11 ms·

I don't know I'd measure it, but if someone can provide a good measure, I'd be willing to bet against wfh increasing productivity. I have a feeling a lot of va

I don't know I'd measure it, but if someone can provide a good measure, I'd be willing to bet against wfh increasing productivity. I have a feeling a lot of value is created during casual lunch conversations.

davidw 7y ago
I feel more productive in the office, but I would guess that I'd be more productive at home than in the hospital. I will be really happy when this is all over and I can just go into the office and not think about it.
- MperorM 7y ago
  Oh yes for sure! I did not mean to suggest WFH is a bad idea under these circumstances. I'm only trying to argue against a common sentiment here on HN, that working from home is more productive. My personal beliefs are that a single WFH day a week in most instances might be net-positive for the company.
  - tjr225 7y ago
    I think it can be much more productive if done properly. The problem is most likely of our established companies are only equipped- culturally- to do things the old way. I’ve never grown more or learned more from other people than in the last 13 months at a remote startup. Even if it all folds over tomorrow I’m better off because of the opportunity. I say all of this as someone who is vocal about the challenges of remote work here and among my friends and colleagues.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  For myself, WFH is hit and miss in terms of productivity. Some days I'm super productive and might even stay logged on for extra hours. Other days, I'm hardly productive at all. My home "office" is a desk in my living room, so there can be a lot of distractions between wife watching TV and pets. I can usually get by listening to music with headphones on. Contrasting with work in the office, there are far more distractions. People walking by, drive bys from the boss, etc. And I dont even work in an open office, just low cube walls that I can see over while seated.
  - zinckiwi 7y ago
    Your home office is not a home office. My fear, being a proponent of distributed work, is that high-profile places will half-heartedly try it due to the current circumstances, declare it to be a failure, and take us two steps back.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      Well yeah, but most people don't have home offices and never will. My girlfriend and I live in a one bedroom apartment that costs $3,800 per month. We're sure as hell not gonna pay the extra thousands per month to get a three bedroom apartment so we can each have a home office. Having extra rooms in your dwelling dedicated for work is a huge luxury. Having companies provide an office space for you to work in (that they pay for) is quite nice. There is an interesting idea here for companies to subsidize employees' home offices with all the money they're saving on not renting office buildings of their own, but that would make the housing crisis substantially worse and further increase hatred of tech. Imagine how badly rents would be driven up on apartments typically desired by families if you've got lots of single workers using work subsidies to get larger apartments than they actually needed.
      - eropple 7y ago
        It'd only cause those negative effects if people don't leave the Bay Area, though, with that newfound flexibility. There are plenty of places, even desirable urban centers, that aren't the Bay. (I've worked for SFBA companies and I live in Boston--with its own housing crunch, though not nearly as bad, and TBH I'd live here even if I didn't work in tech, it's just my home.)
        CydeWeys 7y ago
        I think you underestimate the reasons why people find living in certain cities desirable. There's a lot more to do with it than merely having your job located there. Downtown SF and NYC are always going to be hugely desirable, regardless of whether people are working from home or not.
grumple 7y ago
Yeah? Name a product to come out of FB or Google in the past 5 years that has been a major financial success - and acquisitions (like IG, Oculus) don't count. Name anything that has fundamentally changed about those companies in that time.
- tehlike 7y ago
  Plenty of $ positive launches happen that way.
- samtheprogram 7y ago
  For Google, the Pixel phones?
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    The requirement was financial success, not money pit.
  - adrianmonk 7y ago
    That doesn't entirely get by the acquisition test. Google acquired the HTC smartphone design team for $1.1 billion. See https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16949366/google-htc-smartphone-pixel-design-team-deal-closed https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16949366/google-htc-smart...
    - Guidii 7y ago
      The first Pixel phone was released in 2016. Your linked article is dated 2018.
      - adrianmonk 7y ago
        It does also say: "Google worked with a subset of its new HTC hires on a contract basis for the Pixel and Pixel 2". This suggests they at least partially outsourced the work initially and then acqui-hired their way into in-housing it. Though, yes, it is possible that some of it was done in-house from the beginning. Just because they leaned on external resources to some extent doesn't mean they developed no internal capability on their own.
bigmattystyles 7y ago
