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Google’s Internal Data Show Engineers Found It Harder to Code from Home

72 points by imraj96 6y ago

crx07 6y ago
To what extent is this an actual issue with WFH? COVID has deteriorated my mental health significantly, and the last time my productivity was this low, I was a teenager living with my parents. I've spent the majority of my career working from home, and I suspect this data has little if any relationship to workspaces -- almost everyone I know is bent out of shape right now.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  Yep, the study is absolutely confounded by all the unique variables of 2020. The headline should be "Employees Found It Harder To Work From Home During a Cataclysmic Pandemic, Generational Economic Downturn, and Widespread Social Upheaval".
  - raphlinus 6y ago
    Not to mention a serious breakdown in the availability of schooling and childcare. This will affect some people a lot more than others, so it should be possible to infer its relative importance.
chmaynard 6y ago
This smells like bullshit. Show us all the data or retract the article.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  It was a survey, and they quote the figures right there in the article...
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    They don't quote all the answers. Only the "high" answers. "only 31% of the company’s engineers polled felt they had been highly productive, down 8 percentage points from a record high in the March quarter." So 8 points down from a record. What is the usual variance on that statistics? Doesn't say much. And like ... are employees really honest when asked 'anonymously' by a surveilence company how much they work?
    - username90 6y ago
      They ask the same question regularly, statistically significant changes in answers are very noticeable. Also if people really liked WFH wouldn't they say they were more productive now to try to alter future decisions? But instead people choose to answer that they are less productive.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- omosubi 6y ago
  What would you want to see and why? Do you think this is some puff piece to influence people to want to get back working in offices? Hasn't google already stated that they aren't allowing people back until July 2021 or thereabouts?
phendrenad2 6y ago
There's going to be a BIG push to go back to offices soon. I expect some companies will start experimenting with micro-offices (4-5 employees in a medium wework room).
- pbalau 6y ago
  > I expect some companies will start experimenting with micro-offices (4-5 employees in a medium wework room). And what is this going to achieve? This is a stupid idea.
  - throwdbaaway 6y ago
    Agree, 4-5 employees sharing a room is indeed a stupid idea during the pandemic, not to mention the loss of effectiveness when the company doesn't commit to remote-only. The idea that may make sense is to provide some sort of WFH allowance, so that people can either enhance their own workplace, or seek individual offices in some co-working space. But I guess all the co-working space providers have committed to open floor plan.
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  Highly disagree. Most people I know don't want to return to the office. Any company that makes a "BIG" push to force employees back to offices will see a ton of attrition since now practically every company is remote.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - phendrenad2 6y ago
    I think we're both right. FAANG-tier companies may push for a return to the office, and a lot of good engineers will go elsewhere.
ArchOversight 6y ago
Can't read the article since it is behind a paywall... but wanted to ask this question anyway: How much is that productivity hit because people are dealing with the fact that this pandemic is lasting longer than expected, more people are getting sick, more people are dying... You know, the amount of brain cycles spent worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic may also account for some of those feelings. I know I feel it. I feel less focused, there's a constant process using up CPU in my head. Not only has it affected my work ethic, but also: - Sleep patterns - How much I eat - Joy I get from things that used to bring me joy - Lack of physical contact/touch, especially since I am single These are all things that weigh heavy.
- ffggvv 6y ago
  not only that but parents also have their kids home etc.. which wouldnt be the case under normal wfh conditions
  - ArchOversight 6y ago
    Absolutely! Those aren't relevant to my case, I live alone (which makes the loneliness worse). Yes, kids needing to do school from home requires a lot of time and effort, my co-workers are struggling to get their work completed because of it. I've taken over some of their tasks to help them out. Also if you are permanent WFH (which I am since I switched jobs in May), you set up your work environment differently. I rented a 2 bed room apartment so that I would have an "office" that I could close at the end of the day. If you live in the Bay Area generally you rent a shoe box of a place because you spend most of the time at work, that is not longer the case.
  - davidw 6y ago
    ... and there's also a pretty wild election in the US, to add to people's anxiety.
    - macintux 6y ago
      That alone has cost me many, many hours of lost sleep.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SkyPuncher 6y ago
I've worked from home for 6+ years now. The transition is tough. It's even tougher when everybody else around you is dealing with the exact same transition. Even though, I've developed some good routines for myself, they've been extremely hard to follow during the pandemic. In short, it's hard to draw a conclusion on such short time horizons - especially when "normal" is drastically different right now.
bawolff 6y ago
I mean, not surprising, especially when people are still getting used to it. It takes time to get used to patterns needed and can be very distracting if you are not used to that.
andrew_ 6y ago
It's dubious that folks at that skill level would lack the capacity to make WFH work for them. I've been remote for 10 years, I couldn't get in at the Googs. Working from home is not hard and there are a litany of resources for those who struggle.
- username90 6y ago
  Being able to do good work remote and being as productive when working remote as when in office is different.
  - andrew_ 6y ago
    Agreed. People who work remotely tend to be a lot more productive.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  >at that skill level What skill level is that? For the most part we are talking about a bunch of people ages 22-30 that function by responding to specific feature requests or JIRA tickets from their team leads. There are of course exceptions, but by and large this population of engineers do not do well with unstructured environments, such as the type created by a sudden shift to WFH. I am wholly unsurprised that productivity at Goog has dropped. At my large tech company (where we work with consultants from FAANG) there's also a similar drop in productivity due to aforementioned lack of structure. >10 years remote and I couldn't get in at Googs. FAANG interviewing has very little to do with skill level and a lot more to do with mastering the very specific interview process of that particular FAANG. It's a lot like taking the LSAT. You could be a genius but still not ace the LSAT because you don't know the very specific strategies needed for the test. On the flip side, just because you ace the LSAT doesn't mean you are a savant, it just means you studied the specific things necessary to ace the test.
