I have posted this on Reddit (askeconomics) a while back but got no good replies. Copying it here because I don’t want to send traffic to Reddit.
What do you think?
I see a big push to take employees back to the office. I personally don’t mind either working remote or in the office, but I think big companies tend to think rationally in terms of cost/benefit and I haven’t seen a convincing explanation yet of why they are so keen to have everyone back.
If remote work was just as productive as in-person, a remote-only company could use it to be more efficient than their work-in-office competitors, so I assume there’s no conclusive evidence that this is the case. But I haven’t seen conclusive evidence of the contrary either, and I think employers would have good reason to trumpet any findings at least internally to their employees (“we’ve seen KPI so-and-so drop with everyone working from home” or “project X was severely delayed by lack of in-person coordination” wouldn’t make everyone happy to return in presence, but at least it would make a good argument for a manager to explain to their team)
Instead, all I keep hearing is inspirational wish-wash like “we value the power of working together”. Which is fine, but why are we valuing it more than the cost of office space?
On the side of employees, I often see arguments like “these companies made a big investment in offices and now they don’t want to look stupid by leaving them empty”. But all these large companies have spent billions to acquire smaller companies/products and dropped them without a second thought. I can’t believe the same companies would now be so sentimentally attached to office buildings if it made any economic sense to close them.
The real answer is that people are more productive in the office with more oversight and build relationships with their coworkers that help them to do their jobs better. Companies invest thousands of dollars in “teambuilding” events that benefit the company and employees in no way other than to foster these environments. It costs their employees more time and money for transportation, which means they have to pay them more. They are not stupid. They are not trying to upset their employees just to cost themselves more money.
There is no other rational explanation. Any other explanation is illogical, as it costs the company more money to have and maintain an office building. It’s just based on people angry about the fact that they have to leave home.
people are more productive in the office with more oversight and build relationships with their coworkers that help them to do their jobs better.
Not true for all types of employees. There are job functions that work great or even better remote. Your scenario also depends on if the employer has a good office environment and truth be told a lot don’t (many embraced the “open-concept” which does increase communication but also the noise-to-signal ratio).
The war on remote work likely has nothing to do with productivity but all about preserving the commercial real-estate market (and the auxillary businesses) and stop them from crashing. A lot of influential people invested in that industry.
Also research over COVID showed productivity didn’t decline at all, and in many cases increased while working remote. Turns out a lot of people work better when they aren’t wasting half their day getting in a small box, trekking to a dofferent small box inside a bigger box for absolutely no reason.
Is it actually that bad at your company? I must be pretty lucky then.
Also I don’t want to work in the same room I sleep in and I also don’t want to have my family around all day
The war on remote work likely has nothing to do with productivity but all about preserving the commercial real-estate market
I mean…maybe if you work for a real estate company?
I mean…maybe if you work for a real estate company?
That’s not the only real-estate game in the business… Think owners and landlords of the building who used to make a killing leasing these commercial spaces out. If remote work continues, there is no incentive for companies / tenants to renew their lease, meaning less income for landlords and increasing risk that they will default on their loans. A lot of people are invested in that space and would love to see the gravy train continue, or at least not crash and burn. Hence the propaganda push about how crappy remote work is, an attempt to drive people back.
First, a lot of studies have shown the productivity boost for WFH may not be uniform or actually exist. Whether the possible productivity boost is worth the money on office space hasn’t been answered, it is likely more in that gray area than WFH proponents want it to be.
Second, while generic work productivity is about the same level, teaching new skills isn’t. We have data showing educating from home has been worse for students, and that seems to be filtering into the office place. Junior staff aren’t picking up skills fast enough and are probably a major reason why WFH productivity measures are lower than expected. It isn’t because new staff are lazy, just that they have fewer people to ask questions to and don’t ask as many questions in general.
Third, building and maintaining a work network has fallen apart. People don’t know others in an office, which can be a problem in flat company structures where communication is not expected to go through the boss only. So you have people who feel like they are doing productive work, but aren’t talking to others. This can cause a lot of rework that the managers see in slipping deadlines.
That said, the answer seems to be hybrid for these jobs as workers won’t tolerate full time in the office anymore. However, hybrid has been a clusterfuck in a lot of companies because the hybrid model is new and not everyone knows how to manage to it.
I just wanted to say that this is pretty much the most well thought out answer on WFH I’ve seen. It’s nuanced and balanced.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
As you can see from some of the replies, there is the assumption that bosses and executives are evil and trying to make the worker’s lives worse, but I don’t see that in a lot of these discussions.
I can also see how some staff may see themselves as being more productive yet their managers may see less productivity within their department overall.
I am absolutely happy for the people I manage to stay home if they have real work to do. They can clearly do whatever they prefer, even work from the beach as far as I am concerned, but I know that going to the office is a waste of time. But the job we do is project based, long deadlines, no real “daily business” to handle. It however requires maximum focus, because it is not trivial. Offices are hells for concentration and quality work.