Agree - I don't buy the automatic WFH productivity boost. Going to a coffee shop to work defeats the purpose of not working from the office and at my place, I don't have a dedicated office space. Add a kid, spouse, dog and a cat who it turns out has quite an interest in what it is I do and I've gotten almost nothing done in the last few days. My bathrooms are clean and yard space is finally cleaned though.
- xfitm3 7y ago
  Remote work isn't for everyone. I couldn't ever dream of returning to an office - I've been remote for 10 years now. The first year was a struggle but after that I've been solid.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
I'd argue the opposite. Being chatty and co-located means you are way more likely to interrupt your colleague in a period of high-productivity flow (or vice versa). Working remotely allows people to easily carve 4 hour period of focus (notwithstanding excessive meetings).
- etxm 7y ago
  “You look busy”
veilrap 7y ago
Agree completely, WFH generally drops impromptu collaboration and productivity in every office I've worked in.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wutbrodo 7y ago
Yea, the idea that Google simply hadn't thought of allowing WFH is idiotic. IME, they're well-aware of the advantages, but also well-aware of the disadvantages, and their current condonement but not overencouragement of WFH reflects this balance. In every job I've had (including Google), I work from home when I need to get well-defined, focused,independent work done on a fairly rigid timeline, and try and work from the office fairly often to take advantage of 1) easier conversations when complicated coordination is required, 2) maintaining social relationships with coworkers during downtime, and 3) the creative sparks that occasionally fly from casual conversation or even overhearing a conversation. I was a wfh maximalist like many on this thread at the very beginning of my career, but AFAICT it just comes from some combination of a) being a junior engineer that works on isolated bits of work and didn't need to communicate cross-team much or b) having work that doesn't require much creative collaboration. As I got more senior and moved towards different types of problems, my appreciation for the value of (though I still do enjoy and make time for WFH). For those who say that Slack or email or VC are perfect substitutes: there's no substitute for the high-bandwidth, low-latency medium of personal communication. Get good enough at running meetijgs of more than two people and you realize how much of the task of efficiently running a meeting involves reading micro-expressions and pauses to pick up on cues that help you direct the conversation (not to mention having n points of failure in a VC being accessed by n network connections). My team has been remote for a week and I've already noticed good meeting runners have worse meetings and bad meetings runners have even worse meetings.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ZainRiz 7y ago
  On top of that, right now people are going to be WFH in a house filled with their kids who are also not going to school, possibly having to make sure they're actually taking the online classes their schools have setup from them. Not exactly the most productive WFH conditions.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    Right, I'm sort of stacking the deck in favor of the WFH maximalist argument by taking for granted that motivation and focus aren't an issue, even though, for many people (or in many circumstances), they are.
SJetKaran 7y ago
Even if assume for a moment that WFH improves productivity, this impromptu WFH means that most people might not even have a proper desk/etc for optimal WFH setup.
tempestn 7y ago
WFH can be good for productivity, but it takes careful planning, good processes, and practice. I agree that it's extremely doubtful to increase productivity when done in an emergency fashion. (However it's obviously better than keeping everyone in the office to spread the virus.)
StreamBright 7y ago
This is not about WFH vs lunch conversations but about working in a quiet environment with minimal disruptions vs in a noisy open office with tonnes of disruptions. Good measures for you: https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-open-plan-offices-destroy-productivity.html https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-... https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/new-harvard-study-you-open-plan-office-is-making-your-team-less-collaborative.html https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/new-harvard-study-you-o... https://www.bisnow.com/london/news/office/the-proof-is-here-workers-hate-open-offices-and-they-reduce-productivity-90495 https://www.bisnow.com/london/news/office/the-proof-is-here-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2018/08/16/open-offices-still-a-mistake-for-employee-productivity-collaboration/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2018/08/16/open-off... https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313034 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313034 For the bonus: Commuting is also pretty bad for productivity. https://www.tlnt.com/how-commute-issues-can-dramatically-impact-employee-retention/ https://www.tlnt.com/how-commute-issues-can-dramatically-imp... https://www.insperity.com/blog/commuter/ https://www.insperity.com/blog/commuter/

davidw 7y ago

I feel more productive in the office, but I would guess that I'd be more productive at home than in the hospital. I will be really happy when this is all over and I can just go into the office and not think about it.

