WFH isn’t anything but good gets a lot of people pissed off.
I took a remote job for 18 months before leaving and getting a new job back in an office. For me personally, I found it great for the first 12 months, however over time it became obvious that the company wasn’t structured well for remote work and I couldn’t get anything meaningful done. I loved all the extra time working from home gave me, but I finished every day feeling like I was wasting my life in a room at home and not achieving anything. This was largely due to the organisation itself, but I also found that working remote created an extra barrier to trying to fix that company’s culture. So I quit and went back to working face to face with people. Since then I’ve found it easier to push for changes and influence people, process etc now that I’m back working face to face. I do miss the WFH lifestyle though and think I’d be happiest in a hybrid model.