  - andrew_ 6y ago
    I know quite a few brilliant folks there, and I just can't buy the assertion that the majority are drones/codemonkeys that drown without instruction and structure.
bicx 6y ago
I think the key with working from home is learning to set up and maintain boundaries between home life and work life. I was working from home fulltime for well over a year prior to the pandemic. Prior to that, I went into an open office every day for about 10 years. Overall, if you subtract the time from a 1-hour round-trip commute, distractions from coworkers, and longer lunch breaks I had while going into the office, I'm definitely more productive at home. At least most of the time. Lately, I've noticed that my boundaries between work and home have been slipping. I'm less likely to tell my wife that I can't help her with something in the house during my work hours. I tend to run errands in the middle of the day. I was doing better, but I need to tighten things up a bit. I'm still productive, but there are weeks that could have been "highly productive" but instead started merging into my home life too much. I'd wager that a lot of people have an ebb and flow in their productivity at home as boundaries become fuzzy and bad habits come and then go as you realize they're having an impact. And while I don't have kids, I can see how having kids would make working from home a huge challenge. Let's also not forget that 2020 is a steaming pile of shit, and it's had more horrific distractions than any year in recent memory.
- thurn 6y ago
  Also the personality type matrix of people who chose to work from home is different from the general population -- of course those people have higher wfh productivity. My wife is the most extroverted person I've ever met, so she's going to have a significantly harder time with remote work than someone who self-selected into it.
  - bicx 6y ago
    This is true! I didn't really choose to WFH personally. Instead, the startup I work for decided to ditch the office and go fully-remote. It ended up working out better for me than others, and personality definitely plays a big role.
  - tidepod12 6y ago
    >Also the personality type matrix of people who chose to work from home is different from the general population -- of course those people have higher wfh productivity My experience is the complete opposite. I spent a lot of time at a very large company that has always had a "WFH if you want" policy. By and large, the highly productive people were doing a hybrid work-from-office 3-4 days a week and WFH 1-2 days a week. In contrast, the people who self-selected into always WFH were almost exclusively slackers who took advantage of the situation to watch Netflix or sit at the pool all day and get nothing done. I know it's just an anecdote, but I think it's important because this is probably what executives are most worried about. It doesn't take very much effort to find people posting on Twitter that they love WFH during COVID because it means they get to sit at the beach all day. I've got people on my own timeline that choose WFH because they see it as a chance to slack off without supervision. A single slacker on a dev team of 5-10 can completely ruin the team's output, and (speaking from experience) it's really hard to prevent, oversee, or correct a slacker situation remotely. You might say "then fire them if they're a slacker", but once you're at the point where you're ready to fire them, the damage and lost productivity has already been done.
xt00 6y ago
I would guess based upon my own experience and talking to others: 1) the first 3-5 months were hard to figure out a good rhythm and is super impacted by how busy your house is (do you have kids, live-in parents, special needs kids etc) 2) many people have figured out a good rhythm by now and are doing fine 3) people who were new at the company this year are definitely having a much harder time since just sitting next to people is an easier way to sort of learn stuff by over hearing stuff rather than bugging people 4) long term "everybody working from home" likely is not a good setup.. more likely a mix is going to be a good setup.. where very likely new people should expect to be onsite for fairly extended periods of time until they have a much better sense of what to work on.. the other benefit of the "starting onsite" concept would be there would be less of the "oh but you live in north dakota so we don't want to pay you" shenanigans..
- bicx 6y ago
  I agree with most of what you said. I'm not sure how the last idea would work in the long run, as much as it should in an idealistic sense. I definitely agree that working from the office is better for some people than others. However, the unfortunate reality is if the boss is working from the office, it's often the case that people who are also in the office get better opportunities, recognition, and possibly resulting promotions than those who work remotely. Even if that's not the reality, I'd imagine that could become a pervasive fear or assumption. Having a split work force like that would require a really deep-rooted culture that supports it.
  - xt00 6y ago
    yea good point.. that would be a challenge for sure.. yea it would only take a couple of performance reviews before people got the message that they either need to move back to an on-site job situation or time to find another job.. so as a result the most likely scenario would be either entire org's would go all remote, or whole companies, or not at all.. the random lone wolf working from home will likely be the same set the company had before.. people working from like Zurich who is some machine learning genius or something, but otherwise, all the remaining people slowly trickle back into the office over the next 2 years..
jimbob45 6y ago
On the other hand, I’m happier to work an additional 30 minutes if need be that I would otherwise have spent unpaid on my commute.
cozzyd 6y ago
Working from home requires a lot more discipline. For some people that's not a problem, for a lot of people it is. edit: based on responses I didn't communicate clearly. What I mean is that there are way more potential distractions at home. Some people are still able to be productive in spite of that, but a lot of people (including myself!) are less productive. For some people it may even be the case that working from home there are fewer distractions, although I imagine that's pretty rare.
- andrew_ 6y ago
  whoa whoa. don't put the onus on individuals and their choices or you'll be downvoted to oblivion.
  - cozzyd 6y ago
    I'm not saying it's a personality flaw or anything like that. It's just the reality that many people who are productive in an office environment are less productive outside of it. I'm no different there! It's way easier to take a nap or sleep in or whatever when working from home.
- taneq 6y ago
  It also requires them to discipline their family, the possibility of which varies hugely and may be somewhat outside the worker’s control.
- echelon 6y ago
  I have ADHD and this is a nightmare. I haven't taken a vacation all year. (What's the point?) I haven't seen friends or family since March/April. I'm at my computer 24/7. (I've actually fallen asleep using it.) I think I've actually started aging faster.
paxys 6y ago
"... in the middle of a global pandemic"
- marcuskaz 6y ago
