14 ms·

The productivity of working from home: Evidence from Japan

140 points by elsewhen 6y ago

tpmx 6y ago
> Factors affecting adoption and productivity of WFH: > "The requirements by rules and regulations that some tasks must be conducted in the office": 57.7% (part of a multiple answers question)
ekianjo 6y ago
The ongoing need for consensus in Japan is a WFH productivity killer as well.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  The consensus culture is a productivity killer regardless of whether everyone's in office or not. Source: I work in a (Scandinavian) company with such culture, he've had the same glacial pace of progress before and after covid. It's basically the freaking UN over here. (In practice, the consensus culture means that people are free to avoid taking on any responsibility or risks regarding making tougher calls themselves - they can always "put it up for a debate" which predictably goes nowhere, as the issue has no real champion).
  - Axsuul 6y ago
    Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_parliament_(expression) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_parliament_(expression)
f430 6y ago
This country is slowly moving into the digital age but still there is a strong cultural attachment to traditions and "if it isn't broken don't fix it" mentality.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  Given that in any highly evolved system, the vast majority of mutations are harmful, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" is a wise principle to follow.
  - f430 6y ago
    hmmm I don't think you've lived in Japan.
rossdavidh 6y ago
I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a productive state of mind (although I don't know if the social media situation is as bad in Japan as in the U.S. where I live). So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-pandemic times. Nonetheless, and I say this as someone who is by no means opposed to WFH (I have often done it, depending on the contract), the results are not surprising. More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work, and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced. It's the same reason we have gyms for exercise, yoga studios for yoga, art studios for painting, and so on. I'm glad that these researchers tried to measure it, but the results are not at all surprising.
- Guest42 6y ago
  For me, I think it depends on the office layout/vibe vs. the home layout/vibe. I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me and if a manager stopped by they would often feel compelled to say something. Communicating via email is much more deliberate. Also, it seems as though the places I've worked have opted to silo projects and give them to individuals in a way that minimizes collaboration. It's also nice for people that are invited to a number of meetings for things that don't directly affect them to be able to multi-task at those times. I also think that being watched produces a certain level of anxiety that is counter-productive.
  - epr 6y ago
    > I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me I know this isn't a problem for most people, but this is such a huge issue for me. If you are talking in my vicinity, my brain locks on to your speech and prevents me from thinking about anything else. Unless I am listening to someone else speaking that is closer to me / louder there is no way to mentally block this out. If I'm trying to program and someone is talking near me, my productivity drops by maybe 80%. I either put on noise cancelling headphones, ask people to talk elsewhere (which irritates people who don't understand), or get nothing done.
jiofih 6y ago
> from the employer’s viewpoint This being purely subjective, and especially based on employers’ assessments only, discredits the entire study. And on top of that, these are not normal conditions - people are obviously under way more pressure and in fragile states due to the pandemic.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Agreed, subjective studies like this are worse than useless, because they're destined to just reflect the inherent biases of the respondents. IIRC Google did have some objective data that purely looked at average commit rates and lines of code before and after working from home, and they saw a significant decrease in productivity during WFH (again, to your point, this was pretty early on in the pandemic and tons of people were dealing with childcare issues, etc.) I remember people commenting "oh, lines of code, ha ha, you can't use that to measure productivity", and while that may be true for comparing individuals and groups, across a very large sample size over time (i.e. all Google developers), this is actually an excellent objective metric to gauge productivity.
  - SyzygistSix 6y ago
    Isn't Google famous for long work hours and providing amenities to keep people at work longer? I would think any workplace that had a standard 50+ hour work week is going to see a drop in productivity when moving to WFH. Left to their own devices, most people in that situation are going to work less.
    - mattr47 6y ago
      Is Google standard 50 hours a week?