MperorM 7y ago
Oh yes for sure! I did not mean to suggest WFH is a bad idea under these circumstances. I'm only trying to argue against a common sentiment here on HN, that working from home is more productive. My personal beliefs are that a single WFH day a week in most instances might be net-positive for the company.
- tjr225 7y ago
  I think it can be much more productive if done properly. The problem is most likely of our established companies are only equipped- culturally- to do things the old way. I’ve never grown more or learned more from other people than in the last 13 months at a remote startup. Even if it all folds over tomorrow I’m better off because of the opportunity. I say all of this as someone who is vocal about the challenges of remote work here and among my friends and colleagues.
hermitdev 7y ago
For myself, WFH is hit and miss in terms of productivity. Some days I'm super productive and might even stay logged on for extra hours. Other days, I'm hardly productive at all. My home "office" is a desk in my living room, so there can be a lot of distractions between wife watching TV and pets. I can usually get by listening to music with headphones on. Contrasting with work in the office, there are far more distractions. People walking by, drive bys from the boss, etc. And I dont even work in an open office, just low cube walls that I can see over while seated.
- zinckiwi 7y ago
  Your home office is not a home office. My fear, being a proponent of distributed work, is that high-profile places will half-heartedly try it due to the current circumstances, declare it to be a failure, and take us two steps back.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Well yeah, but most people don't have home offices and never will. My girlfriend and I live in a one bedroom apartment that costs $3,800 per month. We're sure as hell not gonna pay the extra thousands per month to get a three bedroom apartment so we can each have a home office. Having extra rooms in your dwelling dedicated for work is a huge luxury. Having companies provide an office space for you to work in (that they pay for) is quite nice. There is an interesting idea here for companies to subsidize employees' home offices with all the money they're saving on not renting office buildings of their own, but that would make the housing crisis substantially worse and further increase hatred of tech. Imagine how badly rents would be driven up on apartments typically desired by families if you've got lots of single workers using work subsidies to get larger apartments than they actually needed.
    - eropple 7y ago
      It'd only cause those negative effects if people don't leave the Bay Area, though, with that newfound flexibility. There are plenty of places, even desirable urban centers, that aren't the Bay. (I've worked for SFBA companies and I live in Boston--with its own housing crunch, though not nearly as bad, and TBH I'd live here even if I didn't work in tech, it's just my home.)
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        I think you underestimate the reasons why people find living in certain cities desirable. There's a lot more to do with it than merely having your job located there. Downtown SF and NYC are always going to be hugely desirable, regardless of whether people are working from home or not.

grumple 7y ago

Yeah? Name a product to come out of FB or Google in the past 5 years that has been a major financial success - and acquisitions (like IG, Oculus) don't count. Name anything that has fundamentally changed about those companies in that time.

tehlike 7y ago
Plenty of $ positive launches happen that way.
samtheprogram 7y ago
For Google, the Pixel phones?
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  The requirement was financial success, not money pit.
- adrianmonk 7y ago
  That doesn't entirely get by the acquisition test. Google acquired the HTC smartphone design team for $1.1 billion. See https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16949366/google-htc-smartphone-pixel-design-team-deal-closed https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16949366/google-htc-smart...
  - Guidii 7y ago
    The first Pixel phone was released in 2016. Your linked article is dated 2018.
    - adrianmonk 7y ago
      It does also say: "Google worked with a subset of its new HTC hires on a contract basis for the Pixel and Pixel 2". This suggests they at least partially outsourced the work initially and then acqui-hired their way into in-housing it. Though, yes, it is possible that some of it was done in-house from the beginning. Just because they leaned on external resources to some extent doesn't mean they developed no internal capability on their own.