  This is the key! The whole world is falling apart with kids doing distance learning, partners losing jobs, all sorts of stress and anxiety for a simple thing like going to the store to buy groceries. I think it is rather obvious to expect a drop in productivity under the circumstances, and frankly quite thoughtless and inhumane to think otherwise.
- taneq 6y ago
  The pandemic makes it harder to code while in your own home? Illogical! /s
tamersalama 6y ago
Any studies around 'productivity' has to take into account the time spent on meetings, phonecalls, remote socials, conf calls, etc... and the time for context-switching and directed attention effort. I saw those dramatically increasing during WFH, especially for those teams that were used to co-location.
sjg007 6y ago
Did they control for distance learning with kids?
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
I've worked from home for about 6 years, with varying levels of success. But I've been surprised by how much I'm thrown off by having my kids home during the school day (remote learning because of covid). Even with a decently soundproof office. It just prevents the house in general from being calm and quiet during my peak work hours.
- bicx 6y ago
  I am honestly concerned that I may be getting chronic ear issues from wearing noise-cancelling headphones constantly. Knowing that your family is right outside the door (and vice versa) is extremely challenging.
  - redsky17 6y ago
    The beauty of noise-cancelling headphones is that you don't need to have the volume as loud to block out the sound. Make sure you're not listening too loudly! Ear damage from sound is no joke.
  - orev 6y ago
    If you’re not listening to anything, try using some regular ear plugs instead of ANC headphones. Not every problem needs to be solved with technology.
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    I'm really sorry to hear that. I wonder if it's possible to hunt down a physician with the knowledge necessary to give you a definitive answer. It seems like for now, noise mitigation is a necessary component of your work life.
  - josephorjoe 6y ago
    I dream of having a door between me and my family while I'm trying to work...
  - quaffapint 6y ago
    Oddly enough I was worried about the same working from the office with its wonderful open office layout.
rightbyte 6y ago
"The number of [changelists] is a key metric the company uses to track productivity." Don't take the article seriusly.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Why? I'm sure Google has tons of historical data, and they have a large enough pool of developers where they likely get very consistent productivity metrics across the company. If they see an obvious, statistically significant dip in the number of changelists companywide, this seems like very useful data.
  - kyleee 6y ago
    did they control for all the other factors other than work from home/office?
dqpb 6y ago
It’s hard the learn anything from this without seeing the data. At the very least I’d like to see what percentage of engineers show coding output decreased, increased, and had no change.
- marcyb5st 6y ago
  Disclaimer, I work for Google and you can add a +1 to the decreased list :). Seriously tough, the problem for me is the lack of focus. Being constantly alone (I live on my own) is messing up with my brain. I spend the same amount of time working (perhaps even longer than when at the office), but I cannot stay focused more than 30 minutes / 1h which make things slow. Additionally, the number of meetings increased and so did the number of one-pagers I have to write to articulate my ideas (before 10 min with a whiteboard would have been even more effective). On the plus side I dropped ~14kg since the pandemic WFH started due to not having always stocked MicroKitchens with tons of sweets.
notananthem 6y ago
I think its "harder to code during a global pandemic," not "from home"
- missedthecue 6y ago
  I don't know... the atmosphere of an office space definitely has an impact on mood and productivity, and provides a great split between work and home life that is too easily blurred in a WFH situation.
notananthem 6y ago
"IN A PANDEMIC," not "from home"
dacracot 6y ago
So first I can't read the article because there is no way I'm giving them my email so they can spam me later. That having been said, what is the unit of measure? Coding is notoriously difficult to measure and the unit of measure is elusive. We all heard the problems with KLOC, function point, ticket, story, etc, etc. They are all widely variable and seldom reflect the complexity or lack there of.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  The non-paywalled snippet describes what they were measuring.
xchip 6y ago
Why should we trust these news?
Waterluvian 6y ago
Imagine if the future of the FAANG style interview focused on how good you are at working from home. I wonder it the outcome would be frustratingly different for many of those who are not too great at it. I think we should embrace WFH but not wholly adopt it as the one and only way people are effective at their job.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  They haven't substantially changed the interview format in 20 years; I doubt they'll change now.
  - rweir 6y ago
    they got rid of stupid puzzles at least.
29athrowaway 6y ago
People seem to forget that there are distractions at work as well. And not all work environments have nice people. Some people can be toxic and not having them around is fantastic. Remote work disarms toxic people because any toxic interaction can be either recorded or left in writing. And if some loud person wants to dominate every meeting, now you have a mute button... that's great.
JSavageOne 6y ago
Can't even read the article since it's behind a paywall. But as someone who's been working remotely since before the pandemic, the key for me is to not work from home, ie. either work out of coffee shops or coworking spaces. Of course the problem with COVID is that coffee shops are takeout only and coworking spaces are closed, so that's not an option at the moment (at least in the U.S.). Working from home is awesome one or two days out of a week, but depressing after weeks and weeks. But then again I feel the same about offices as well, and hell just living in the same city year after year. The beauty of remote work is that you can go wherever you want, wake up whenever you want, and aren't tethered to a location. Once you taste that freedom, it's hard to give it up.
ilaksh 6y ago
I think we really need to be more specific about working situations than "at home" or "not at home". Because there are vast differences between specific circumstances. For example, people who are working at home but also suddenly become substitute teachers to keep their kids on task who are also there, are in a totally different situation than people who have a nice quiet home office and no kids. Also, the specific software setup and operating rules will have a massive difference. For example, people who need to collaborate daily and don't have a good rule for a meeting or a solid whiteboard tool or whatever they need, if they don't make that connection adequately, they are going to lag. Or if you are just talking about basic motivation, the interaction rules and software setup will also make a huge difference. If there were somewhat ad-hoc assignments and check-ins that kept people somewhat more motivated before and then all of that is just dropped, the motivation will go down. Now ideally what you have instead is just good management, intrinsic motivation and properly chunked-out results-oriented sprints, strong async and written communication, etc. Or in the opposite direction, if the boss realizes that now he doesn't need to go stand over your shoulder to check in with you or add a task since he can just message you on Slack at any time, that could also turn into a drag on programmer productivity. So it's really dependant on a lot of specific factors and not just whether they are in an office or not. And I feel like discussions will need to break down some of those details to be useful.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