  - opo 6y ago
    >...IIRC Google did have some objective data that purely looked at average commit rates and lines of code before and after working from home, and they saw a significant decrease in productivity during WFH In trying to find out more info on this, I only found references to an internal subjective survey (which as you point out are not that valuable): >...Most notably from the June internal survey, only 31% of company engineers reported feeling "highly productive," down 8% from earlier this year. Furthermore, only 53% of engineers reportedly felt satisfied with their ability to manage their workloads. Of those, 30% spent less time coding that quarter than the previous quarter. When google was asked for comment: >...In a response to The Information, a Google spokesperson said the company-wide productivity rebounded after a short decline and has since exceeded pre-quarantine levels. I don't know if this measure of productivity was objective either, but I suspect, that Google is much more interested in meeting product deadlines, numbers of deferred features and those kinds of things are fairly easy to measure. It sounds like Google's experience has been similar to every other tech company and having the bulk of people working from home has not hurt productivity. https://austonia.com/google-struggle-with-work-from-home https://austonia.com/google-struggle-with-work-from-home
tpmx 6y ago
It's kind of weird that they included manufacturing and retail in the mix.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  At least they split it out and show different productivity for different fields.
ipatec 6y ago
I don't believe Japan is a good example. Having worked for a Japanese company for about 4.5 years I was really wondering how they handle the WFH. Japanese companies are very hierarchical and permanent reviews and monitoring are required in order to reach a decision. I can see WFH not being as efficient as office presence.
- tpmx 6y ago
  Yeah, I think many are aware that Japan has a pretty special work culture, especially when it comes to the importance of butts-in-seats.
- manmal 6y ago
  Off-topic, maybe you have an answer to this: How do the Japanese work so much? I read that they have naps in the office, but still - I think I would burn out super quick.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    No direct experience with working in Japan, but in Taiwan people rested their heads on a pillow on the work desk to nap for an hour after lunch. So essentially shifting some of the sleep time at home towards sleep time at work. Never quite understood the thinking behind that. My hunch is that I'm not understanding "face" properly.
    - manmal 6y ago
      That’s what I was referring to, yes. I heard of a situation during a merger where the Japanese delegation took turns sleeping, while the other delegation was up all day. As a consequence, the Japanese delegation got their way because they had more stamina.
      - brigandish 6y ago
        Sleeping at work is sometimes allowed because it's accepted there is such a chronic lack of sleep generally. If they were taking turns sleeping it means they probably already were overworked and needed a nap. The story sounds like "history is written by the victors" or just more fetishing of Japan.
eivarv 6y ago
Somewhat weird. From my own experience during the pandemic (two organizations, from lead to manager), productivity has been higher than ever. I kinda suspected this, as I'd been doing certain work from home earlier – but I was always surprised to hear leadership exclaim their fears about WFH, and their suspicions of both efficiency and productivity. The worst part is, though, that many are vying for a swift return to a traditional colocated work-place – even though they agree that the current situation works fine (pandemic, and its specifics aside). I've even heard some say it's different to actually be able to pop up and peek over their employees shoulders, to see "what they're actually doing", even in cases things are going better than planned already...
- nitwit005 6y ago
  I was working from home two days a week at one company, and my immediate manager pressed me to reduce it to one day. I mentioned that he'd lose an hour and a half of my productivity to the commute, and he just nodded. Rarely saw him in the office. He wanted the concept of me being there.
  - eivarv 6y ago
    Jibes with my own experience. It infuriates me to no end that (bad) leaders would rather go by their own feeling of control, rather than look at the numbers.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  This is Japan, very different work culture compared to the western world.
- itronitron 6y ago
  I think a lot of managers measure their own performance by how many faces they have spoken with over the course of the day.
atleta 6y ago
I expected it to be a usual "WFH improves efficiency" (without much data) piece, so I'm surprised. Working from home is different, definitely has its own issues those need to be solved and may not work for all teams/companies/roles and/or all the time. But what occurred to me after actually reading the article is that if WFH is what a lot of people want, it might one of the ways we'll handle the fact that due to increased general productivity a lot of jobs won't have to be 40 hours/week. (Actually, as far as I'm aware, it's already around 35 hours on average in Germany.) So instead of cutting back to 30, you might be able choose to work (mostly) from home at a 70%-ish efficiency. (Disclaimer: I've spent most of the past 10+ years working remotely. Mostly from home, sometimes from coworking places. Now those were fun and a productivity killer for sure.)
nostromo 6y ago
I'd like to see more follow on research in normal times. Right now, travel is difficult, restaurants are closed, events are nonexistent, etc., etc. So, yes, people may mostly be working ok (if not great) at home -- but I wonder if that will be the same when the outside world isn't so dire and boring.