They can stay at home and call whenever they want whoever they want.
It has been working great.
It really depends on the positions. Office spaces are very bad for some positions, good fo others. Pushing a unique way of working for fishes and elephants cannot work. This is the main problem with current approach
To speak to your points, I started with about 1 year ago in a new career in IT. We initially were coming in one day a week and this has moved to two days.
First, when we moved to two days, I have it about 6 weeks, then started crunching numbers. By the sole metric of closing tickets… My team as a whole is more productive in the office. I didn’t break down exactly who was more of less productive, but I have my ideas. I’m willing to bet that I work better at home, but it’s a moot point as the team is better on site.
As far as learning new skills, even at one day a week, I’ve caught up to the rest of my team and have surpassed them technically. Again, it’s IT and I’ve always had a strong interest, whereas I see some of the team probably view it as “just work” I’m actually enjoying the work. Again, it’s a second career so maybe maturity is in play here too, but even the younger guys who were hired after me are growing very quickly.
You’re absolutely right about networking. I felt so isolated when I started. It wasn’t until I learned a few people a few steps above where I was that I learned who is a good resource, and who I can trust. Once I got my head around that, I think people actually see the work in doing and redirect me for it. If I were 100% wfh I don’t think I would be having as good a time.
Just my experience
Did you have any relevant experience or credentials? I’m looking to jump to a new career possibly in IT, but I have absolutely nothing on paper to sell myself with. The most I have is a few years experience in diagnostics as I was once a refrigeration tech.
I’m about to bootcamp myself out of my current career and into IT. My related experience is limited and this is a major (and costly) move for me. Cashing out an old 401k to finance it. Otherwise I’d be taking a predatory loan from Sallie Mae…
I’ll be starting from scratch, probably doing entry-level work. But I’m ok with that because I’ll eventually be able to better provide for my family, and I’m so broke and stressed that my hair is thinning. Check out springboard or thrivedx. My bootcamp is through them (haven’t decided between software engineer or cybersecurity) but handled by a local university.
I have no paper credentials, but I was a licensed educator, so at least it shows I can get credentials if I worked at it.
I started at a local community college party time, then transferred to my current role. Both bosses are the type like, “I can teach anyone IT, but it’s hard to teach soft skills.” Turns out they can’t really teach IT either and I’m left to getting knowledge from my team and outside sources.
I am taking some azure fundamentals courses right now though, so I’m going that legit certs will make me more hireable
while generic work productivity is about the same level, teaching new skills isn’t.
As someone who did his last year of college and first two years of career from home this is spot on. My senior simply refused to teach me anything, or even answering my chats and my manager didn’t care. I had to learn doing inverse engineering on the excel files because I cannot even sit at his side and saw him work ans learn. I changed companies a month ago to a full-time in office position and I’m learning more in this month that what I did on the past two years (its also helps that my new manager is also a college professor and have like 40 years of industry experience).
Thanks for helping bring this perspective to light. Most threads on work from home go all in on productivity being higher, but don’t take into account the longer term consequences of working from home on knowledge sharing, education, training, and team building. Even if productivity is higher now, that doesn’t mean it will remain that way in the long run.
There are a whole slew of ways to look at this depending on what “glasses” you like to wear, and also the type of work involved. I work in grocery logistics, moving groceries from where they are produced to the store where you buy them. Here’s a few from my “lens”:
- They are looking at the long term office space leases they are stuck with.
- In person training tends to be more effective ( I remember reading a study on this, but can’t currently find it.)
- Most people suck at communicating effectively. Proximity seems to improve this. (Personal observation)
- Community (It is far easier to “other” someone that you rarely or never meet in person. Not so easy if they are showing you pictures of their kids every day. “Sally just got a new particle accelerator! Isn’t she so lovely! This is her sinking Manhattan!”)
- Leadership (I have to come into work to do my job. My boss’s job though is mostly paperwork. He could do his job from home but why should I care what he has to say if he isn’t in the same mud as me?)
My thought on this is if you want the flexibility of working from home, that’s fine. But don’t expect me to give a damn about what you think. The job is rough enough without an uninformed opinion trying to mess things up worse.
Community (It is far easier to “other” someone that you rarely or never meet in person. Not so easy if they are showing you pictures of their kids every day. “Sally just got a new particle accelerator! Isn’t she so lovely! This is her sinking Manhattan!”)
That’s just super relative.
All my active friendships are 90% online and many of those people I very deeply care about. We meet every now and then, on vacations or for special occasions, and have a really amazing time. But we also have a really good time doing online activities together, keeping in touch more or less daily via messages and actively sharing our lives with each other.
On the other hand, othering is very much a thing that happens in person and feels a lot worse when it does happen in person. When every day you see 2-3 colleagues acting differently with you than amongs themselves or with others.
Working from home it is a lot easier to be selective with people you interact beyond the work stuff and avoid negative interactions, or interactions that drain your social batteries.
why are companies trying so hard to have employees back in the office?