I get the sense that many employers see WFH as a temporary measure rather than long-term shift. And consequently they're not willing to seriously invest in tools and processes that would make WFH maximally productive. Suppose for example that Google enacted this policy: (1) They reimburse each employee up to $30k to upgrade their home office, including soundproofing. After Google trained local builders on effective soundproofing strategies and designs. (2) Google provides (with installation) a Google Jamboard to facilitate virtual whiteboard sessions. (3) Google updates their team rules and meeting rules s.t. if anyone in a team or meeting is remote, then the entire team or meeting is remote. (4) Google invests in networking infrastructure (as needed) to ensure decent network connectivity from the employee's home office to Google's internal networks. I imagine that all FAANG companies could afford this. The open question, to me at least, is whether or not that magnitude of investment would make WFH a net win for those companies. But if they see WFH as a short term measure, I assume the answer is no.
- steffan 6y ago
  I think this a lovely sentiment, but (1) would never get past HR - what do you do with that $30K for a renter? How do you ensure parity between upgrading a high-rise condo in NYC vs. a simple ranch-style house in Kansas? Like a bonus, is the employee on the hook for paying back the $30K if they leave within a few months or a year? What if the employee wants to / has to move? Do you get another $30K if you move within 1 year? 2? 5? Ever?
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > How do you ensure parity between upgrading a high-rise condo in NYC vs. a simple ranch-style house in Kansas? One of the advantages of compensating people in kind is that there's no need to do this. If the business need is that people have a quiet space in which to work, then the business can soundproof a space for everyone. That's the relevant type of parity. That it costs more to soundproof the condo in NYC isn't relevant.
- marta_morena_28 6y ago
  (1) Google will train local builders, seriously? Otherwise, lump-sum payment for home office upgrade is probably good. 30k is excessive by any standards. 10k should probably be enough to buy a good monitor, desk, camera, some digital whiteboard, etc. It's unconditional, i.e. it's always 10k, no questions asked. (2) What for? They just gave you a lump sum. Google is not a builder, its a software company! (3) ??? How can you come up with this? Why would I work remote, just because someone else works remote. I makes zero sense. This rule would effectively eliminate remote work. If you work remote, it's your business. There should be policies in place to foster inclusion of remote workers. However, there could still be the option for "fully remote teams", which is generally a better choice. (4) Again, Google is not a builder or telecom service. If you want to work from home, make sure you move to a place with a good internet connection.. Tzzz. Expectations people really have. How about Google also does your laundry, takes care of your child while you WFH, so you don't get distracted and perhaps prepares lunch and pads you on the back after 5pm for a job well done?
02020202 6y ago
the problem is not working from home. the problem is that we are still being forced to 8 hour work-days. that is insane 20th century thinking. i have been working part-time essentially my entire professional life. i clock only real work and i charge appropriately. it saves my time and client's wallet. anyone who think normies are productive the entire 8 hour, that they are paid for, is insane in the membrane.
0x7265616374 6y ago
Companies really should be making resources available to help folks adapt and succeed remotely. Tools like toggl [1] go a long way in providing structure that is suddenly swept away. Remote work used to be niche, then it was thrust upon the populace. [1] https://toggl.com/ https://toggl.com/
bloqs 6y ago
Personality is an absurdly huge component. Trait concienciousness as per the Big Five model is inherently a social thing. Being more diligent is connected to being more in tune with others around you. Extroverts are also much more receptive to reward than introverts. This is partially relevant but frames the differences. Going into the office and cnfronting your "duty" within the social environment of work has a psychological impact. How much depends on how polarised your traits are
longtimegoogler 6y ago
My productivity has soared as measured by things like like lines of codes, CL submitted, and Design Docs written. For heads down coding, WFH is much better. I hate open offices and find cross-talk distracting. For certain types of collaborative work, it is less great and, socially, I miss face to face contact with coworkers. But, I long term, I would prefer to work in an environment where at least several days a week are remote.
dang 6y ago
As long as these articles stay hard-walled, we have to bury them. For a while The Information was unlocking them for HN but that seems to have stopped :( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
jeppesen-io 6y ago
I tried working from home for the last six months. I've tried everything recommend here, nothing worked. Productivity tanked Recently the office opened up, just for me. I'm alone in the office but massively more productive I find it frustrating that so many comments discount that some people just don't work well from home. I have no logical reason, but I just need to get ready, walk to work to get stuff done WFH may work for some, but it does not work for me no matter what I do and I'm sure it's true for others
stolenmerch 6y ago
I am one of those engineers that finds it harder to code from home. Some of the initial problem was that we were given a one day notice to pack up and stay home for the foreseeable future. It was not a choice and I wasn't prepared. Part of the problem is that I don't have the space in my house for my children, my spouse, and myself to have anything close to a "home office". As it stands, I am resigned to work on a 13" Macbook from a recliner in my living room after being accustomed to my dual monitors, standing desk, and keyboard at work. I'm sure I could set this up at the coffee table, but that seems almost worse and also so long work/life separation. On top of this, I was in a very healthy groove of hitting the gym every lunch hour, which helped my productivity tremendously. Sure, I could do burpees in the living room or something, but it's not happening.
taylodl 6y ago
Our experience has been the opposite - our productivity has measurably improved since our team started working from home and that's been the experience of most of the teams in our organization. It's been so successful in fact that our management is now looking to make this a permanent arrangement. It's a win-win situation: the teams are more productive and there's an opportunity to reduce facilities costs.