- s0rce 6y ago
  This has a big impact for me. I'll go on some hikes on the local trails but other than that I'm not doing much. No longer trips, no seeing friends, not going out to eat, no travel, etc. My job is pretty interesting and I can work on various longer term interesting projects so I'll do that if I feel like it while I otherwise might have done non-work stuff.
monkeydust 6y ago
3 days office. 2 days home. That's what most people want where I work.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  I have done that before, and it worked well. Not completely without downsides, but definitely the best of both worlds (for programmers, anyway).
- ipaddr 6y ago
  It sounds good but you don't have a decicated workspace as everyone rotates pods and you lose the face to face advantage because no one is there on on the same days because there are not enough seats / pods. Everyone ends up coming in for townhall type meetings and there are not enough workspaces.
  - cobalt 6y ago
    depends on where you work. my last job did that (~20 engineers) and everyone had a dedicated desk
    - ipaddr 6y ago
      I like that better. My old company went rotating because they wanted a space in a certain building and had to settle for a smaller space. At that point you lose the benefits. If you keep the full space you lose out on rent savings.
- ganoushoreilly 6y ago
  This is the best of both worlds I think. I've always allowed employees to work their own hours as long as we tend to a core of 10-2. Some had 4 day work weeks, and worked in the office, many others would do one day in, one day out or some other combination. I find it makes it easier for people to co-ordinate normal life tasks like going to the bank etc. as well as work around all those things that pop up. We're definitely going to see more hybridization and I think now that the number crunchers realize they can save on physical space (we cut down our 5 offices to only one still active), the savings will far outweigh the losses on paper. I do think there is value in understanding nuance with an in person conversation though so i'm not sure 100% WF is the best long term plan.
toptal 6y ago
This research paper from Harvard concludes the exact opposite and is much better researched: https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Work%20from%20Anywhere_forthcoming%20SMJ_ee8cc7c5-c90e-4ad9-a1f4-47309d693a5c.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Work%20from%20An... I’m sure the culture, infrastructure, and other variables as they relate to a company have an ability to greatly change the outcome.
- sciprojguy 6y ago
  It lost me in the first sentence of the body of the paper. I am not "human capital"; I am a person hired to do a job.
bluepizza 6y ago
A stubborn refusal to adapt the work practices to a completely new scenario and take advantage from such scenario would be the major factor here, not working from home itself. One has to ask the actual goal of anyone who refuses to adapt - do they want to perpetuate the current status quo at any cost, or do they actually want to achieve results for the company?
29athrowaway 6y ago
Factors affecting my WFH experience, using the factors from the article: - Telecommunication environment: a quiet dedicated room. - Requirements by rules and regulations that some tasks must be conducted in the office: N/A - Types of work that cannot be completed at home: None - Distractions from family: Not more than the distractions from people at the office (coffee walks, casual talk, loud conversations outside meeting rooms). I much rather be distracted by my family than some random dude asking about my weekend. - Private room for work: check - Loss of face to face communication: Yes, please. - Lack of pressure from boss, colleagues and subordinates: N/A. I still have the same goals and the same deadlines. - Interaction with customers: Over zoom. - Other reasons: N/A
- wreath 6y ago
  > I much rather be distracted by my family than some random dude asking about my weekend. I never understood this actually. What is so bad/annoying about a colleague asking how was your weekend? When I hear similar things like "Football talk at the water cooler" etc I wonder what makes an individual hate their colleague this much that simple interactions like this become an annoyance.
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    I never said anything about it being bad or annoying. They are just less relevant than spending more time with my family. I prefer taking a coffee break at home and talk to my kids rather than some random colleague at work that I will likely never see again in less than 3 years.
rvba 6y ago
> This column uses survey data from Japan Survey data is completely unreliable. Lots of companies never reply, since they wont even trust if their own data will not be used against them. Those who reply can have an agenda.
isaacgreyed 6y ago
Does anyone know anything about japenese office culture that might be relevant to this? Maybe part of the SV culture like open offices makes this a whole different deal then how japan is.
