Every single one of the guys who writes these articles owns office real estate, guaranteed.
remote workers: “This is great and I’m more productive.”
managers: “I was skeptical but honestly this is fine.”
upper brass: “We’re so far removed from the trenches that we are completely divorced from reality, so this sucks and needs to come to an end.”
folks who own office buildings: “Thoughtful essay about how the results are in from the work-from-home experiment, I bet you can’t guess what conclusion I’ve come to”
Yeah. Keep pushing it. It's cool that you can write an article trying to astroturf the illusion of control once enjoyed. The world changed, if your organization can't evolve and figure out that there's no going back only forward and the model that works is not just sitting around waiting for you to pluck from your recent addled memory... And when I say you i mean me or anyone else who tells you they know what's going on. What's happening is good. The old model was way dead before we noticed under the hyper tight light of a global pandemic.
That for sure doesn't mean people don't want to collaboratively work in person with humans they like towards a goal that they can all agree on. That has been a thing and always will be. Free money created a lot of vampires who malinvested and now they are whining about how they should be in charge.
Lately I think a lot about what it means that every day of my life since post puberty I've been making computers do illusions. Tricks are something blah blah blah. What is the difference between digital goods and making someone a hammer or chair. The infinite reproducibility. The MBA class was so well heeled by all this free money they assumed that the tickets they collected to go redeem at the prize bank were reality and they are and they can redeem them.
Most of the folks that make the big technical pushes are in a minority, but it's not because the rest of the wash can't. The rest of the wash is given busy work to not compete. It's wild seeing people on LinkedIn getting screwed in the layoffs complimenting the people that wrecked em like that's the only meal.
Foster local, atomized, productive communities. Screw the silos. It's now or never and now was really a while ago.
Some people don't even have dining rooms, guaranteed this is some upper-class snob (not that all "upper-class" people are snobs), related to one, or they were commissioned to write this piece by such a person
bashing WFH seems to be a meme coming from legacy corporate who sense a loss of control... I've been working remote for 15 years and have no desire to ever again be forced to commute into a cubicle
Quality of life is so much better when remote workers can live anywhere they choose... it may take a generation for management to clue into this reality and fully embrace WFH
There is a hidden premise when it comes to productivity - it always comes at the expense of your personal life. Any numbers like 'X % increase' in productivity at work need to be accompanied with a commensurate 'X % decrease' in time spent living a life. If there is a delusion at all, it is the willful ignorance of this equation. Productivity is at odds with a life well spent.
The average commute in America by car is 55 minutes round trip or about 2 hours by public transit. That is 12.5–25% more time invested in your job to get your boss at best a few percentage points increase in productivity.
Wasn’t there another study saying that attrition at places with mandatory work from home was higher than forecast, and hiring replacements for in-office is also much more difficult than these companies projected?
A self-imposed labor shortage (compounded by layoffs) could explain the current productivity boost.
After all, you can simultaneously lower production and worker count, but still increase their ratio.
"Far less noticed was a revised version of their paper, published in May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."
The Fed certainly have an agenda here.
And then there's that some of these studies seem to comparing pre-covid productivity to during or after covid, which are quite different worlds.
It might well be the case that trading houses and investment banks can be more 'productive' in-person, since gossip, insider-ish tips, feeling the trading sentiment, collusion etc, is far easier.
I think the take-away is that it very much depends on the work.
One factor of in-office productivity might be the unreported over-time that is almost always a part of office life (can you just do X before you leave/over lunch, etc).
I am sick and tired of group stereotyping. Not every worker is the same, not every job is the same. Employer should retain and reward individual employees based on their actual productivity, not micromanage their lives. If work from home is less productive but desirable for other reasons, save money by hiring remote workers for less. For decades companies have been outsourcing to India and claiming it doesn't matter. Surely US employees within a couple of hours time difference and able to travel for frequent in person events can do at least as well?
Readit News
remote workers: “This is great and I’m more productive.”
managers: “I was skeptical but honestly this is fine.”
upper brass: “We’re so far removed from the trenches that we are completely divorced from reality, so this sucks and needs to come to an end.”
folks who own office buildings: “Thoughtful essay about how the results are in from the work-from-home experiment, I bet you can’t guess what conclusion I’ve come to”
That for sure doesn't mean people don't want to collaboratively work in person with humans they like towards a goal that they can all agree on. That has been a thing and always will be. Free money created a lot of vampires who malinvested and now they are whining about how they should be in charge.
Lately I think a lot about what it means that every day of my life since post puberty I've been making computers do illusions. Tricks are something blah blah blah. What is the difference between digital goods and making someone a hammer or chair. The infinite reproducibility. The MBA class was so well heeled by all this free money they assumed that the tickets they collected to go redeem at the prize bank were reality and they are and they can redeem them.
Most of the folks that make the big technical pushes are in a minority, but it's not because the rest of the wash can't. The rest of the wash is given busy work to not compete. It's wild seeing people on LinkedIn getting screwed in the layoffs complimenting the people that wrecked em like that's the only meal.
Foster local, atomized, productive communities. Screw the silos. It's now or never and now was really a while ago.
Lmao what a condescending piece of crap writing
Quality of life is so much better when remote workers can live anywhere they choose... it may take a generation for management to clue into this reality and fully embrace WFH
A self-imposed labor shortage (compounded by layoffs) could explain the current productivity boost.
After all, you can simultaneously lower production and worker count, but still increase their ratio.
The Fed certainly have an agenda here.
And then there's that some of these studies seem to comparing pre-covid productivity to during or after covid, which are quite different worlds.
It might well be the case that trading houses and investment banks can be more 'productive' in-person, since gossip, insider-ish tips, feeling the trading sentiment, collusion etc, is far easier.
I think the take-away is that it very much depends on the work.
One factor of in-office productivity might be the unreported over-time that is almost always a part of office life (can you just do X before you leave/over lunch, etc).