72 points by imraj96 6y ago

To what extent is this an actual issue with WFH? COVID has deteriorated my mental health significantly, and the last time my productivity was this low, I was a teenager living with my parents. I've spent the majority of my career working from home, and I suspect this data has little if any relationship to workspaces -- almost everyone I know is bent out of shape right now.

sanderjd 6y ago
Yep, the study is absolutely confounded by all the unique variables of 2020. The headline should be "Employees Found It Harder To Work From Home During a Cataclysmic Pandemic, Generational Economic Downturn, and Widespread Social Upheaval".
- raphlinus 6y ago
  Not to mention a serious breakdown in the availability of schooling and childcare. This will affect some people a lot more than others, so it should be possible to infer its relative importance.

chmaynard 6y ago

This smells like bullshit. Show us all the data or retract the article.

londons_explore 6y ago
It was a survey, and they quote the figures right there in the article...
- rightbyte 6y ago
  They don't quote all the answers. Only the "high" answers. "only 31% of the company’s engineers polled felt they had been highly productive, down 8 percentage points from a record high in the March quarter." So 8 points down from a record. What is the usual variance on that statistics? Doesn't say much. And like ... are employees really honest when asked 'anonymously' by a surveilence company how much they work?
  - username90 6y ago
    They ask the same question regularly, statistically significant changes in answers are very noticeable. Also if people really liked WFH wouldn't they say they were more productive now to try to alter future decisions? But instead people choose to answer that they are less productive.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
omosubi 6y ago
What would you want to see and why? Do you think this is some puff piece to influence people to want to get back working in offices? Hasn't google already stated that they aren't allowing people back until July 2021 or thereabouts?

phendrenad2 6y ago

There's going to be a BIG push to go back to offices soon. I expect some companies will start experimenting with micro-offices (4-5 employees in a medium wework room).

pbalau 6y ago
> I expect some companies will start experimenting with micro-offices (4-5 employees in a medium wework room). And what is this going to achieve? This is a stupid idea.
- throwdbaaway 6y ago
  Agree, 4-5 employees sharing a room is indeed a stupid idea during the pandemic, not to mention the loss of effectiveness when the company doesn't commit to remote-only. The idea that may make sense is to provide some sort of WFH allowance, so that people can either enhance their own workplace, or seek individual offices in some co-working space. But I guess all the co-working space providers have committed to open floor plan.
JSavageOne 6y ago
Highly disagree. Most people I know don't want to return to the office. Any company that makes a "BIG" push to force employees back to offices will see a ton of attrition since now practically every company is remote.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- phendrenad2 6y ago
  I think we're both right. FAANG-tier companies may push for a return to the office, and a lot of good engineers will go elsewhere.

ArchOversight 6y ago

Can't read the article since it is behind a paywall... but wanted to ask this question anyway: How much is that productivity hit because people are dealing with the fact that this pandemic is lasting longer than expected, more people are getting sick, more people are dying... You know, the amount of brain cycles spent worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic may also account for some of those feelings. I know I feel it. I feel less focused, there's a constant process using up CPU in my head. Not only has it affected my work ethic, but also: - Sleep patterns - How much I eat - Joy I get from things that used to bring me joy - Lack of physical contact/touch, especially since I am single These are all things that weigh heavy.

ffggvv 6y ago
not only that but parents also have their kids home etc.. which wouldnt be the case under normal wfh conditions
- ArchOversight 6y ago
  Absolutely! Those aren't relevant to my case, I live alone (which makes the loneliness worse). Yes, kids needing to do school from home requires a lot of time and effort, my co-workers are struggling to get their work completed because of it. I've taken over some of their tasks to help them out. Also if you are permanent WFH (which I am since I switched jobs in May), you set up your work environment differently. I rented a 2 bed room apartment so that I would have an "office" that I could close at the end of the day. If you live in the Bay Area generally you rent a shoe box of a place because you spend most of the time at work, that is not longer the case.
- davidw 6y ago
  ... and there's also a pretty wild election in the US, to add to people's anxiety.
  - macintux 6y ago
    That alone has cost me many, many hours of lost sleep.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SkyPuncher 6y ago

I've worked from home for 6+ years now. The transition is tough. It's even tougher when everybody else around you is dealing with the exact same transition. Even though, I've developed some good routines for myself, they've been extremely hard to follow during the pandemic. In short, it's hard to draw a conclusion on such short time horizons - especially when "normal" is drastically different right now.

bawolff 6y ago

I mean, not surprising, especially when people are still getting used to it. It takes time to get used to patterns needed and can be very distracting if you are not used to that.

andrew_ 6y ago

It's dubious that folks at that skill level would lack the capacity to make WFH work for them. I've been remote for 10 years, I couldn't get in at the Googs. Working from home is not hard and there are a litany of resources for those who struggle.

username90 6y ago
Being able to do good work remote and being as productive when working remote as when in office is different.
- andrew_ 6y ago
  Agreed. People who work remotely tend to be a lot more productive.
tidepod12 6y ago
>at that skill level What skill level is that? For the most part we are talking about a bunch of people ages 22-30 that function by responding to specific feature requests or JIRA tickets from their team leads. There are of course exceptions, but by and large this population of engineers do not do well with unstructured environments, such as the type created by a sudden shift to WFH. I am wholly unsurprised that productivity at Goog has dropped. At my large tech company (where we work with consultants from FAANG) there's also a similar drop in productivity due to aforementioned lack of structure. >10 years remote and I couldn't get in at Googs. FAANG interviewing has very little to do with skill level and a lot more to do with mastering the very specific interview process of that particular FAANG. It's a lot like taking the LSAT. You could be a genius but still not ace the LSAT because you don't know the very specific strategies needed for the test. On the flip side, just because you ace the LSAT doesn't mean you are a savant, it just means you studied the specific things necessary to ace the test.
- andrew_ 6y ago
  I know quite a few brilliant folks there, and I just can't buy the assertion that the majority are drones/codemonkeys that drown without instruction and structure.