bigmattystyles 7y ago

Agree - I don't buy the automatic WFH productivity boost. Going to a coffee shop to work defeats the purpose of not working from the office and at my place, I don't have a dedicated office space. Add a kid, spouse, dog and a cat who it turns out has quite an interest in what it is I do and I've gotten almost nothing done in the last few days. My bathrooms are clean and yard space is finally cleaned though.

xfitm3 7y ago
Remote work isn't for everyone. I couldn't ever dream of returning to an office - I've been remote for 10 years now. The first year was a struggle but after that I've been solid.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

I'd argue the opposite. Being chatty and co-located means you are way more likely to interrupt your colleague in a period of high-productivity flow (or vice versa). Working remotely allows people to easily carve 4 hour period of focus (notwithstanding excessive meetings).

etxm 7y ago
“You look busy”

veilrap 7y ago

Agree completely, WFH generally drops impromptu collaboration and productivity in every office I've worked in.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

wutbrodo 7y ago

Yea, the idea that Google simply hadn't thought of allowing WFH is idiotic. IME, they're well-aware of the advantages, but also well-aware of the disadvantages, and their current condonement but not overencouragement of WFH reflects this balance. In every job I've had (including Google), I work from home when I need to get well-defined, focused,independent work done on a fairly rigid timeline, and try and work from the office fairly often to take advantage of 1) easier conversations when complicated coordination is required, 2) maintaining social relationships with coworkers during downtime, and 3) the creative sparks that occasionally fly from casual conversation or even overhearing a conversation. I was a wfh maximalist like many on this thread at the very beginning of my career, but AFAICT it just comes from some combination of a) being a junior engineer that works on isolated bits of work and didn't need to communicate cross-team much or b) having work that doesn't require much creative collaboration. As I got more senior and moved towards different types of problems, my appreciation for the value of (though I still do enjoy and make time for WFH). For those who say that Slack or email or VC are perfect substitutes: there's no substitute for the high-bandwidth, low-latency medium of personal communication. Get good enough at running meetijgs of more than two people and you realize how much of the task of efficiently running a meeting involves reading micro-expressions and pauses to pick up on cues that help you direct the conversation (not to mention having n points of failure in a VC being accessed by n network connections). My team has been remote for a week and I've already noticed good meeting runners have worse meetings and bad meetings runners have even worse meetings.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ZainRiz 7y ago
On top of that, right now people are going to be WFH in a house filled with their kids who are also not going to school, possibly having to make sure they're actually taking the online classes their schools have setup from them. Not exactly the most productive WFH conditions.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Right, I'm sort of stacking the deck in favor of the WFH maximalist argument by taking for granted that motivation and focus aren't an issue, even though, for many people (or in many circumstances), they are.

SJetKaran 7y ago

Even if assume for a moment that WFH improves productivity, this impromptu WFH means that most people might not even have a proper desk/etc for optimal WFH setup.

tempestn 7y ago

WFH can be good for productivity, but it takes careful planning, good processes, and practice. I agree that it's extremely doubtful to increase productivity when done in an emergency fashion. (However it's obviously better than keeping everyone in the office to spread the virus.)

StreamBright 7y ago

This is not about WFH vs lunch conversations but about working in a quiet environment with minimal disruptions vs in a noisy open office with tonnes of disruptions. Good measures for you: https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-open-plan-offices-destroy-productivity.html https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-... https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/new-harvard-study-you-open-plan-office-is-making-your-team-less-collaborative.html https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/new-harvard-study-you-o... https://www.bisnow.com/london/news/office/the-proof-is-here-workers-hate-open-offices-and-they-reduce-productivity-90495 https://www.bisnow.com/london/news/office/the-proof-is-here-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2018/08/16/open-offices-still-a-mistake-for-employee-productivity-collaboration/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2018/08/16/open-off... https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313034 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313034 For the bonus: Commuting is also pretty bad for productivity. https://www.tlnt.com/how-commute-issues-can-dramatically-impact-employee-retention/ https://www.tlnt.com/how-commute-issues-can-dramatically-imp... https://www.insperity.com/blog/commuter/ https://www.insperity.com/blog/commuter/