- astrange 6y ago
  Open offices and micromanagement are the default in Japan, we didn't invent them. It's actually a lot worse there because the culture is much more intense and yet the pay is low.
  - isaacgreyed 6y ago
    Even more interesting that the productivity dropped then.
asperous 6y ago
Employers generally do not have clear quantitive measures of employee performance [1]. With that in mind this informal survey is more likely gauging management’s perception of work performance... also during a highly unusual time. I’m not sure this survey can really speak to WFH. We need higher quality evidence than this. [1] Woods and West, The psychology of work and organizations, 2020
- Dudeman112 6y ago
  I'll hold on to accepting WFH articles as valid when there isn't a pandemic around and lock downs all over the world.
lgunsch 6y ago
My own experience working from home probably follows this. I've gone back to work now, but I spent 6 months working at home. At the end it took me 12 hours of time to make up an 8 hour work day. It was just not sustainable for me.
- asciimov 6y ago
  My partner has had the opposite experience. They can typically knock out their work in 4-5 hours. Also, they have gained back a total commute time of ~2.5 hrs per day. That's like 24 extra days they've gotten back this past year in commute alone (24 DAYS!). Granted they are privileged enough to have their own home office, with a door and are able to play music without headphones, and have no kids. As opposed to the office, which is in a cube farm.
  - astrange 6y ago
    If you're living with someone and had a long commute you're in a more ideal situation for WFH. (I mean, if you had kids it'd probably be even more ideal, not less.) I live alone and practically next to my office, so while there's still advantages it mainly means I have to do chores more often and cook a lot more.
maxrev17 6y ago
I don't think you can generalise. In an open plan office with tonnes of pointless meetings, and only able to help one person at a time with queries (as a tech lead), I've found working from home enabled me to be far more productive. I guess company culture, your role etc. All play a part.
- astrange 6y ago
  Note Japanese companies typically use the worst possible open-office layout, where everyone sits in a row next to their manager and competes to be the last to leave the office so they won't look lazy.
marm7 6y ago
I have 5 teams, with 4-6 devs/SA, my data says we are actually getting 23% more done the last year, due to WFH, comparing with the previous 2 years. The 23% is the total, some teams have a higher increase due to the “best” teams have not increased with much. The “less better” have a higher increase. My case, WFH gave me the opportunity to hand out bonuses over the normal bonus and some team members feel less stressed and have time to exercise.
lmilcin 6y ago
My subjective data is that overall productivity as measured by output has roughly stayed at the same level, but this is only because people I work with are now more available after hours and are more likely to work long hours. I expect then productivity to fall when people start feeling burnout. I also feel new joiners don't get nearly enough attention and their productivity is impaired from the start. People who have worked for couple of years are getting more time for their tasks only because they have easier time fending off distractions -- but tasks behind those distractions don't necessarily go away and probably amass in some kind of technical / organizational debt due to less casual communication.
mkl95 6y ago
I have been WFH since early August. These have easily been the most productive months of my life. I am switching to 50% WFH soon and it's not going to be easy at all.
boulos 6y ago
It’s too bad that neither this paper, nor the previous detailed survey one have a breakdown of “reasons for reduced productivity by industry”. They report 80% productivity for IT, much less for retail, but it would be nice to see the “top reasons” tables by industry, to tease out “is the IT industry problem mostly bad internet and family distractions?” while Banking / Finance is mostly regulatory? I do appreciate that they allowed people to enter values above 100 for “more productive”. I suspect very few did though. Some box plots would could be illuminating. [1] https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/20090004.html https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/20090004.htm...
siliconc0w 6y ago
Somewhat ironically I'm actually more collaborative w/ WFH because in the office there was no way to have a quick unscheduled conversation with someone. Meeting spaces were always occupied and talking at the crammed together desks annoys everyone. Even ignoring the commuting, health, or 'quiet space is good for productivity' arguments, contention for quiet meeting space is the fatal scalability flaw with open offices.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sologoub 6y ago
Looks like we are comparing productivity of well established routines, child care, lower overall stress and uncertainty, with the pandemic induced disruption, loss of childcare and many other social services, isolation, inability to optimize working conditions and so on. Any surprises that NOT being under constant threat of death, and for parents having to juggle childcare as well, is a lot more productive?