bicx 6y ago

I think the key with working from home is learning to set up and maintain boundaries between home life and work life. I was working from home fulltime for well over a year prior to the pandemic. Prior to that, I went into an open office every day for about 10 years. Overall, if you subtract the time from a 1-hour round-trip commute, distractions from coworkers, and longer lunch breaks I had while going into the office, I'm definitely more productive at home. At least most of the time. Lately, I've noticed that my boundaries between work and home have been slipping. I'm less likely to tell my wife that I can't help her with something in the house during my work hours. I tend to run errands in the middle of the day. I was doing better, but I need to tighten things up a bit. I'm still productive, but there are weeks that could have been "highly productive" but instead started merging into my home life too much. I'd wager that a lot of people have an ebb and flow in their productivity at home as boundaries become fuzzy and bad habits come and then go as you realize they're having an impact. And while I don't have kids, I can see how having kids would make working from home a huge challenge. Let's also not forget that 2020 is a steaming pile of shit, and it's had more horrific distractions than any year in recent memory.

thurn 6y ago
Also the personality type matrix of people who chose to work from home is different from the general population -- of course those people have higher wfh productivity. My wife is the most extroverted person I've ever met, so she's going to have a significantly harder time with remote work than someone who self-selected into it.
- bicx 6y ago
  This is true! I didn't really choose to WFH personally. Instead, the startup I work for decided to ditch the office and go fully-remote. It ended up working out better for me than others, and personality definitely plays a big role.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  >Also the personality type matrix of people who chose to work from home is different from the general population -- of course those people have higher wfh productivity My experience is the complete opposite. I spent a lot of time at a very large company that has always had a "WFH if you want" policy. By and large, the highly productive people were doing a hybrid work-from-office 3-4 days a week and WFH 1-2 days a week. In contrast, the people who self-selected into always WFH were almost exclusively slackers who took advantage of the situation to watch Netflix or sit at the pool all day and get nothing done. I know it's just an anecdote, but I think it's important because this is probably what executives are most worried about. It doesn't take very much effort to find people posting on Twitter that they love WFH during COVID because it means they get to sit at the beach all day. I've got people on my own timeline that choose WFH because they see it as a chance to slack off without supervision. A single slacker on a dev team of 5-10 can completely ruin the team's output, and (speaking from experience) it's really hard to prevent, oversee, or correct a slacker situation remotely. You might say "then fire them if they're a slacker", but once you're at the point where you're ready to fire them, the damage and lost productivity has already been done.

xt00 6y ago

I would guess based upon my own experience and talking to others: 1) the first 3-5 months were hard to figure out a good rhythm and is super impacted by how busy your house is (do you have kids, live-in parents, special needs kids etc) 2) many people have figured out a good rhythm by now and are doing fine 3) people who were new at the company this year are definitely having a much harder time since just sitting next to people is an easier way to sort of learn stuff by over hearing stuff rather than bugging people 4) long term "everybody working from home" likely is not a good setup.. more likely a mix is going to be a good setup.. where very likely new people should expect to be onsite for fairly extended periods of time until they have a much better sense of what to work on.. the other benefit of the "starting onsite" concept would be there would be less of the "oh but you live in north dakota so we don't want to pay you" shenanigans..

bicx 6y ago
I agree with most of what you said. I'm not sure how the last idea would work in the long run, as much as it should in an idealistic sense. I definitely agree that working from the office is better for some people than others. However, the unfortunate reality is if the boss is working from the office, it's often the case that people who are also in the office get better opportunities, recognition, and possibly resulting promotions than those who work remotely. Even if that's not the reality, I'd imagine that could become a pervasive fear or assumption. Having a split work force like that would require a really deep-rooted culture that supports it.
- xt00 6y ago
  yea good point.. that would be a challenge for sure.. yea it would only take a couple of performance reviews before people got the message that they either need to move back to an on-site job situation or time to find another job.. so as a result the most likely scenario would be either entire org's would go all remote, or whole companies, or not at all.. the random lone wolf working from home will likely be the same set the company had before.. people working from like Zurich who is some machine learning genius or something, but otherwise, all the remaining people slowly trickle back into the office over the next 2 years..

jimbob45 6y ago

On the other hand, I’m happier to work an additional 30 minutes if need be that I would otherwise have spent unpaid on my commute.

cozzyd 6y ago

Working from home requires a lot more discipline. For some people that's not a problem, for a lot of people it is. edit: based on responses I didn't communicate clearly. What I mean is that there are way more potential distractions at home. Some people are still able to be productive in spite of that, but a lot of people (including myself!) are less productive. For some people it may even be the case that working from home there are fewer distractions, although I imagine that's pretty rare.

andrew_ 6y ago
whoa whoa. don't put the onus on individuals and their choices or you'll be downvoted to oblivion.
- cozzyd 6y ago
  I'm not saying it's a personality flaw or anything like that. It's just the reality that many people who are productive in an office environment are less productive outside of it. I'm no different there! It's way easier to take a nap or sleep in or whatever when working from home.
taneq 6y ago
It also requires them to discipline their family, the possibility of which varies hugely and may be somewhat outside the worker’s control.
echelon 6y ago
I have ADHD and this is a nightmare. I haven't taken a vacation all year. (What's the point?) I haven't seen friends or family since March/April. I'm at my computer 24/7. (I've actually fallen asleep using it.) I think I've actually started aging faster.

paxys 6y ago

"... in the middle of a global pandemic"

marcuskaz 6y ago
This is the key! The whole world is falling apart with kids doing distance learning, partners losing jobs, all sorts of stress and anxiety for a simple thing like going to the store to buy groceries. I think it is rather obvious to expect a drop in productivity under the circumstances, and frankly quite thoughtless and inhumane to think otherwise.
taneq 6y ago
The pandemic makes it harder to code while in your own home? Illogical! /s

tamersalama 6y ago

Any studies around 'productivity' has to take into account the time spent on meetings, phonecalls, remote socials, conf calls, etc... and the time for context-switching and directed attention effort. I saw those dramatically increasing during WFH, especially for those teams that were used to co-location.

sjg007 6y ago

Did they control for distance learning with kids?