Managers generally don’t know how to manage people, so point fingers at WFH (or anything else that’s handy)
Managers are managers because they’re good at playing power games, not because they’re competent at their jobs. Power games are much harder if you never see the people you manage. Managing in a predominantly WFH environment will be very different and a lot of people who are successful now will fail in this world. That’s what they’re scared of.
I read some research paper not too long ago that showed how a majority of managers promoted from within are bad at their jobs because they got all their experience in other jobs along the way to management that are not even remotely similar to the tasks required for management, thus they don’t actually develop skills that make for good managers.
Like just because you flipped burgers really good at McDonald’s doesn’t mean you would be good at managing other burger flippers.
There is a concept, known as the Peter Principle, that says people will rise to the level of their incompetence. Basically, anyone who is good at a job gets promoted. That keeps happening until they finally end up in a job where they are not good. And that is where they will stay.
Makes sense, but you see the opposite all the time. Someone who has little experience, but has a fresh degree or an MBA in management. They might have learned some management concepts, possibly even supervised people in the past… but they have no idea how the organization truly functions, they don’t know what their team is really doing and if one of their team members or an SME is gone they have no idea what to do other than bark orders at the other team members because they have never done the work themselves.
In an ideal world, you would find someone who was excelling at the vasious jobs they would be managing and then put them into a management training program or pay for their schooling.
I think there was literally a management consultant quoted on CBC that said most managers rely on time in office as their only measure of productivity.
Humanity has done many atrocities, but that’s somehow just as disappointing if true. Like, measuring and increasing productivity is the entire point of that job, isn’t it?
I work 95% remote, and I’ll be the first to admit, there is value in working physically close to your teammates. Discussion and camaraderie can happen organically, which allows people to better understand each others’ strengths. There are also fewer things to distract you, and the reality is that many people these days are experiencing a sort of internet-induced ADHD, so being in an office can make it easier to concentrate. All of this allows you to be and feel more productive.
That’s the best argument I’ve got, but I wouldn’t mandate it on anyone. The only people mandating working from office are people who are insecure with their workforce and hiring methodologies. They don’t trust their workers to do the job, so they feel the need to micromanage their workers like children. If you’re a manager, and you don’t feel like you can trust your employees, you’ve already lost.
I can tell you from experience, there is nothing more distracting than having your manager walk up behind you and tap you on the shoulder while you’re working on code. While this problem doesn’t go away completely with remote work, at least you have time to compose yourself and bookmark your work before you respond
Also for me there is value in occasionally seeing people in person. The exact ratio will depend on the job, but for me it would be about 2-3 days per month in the office. We see each other, talk about how things are going, blockers, stuff we need to change, a little office gossip and then off we go again.
In that sense, a lax hybrid schedule works best for me personally. However, for it to work, everyone should agree to be in the office in the same days. Coming to an empty office and doing the same zoom calls you could have done from home is less than useful.
And since, again, the ratio of individual work Vs collaborative work varies by person and team, we’d need to find an average that sort of works for everyone and agree on a common schedule That is where I think the idea of hybrid comes in: 2 or 3 days per week in the office for everyone. My company is trying this and asking (but for now not forcing) people to concentrate attendance in the days in the middle of the week.
This clearly works better for some and worse for others.
I heard from a colleague that some companies are trying a different model. They shut down the offices and used part of the savings as budget for managers to create more frequent team events, so teams can e.g. meet in person at a restaurant a couple of times per month. I have no idea who these companies are and how this approach is going.
I think it should be on a case-by-case basis. I’m in the legal field, and there’s definitely days I don’t need to be in the office as almost all of our work is online now. State and federal mandatory efiling, e-discovery is online, and even our document management system is headed to the cloud, so no need for remoting in, just log into Microsoft 365 from any browser. Don’t even need to own any Microsoft apps natively anymore.
On the other hand, there are days that I do need to be in the office: depositions and prepping witnesses, trial preparedness, and sometimes, you just need to touch base with everyone to see how things are going. I work in securities litigation, and those are frequently very complex, document and fact intensive cases.
We have a entire practices that are 100% remote now. The partners are either elderly, or they live far away from the office and were hybrid remote before the pandemic. The paralegal that works with those attorneys is also 100% remote.
Lastly, I am much more productive at home than in the office. I do not have ADHD, and do not have a problem with attention, and do not get distracted easily. On the other hand, I’m an introvert, and really loathe the interpersonal nonsense and constant interruptions of ppl barging into my office, more often enough that just to chat. Last month, I had to do a major document review of going through 10s of thousands of emails, and to just plow through that at home, comfy in my bed, where my bathroom is just a few steps away, made me so much more productive than being stuck in the office.
I actually have ADHD and the opposite is true for me. Working from home I can concentrate without distractions of office workers walking by, or talking about something that I’m not interested in but can’t block out. I work in my office at home with the door closed for practically the whole day and it’s great. My work has it’s own built in structure, but I imagine that other kinds of less structured work could be very difficult for someone with ADHD.
