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> Is this better for the company? Yes. Key positives for a company are reduced cost of office space and ability to draw upon a wider, cheaper pool of potential

> Is this better for the company? Yes. Key positives for a company are reduced cost of office space and ability to draw upon a wider, cheaper pool of potential workers and increased employee satisfaction (for some, not everyone prefers working from home). Key negatives are reduced productivity due to lack of supervision, difficulty of face-to-face meetings with clients, difficulty of training younger staff. Its a tradeoff and I think different businesses will fall into different buckets and there will also always be some inertia to change. I do think that the 'new normal' is neither 5 days 9-5 in the office OR complete remote work but something more like a couple of days in the office and a couple at home every week for most staff. But this wil probably be a plurality of the workforce only, with substantial numbers completely remote or close to, and substantial numbers also still in 5 days a week.

cco 6y ago
>Key positives for a company are reduced cost of office space and ability to draw upon a wider, cheaper pool of potential workers...[real dollar values] >Key negatives are reduced productivity due to lack of supervision, difficulty of face-to-face meetings with clients, difficulty of training younger staff.[hard to measure] Just throwing this experience of mine out there, when faced with actual dollar figures and hard to measure, vague outcomes, companies that I've worked for have nearly always acted on the dollar figures.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  Yeah, then why not fire everyone? Reduce salaries to 0, all the work is hard to measure. Or why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations? When it comes to their core business companies have a decent belief in what it looks like.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    > Yeah, then why not fire everyone? That would make the ones doing the firing redundant too. You want as many employees as possible as cheap as possible.
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    > Or why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations? Playing a little bit the devil's advocate here: Risk aversion and general tendency to apply gradual changes. Would you bet your company to run an experiment almost no one else is trying? Perhaps letting your workers work from home works perhaps you'll miss all deadlines and generate all kinds of drama. An external factors kicked in and everyone was in the same experiment. Things were messy but not completely unmanageable. Some were even surprised things kept working as well as they did. Now, the big question is: will this take a toll on people? Will companies that choose to continue with this work style be put in disadvantage as other companies switch back to on-prem?
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I think that's exactly right and I've even heard CIOs use the term "forced experiment." A lot of things companies have done which have turned out more OK than they necessarily expected were probably on some "Interesting idea. Maybe we should try this out in some indefinite future" list.
  - yarky 6y ago
    >why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations? Because it seemed impossible, until now.
  - ChefboyOG 6y ago
    I mean, corporations do regularly offshore as much work as they possibly can and build new plants/offices in low cost locations. Obviously, they need employees, but it's not as if companies don't already do everything they can to reduce the cost of labor.
- ssdspoimdsjvv 6y ago
  Good management will look further than the balance sheets. If the numbers look good, but the company culture is fading away due to employees only interacting with each other through a computer screen, they should be able to recognize that and take appropriate measures. (because in the end that will most likely also impact the business). Depending on how your company works, the short term positives could be nothing compared to the problems that will arise when everybody becomes an anonymous cog in an invisible machine.
phillipcarter 6y ago
Another big negative is the sunk cost fallacy of acquiring and/or owning office space. If you have all this space, you need to fill it with people. Ritualistic behavior isn't only exhibited by rank and file employees.
- ianai 6y ago
  I wonder whether WFH will make work more ‘marginal value-add’ - it’s probably far easier to hire/fire someone remote than an office setting, for instance. Maybe some work will start to resemble Uber more than traditional work?
  - Method-X 6y ago
    Yup. You mean UpWork, or companies like it.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    If I understand what you mean I totally agree; remote work isn't good for say developers who mostly got by by being good politicians. We probably all worked with people like that. You will be judged more by your actual output than by how well you give presentations or get along with bosses. On the other hand it's terrific for people who got pushed out of the job market due to ageism or other biases. It matters less who you are now, and matters more how well u actually get the job done.
    - ChefboyOG 6y ago
      In theory, I think this is a plausible positive scenario. In practice, however, I've never seen it play out like this (huge anecdata here). I've worked remote most of my career, and in my experience, the politics and work theaterisms are still there, just different. For example, someone's perceived level of "effort" often becomes a function of how responsive they are. Do they respond to Slack messages at random hours, when team members in different time zones/aggressive managers ping them? Do they frequently communicate with the team via video calls and Slack discussions? Just like in normal office politics, their actual productivity or work quality is assessed less than their appearance of engagement. That's just an example, but my experience in general has been that remote doesn't change anything about the cultural of management at a company. Whatever metrics mattered in person, there will be remote equivalents to replace them. The positive here is that good leadership is still good leadership, remote or not. The negative, obviously, is that remote isn't the balm for poor leadership that many hope it will be.
jussy 6y ago
Most companies I've worked for don't see WFH as a cost saving initiative but as an operating productivity initiative.