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

I've worked from home for about 6 years, with varying levels of success. But I've been surprised by how much I'm thrown off by having my kids home during the school day (remote learning because of covid). Even with a decently soundproof office. It just prevents the house in general from being calm and quiet during my peak work hours.

bicx 6y ago
I am honestly concerned that I may be getting chronic ear issues from wearing noise-cancelling headphones constantly. Knowing that your family is right outside the door (and vice versa) is extremely challenging.
- redsky17 6y ago
  The beauty of noise-cancelling headphones is that you don't need to have the volume as loud to block out the sound. Make sure you're not listening too loudly! Ear damage from sound is no joke.
- orev 6y ago
  If you’re not listening to anything, try using some regular ear plugs instead of ANC headphones. Not every problem needs to be solved with technology.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  I'm really sorry to hear that. I wonder if it's possible to hunt down a physician with the knowledge necessary to give you a definitive answer. It seems like for now, noise mitigation is a necessary component of your work life.
- josephorjoe 6y ago
  I dream of having a door between me and my family while I'm trying to work...
- quaffapint 6y ago
  Oddly enough I was worried about the same working from the office with its wonderful open office layout.

rightbyte 6y ago

"The number of [changelists] is a key metric the company uses to track productivity." Don't take the article seriusly.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Why? I'm sure Google has tons of historical data, and they have a large enough pool of developers where they likely get very consistent productivity metrics across the company. If they see an obvious, statistically significant dip in the number of changelists companywide, this seems like very useful data.
- kyleee 6y ago
  did they control for all the other factors other than work from home/office?

dqpb 6y ago

It’s hard the learn anything from this without seeing the data. At the very least I’d like to see what percentage of engineers show coding output decreased, increased, and had no change.

marcyb5st 6y ago
Disclaimer, I work for Google and you can add a +1 to the decreased list :). Seriously tough, the problem for me is the lack of focus. Being constantly alone (I live on my own) is messing up with my brain. I spend the same amount of time working (perhaps even longer than when at the office), but I cannot stay focused more than 30 minutes / 1h which make things slow. Additionally, the number of meetings increased and so did the number of one-pagers I have to write to articulate my ideas (before 10 min with a whiteboard would have been even more effective). On the plus side I dropped ~14kg since the pandemic WFH started due to not having always stocked MicroKitchens with tons of sweets.

notananthem 6y ago

I think its "harder to code during a global pandemic," not "from home"

missedthecue 6y ago
I don't know... the atmosphere of an office space definitely has an impact on mood and productivity, and provides a great split between work and home life that is too easily blurred in a WFH situation.

notananthem 6y ago

"IN A PANDEMIC," not "from home"

dacracot 6y ago

So first I can't read the article because there is no way I'm giving them my email so they can spam me later. That having been said, what is the unit of measure? Coding is notoriously difficult to measure and the unit of measure is elusive. We all heard the problems with KLOC, function point, ticket, story, etc, etc. They are all widely variable and seldom reflect the complexity or lack there of.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
The non-paywalled snippet describes what they were measuring.

xchip 6y ago

Why should we trust these news?

Waterluvian 6y ago

Imagine if the future of the FAANG style interview focused on how good you are at working from home. I wonder it the outcome would be frustratingly different for many of those who are not too great at it. I think we should embrace WFH but not wholly adopt it as the one and only way people are effective at their job.

alisonkisk 6y ago
They haven't substantially changed the interview format in 20 years; I doubt they'll change now.
- rweir 6y ago
  they got rid of stupid puzzles at least.

29athrowaway 6y ago

People seem to forget that there are distractions at work as well. And not all work environments have nice people. Some people can be toxic and not having them around is fantastic. Remote work disarms toxic people because any toxic interaction can be either recorded or left in writing. And if some loud person wants to dominate every meeting, now you have a mute button... that's great.

JSavageOne 6y ago

Can't even read the article since it's behind a paywall. But as someone who's been working remotely since before the pandemic, the key for me is to not work from home, ie. either work out of coffee shops or coworking spaces. Of course the problem with COVID is that coffee shops are takeout only and coworking spaces are closed, so that's not an option at the moment (at least in the U.S.). Working from home is awesome one or two days out of a week, but depressing after weeks and weeks. But then again I feel the same about offices as well, and hell just living in the same city year after year. The beauty of remote work is that you can go wherever you want, wake up whenever you want, and aren't tethered to a location. Once you taste that freedom, it's hard to give it up.

ilaksh 6y ago

I think we really need to be more specific about working situations than "at home" or "not at home". Because there are vast differences between specific circumstances. For example, people who are working at home but also suddenly become substitute teachers to keep their kids on task who are also there, are in a totally different situation than people who have a nice quiet home office and no kids. Also, the specific software setup and operating rules will have a massive difference. For example, people who need to collaborate daily and don't have a good rule for a meeting or a solid whiteboard tool or whatever they need, if they don't make that connection adequately, they are going to lag. Or if you are just talking about basic motivation, the interaction rules and software setup will also make a huge difference. If there were somewhat ad-hoc assignments and check-ins that kept people somewhat more motivated before and then all of that is just dropped, the motivation will go down. Now ideally what you have instead is just good management, intrinsic motivation and properly chunked-out results-oriented sprints, strong async and written communication, etc. Or in the opposite direction, if the boss realizes that now he doesn't need to go stand over your shoulder to check in with you or add a task since he can just message you on Slack at any time, that could also turn into a drag on programmer productivity. So it's really dependant on a lot of specific factors and not just whether they are in an office or not. And I feel like discussions will need to break down some of those details to be useful.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

I get the sense that many employers see WFH as a temporary measure rather than long-term shift. And consequently they're not willing to seriously invest in tools and processes that would make WFH maximally productive. Suppose for example that Google enacted this policy: (1) They reimburse each employee up to $30k to upgrade their home office, including soundproofing. After Google trained local builders on effective soundproofing strategies and designs. (2) Google provides (with installation) a Google Jamboard to facilitate virtual whiteboard sessions. (3) Google updates their team rules and meeting rules s.t. if anyone in a team or meeting is remote, then the entire team or meeting is remote. (4) Google invests in networking infrastructure (as needed) to ensure decent network connectivity from the employee's home office to Google's internal networks. I imagine that all FAANG companies could afford this. The open question, to me at least, is whether or not that magnitude of investment would make WFH a net win for those companies. But if they see WFH as a short term measure, I assume the answer is no.

steffan 6y ago
I think this a lovely sentiment, but (1) would never get past HR - what do you do with that $30K for a renter? How do you ensure parity between upgrading a high-rise condo in NYC vs. a simple ranch-style house in Kansas? Like a bonus, is the employee on the hook for paying back the $30K if they leave within a few months or a year? What if the employee wants to / has to move? Do you get another $30K if you move within 1 year? 2? 5? Ever?
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > How do you ensure parity between upgrading a high-rise condo in NYC vs. a simple ranch-style house in Kansas? One of the advantages of compensating people in kind is that there's no need to do this. If the business need is that people have a quiet space in which to work, then the business can soundproof a space for everyone. That's the relevant type of parity. That it costs more to soundproof the condo in NYC isn't relevant.
marta_morena_28 6y ago
(1) Google will train local builders, seriously? Otherwise, lump-sum payment for home office upgrade is probably good. 30k is excessive by any standards. 10k should probably be enough to buy a good monitor, desk, camera, some digital whiteboard, etc. It's unconditional, i.e. it's always 10k, no questions asked. (2) What for? They just gave you a lump sum. Google is not a builder, its a software company! (3) ??? How can you come up with this? Why would I work remote, just because someone else works remote. I makes zero sense. This rule would effectively eliminate remote work. If you work remote, it's your business. There should be policies in place to foster inclusion of remote workers. However, there could still be the option for "fully remote teams", which is generally a better choice. (4) Again, Google is not a builder or telecom service. If you want to work from home, make sure you move to a place with a good internet connection.. Tzzz. Expectations people really have. How about Google also does your laundry, takes care of your child while you WFH, so you don't get distracted and perhaps prepares lunch and pads you on the back after 5pm for a job well done?

02020202 6y ago

the problem is not working from home. the problem is that we are still being forced to 8 hour work-days. that is insane 20th century thinking. i have been working part-time essentially my entire professional life. i clock only real work and i charge appropriately. it saves my time and client's wallet. anyone who think normies are productive the entire 8 hour, that they are paid for, is insane in the membrane.

0x7265616374 6y ago

Companies really should be making resources available to help folks adapt and succeed remotely. Tools like toggl [1] go a long way in providing structure that is suddenly swept away. Remote work used to be niche, then it was thrust upon the populace. [1] https://toggl.com/ https://toggl.com/

bloqs 6y ago

Personality is an absurdly huge component. Trait concienciousness as per the Big Five model is inherently a social thing. Being more diligent is connected to being more in tune with others around you. Extroverts are also much more receptive to reward than introverts. This is partially relevant but frames the differences. Going into the office and cnfronting your "duty" within the social environment of work has a psychological impact. How much depends on how polarised your traits are

longtimegoogler 6y ago

My productivity has soared as measured by things like like lines of codes, CL submitted, and Design Docs written. For heads down coding, WFH is much better. I hate open offices and find cross-talk distracting. For certain types of collaborative work, it is less great and, socially, I miss face to face contact with coworkers. But, I long term, I would prefer to work in an environment where at least several days a week are remote.

dang 6y ago

As long as these articles stay hard-walled, we have to bury them. For a while The Information was unlocking them for HN but that seems to have stopped :( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

jeppesen-io 6y ago

I tried working from home for the last six months. I've tried everything recommend here, nothing worked. Productivity tanked Recently the office opened up, just for me. I'm alone in the office but massively more productive I find it frustrating that so many comments discount that some people just don't work well from home. I have no logical reason, but I just need to get ready, walk to work to get stuff done WFH may work for some, but it does not work for me no matter what I do and I'm sure it's true for others

stolenmerch 6y ago

I am one of those engineers that finds it harder to code from home. Some of the initial problem was that we were given a one day notice to pack up and stay home for the foreseeable future. It was not a choice and I wasn't prepared. Part of the problem is that I don't have the space in my house for my children, my spouse, and myself to have anything close to a "home office". As it stands, I am resigned to work on a 13" Macbook from a recliner in my living room after being accustomed to my dual monitors, standing desk, and keyboard at work. I'm sure I could set this up at the coffee table, but that seems almost worse and also so long work/life separation. On top of this, I was in a very healthy groove of hitting the gym every lunch hour, which helped my productivity tremendously. Sure, I could do burpees in the living room or something, but it's not happening.

taylodl 6y ago

Our experience has been the opposite - our productivity has measurably improved since our team started working from home and that's been the experience of most of the teams in our organization. It's been so successful in fact that our management is now looking to make this a permanent arrangement. It's a win-win situation: the teams are more productive and there's an opportunity to reduce facilities costs.