cco 6y ago

>Key positives for a company are reduced cost of office space and ability to draw upon a wider, cheaper pool of potential workers...[real dollar values] >Key negatives are reduced productivity due to lack of supervision, difficulty of face-to-face meetings with clients, difficulty of training younger staff.[hard to measure] Just throwing this experience of mine out there, when faced with actual dollar figures and hard to measure, vague outcomes, companies that I've worked for have nearly always acted on the dollar figures.

kmonsen 6y ago
Yeah, then why not fire everyone? Reduce salaries to 0, all the work is hard to measure. Or why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations? When it comes to their core business companies have a decent belief in what it looks like.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  > Yeah, then why not fire everyone? That would make the ones doing the firing redundant too. You want as many employees as possible as cheap as possible.
- ithkuil 6y ago
  > Or why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations? Playing a little bit the devil's advocate here: Risk aversion and general tendency to apply gradual changes. Would you bet your company to run an experiment almost no one else is trying? Perhaps letting your workers work from home works perhaps you'll miss all deadlines and generate all kinds of drama. An external factors kicked in and everyone was in the same experiment. Things were messy but not completely unmanageable. Some were even surprised things kept working as well as they did. Now, the big question is: will this take a toll on people? Will companies that choose to continue with this work style be put in disadvantage as other companies switch back to on-prem?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I think that's exactly right and I've even heard CIOs use the term "forced experiment." A lot of things companies have done which have turned out more OK than they necessarily expected were probably on some "Interesting idea. Maybe we should try this out in some indefinite future" list.
- yarky 6y ago
  >why have we all not been remote for a long time, instead of squeezed into high cost locations? Because it seemed impossible, until now.
- ChefboyOG 6y ago
  I mean, corporations do regularly offshore as much work as they possibly can and build new plants/offices in low cost locations. Obviously, they need employees, but it's not as if companies don't already do everything they can to reduce the cost of labor.
ssdspoimdsjvv 6y ago
Good management will look further than the balance sheets. If the numbers look good, but the company culture is fading away due to employees only interacting with each other through a computer screen, they should be able to recognize that and take appropriate measures. (because in the end that will most likely also impact the business). Depending on how your company works, the short term positives could be nothing compared to the problems that will arise when everybody becomes an anonymous cog in an invisible machine.

phillipcarter 6y ago

Another big negative is the sunk cost fallacy of acquiring and/or owning office space. If you have all this space, you need to fill it with people. Ritualistic behavior isn't only exhibited by rank and file employees.

ianai 6y ago
I wonder whether WFH will make work more ‘marginal value-add’ - it’s probably far easier to hire/fire someone remote than an office setting, for instance. Maybe some work will start to resemble Uber more than traditional work?
- Method-X 6y ago
  Yup. You mean UpWork, or companies like it.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  If I understand what you mean I totally agree; remote work isn't good for say developers who mostly got by by being good politicians. We probably all worked with people like that. You will be judged more by your actual output than by how well you give presentations or get along with bosses. On the other hand it's terrific for people who got pushed out of the job market due to ageism or other biases. It matters less who you are now, and matters more how well u actually get the job done.
  - ChefboyOG 6y ago
    In theory, I think this is a plausible positive scenario. In practice, however, I've never seen it play out like this (huge anecdata here). I've worked remote most of my career, and in my experience, the politics and work theaterisms are still there, just different. For example, someone's perceived level of "effort" often becomes a function of how responsive they are. Do they respond to Slack messages at random hours, when team members in different time zones/aggressive managers ping them? Do they frequently communicate with the team via video calls and Slack discussions? Just like in normal office politics, their actual productivity or work quality is assessed less than their appearance of engagement. That's just an example, but my experience in general has been that remote doesn't change anything about the cultural of management at a company. Whatever metrics mattered in person, there will be remote equivalents to replace them. The positive here is that good leadership is still good leadership, remote or not. The negative, obviously, is that remote isn't the balm for poor leadership that many hope it will be.

jussy 6y ago

Most companies I've worked for don't see WFH as a cost saving initiative but as an operating productivity initiative.