brigandish 6y ago
> “Some tasks cannot be conducted at home although these are not required by the rules and regulations” Anyone know where the Hanko stamp is?
max_hammer 6y ago
I did WFH remotely for 1 year from India. I had a separate room for office and productivity was high. Moved to Germany staying in 1 Room 36 square meter apartment and can't work from home. My meetings disturb wife. Her watching TV/Cooking disturbs me. Now I work from office and feeling more happy. Talking to real people instead of Zoom call and going out to grab some lunch uplifts my mood
erikerikson 6y ago
Comparing a parent's in-office productivity to WFH productivity while providing childcare strikes me as oblivious. Clearly parents aren't the entire workforce but we're not a minor portion either.
jeeeb 6y ago
One thing I think is worth considering is the effect of living spaces on WFH enjoyment/productivity. There’s a lot less living space in the typical Japanese house/apartment compared to the much of the west. A lot of the apartments young people live in in the cities are little more than bedrooms with a kitchen area and unit bathroom attached, often with poor natural lighting to boot. That wouldn’t be a pleasant space to work months on end in. I lived for a number of years in a “2DK” (2x rooms + dining/kitchen) apartment in Tokyo. While a reasonable size by Tokyo standards, frankly it was small and cramped. I can’t imagine really enjoying WFH there. Comparatively, I now live in Australia in a house with about 4x the floor area of that apartment. WFH here is great - I can start the day at the dining table while eating breakfast, move to my study during the day and then when I feel like a change I can move to the couch in the afternoon. I could even sit in the garden if I wanted. It’s a great environment for focusing on a particular task. We’re doing 3 days in the office currently and I’m pushing to maintain that - office for collaboration and team building, home for focusing. In Japan in comparison the current discussion seems to be about more people moving to the regions. That helps solve the living space problem but makes in office collaboration harder. It will be interesting to see if the trend sticks.
- em-bee 6y ago
  this! also japanese work culture: don't go home until the boss leaves, which more or less translates to people being used to working under oversight, and more likely to stop working if the oversight goes away.
anotherevan 6y ago
"You are not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work."
NalNezumi 6y ago
I don't know if "evidence from Japan" should at all be used as some example for the rest of the world. This is after all a country that is still today, using FAX machines in certain institutes. (although I've never seen one) There's two things that makes WFH productivity incomparable to west at least. One is the ridiculously small homes majority of (young) Japanese have to live in; if you suddenly have to WFH in that house your living room, bed room, eating/cooking room + WFH office all becomes one 10-20sqm shared space. Expecting one to be productive here is kind of ludicrous. Second is the low digitization + old, conservative work culture. Low digitization means the old-school work culture can't adapt to remote work, and most people either do commute anyway (Lockdown in Japan is not legally enforceable) or just have to work in a unproductive structure to start with.
ddevault 6y ago
I would strongly recommend against generalizing a study about WFH in Japan to the rest of the world. Japan's working culture is unique (and uniquely fucked up). WFH is severely stigmatized, and even working from the office is entirely unlike what western workers are likely to be used to for most Japanese employees. 80+ hour work weeks are the norm, and the productivity does not reflect the time spent. It's common to sleep at your desk or on the train just to have the appearance of being more committed to the company. Working for many Japanese companies is more like a lifestyle than a job. It can occupy your entire waking life.
gfxgirl 6y ago
While certain tech companies say they haven't seen a reduction in performance via WFH, all my game dev friends say performance/velocity is 1/2 to 1/4th speed with WFH. Their thinking is that game devs (artists, game designers, programmers) need to collaborate, to adjust something and then call to their colleagues "how's this feel?" etc...
amir734jj 6y ago
There should be a poll in HN to see who likes working from home over working in the office. For me personally, I love working from home. The company I work for offers free lunch but the quality is terrible but the management usually invites you to a lunch meeting so I have to eat the unhealthy food. Not to mention ping pong after lunch, useless meetings and mandatory greetings (hello, how was your weekend, happy Monday, happy Friday) and etc.
pdimitar 6y ago
It's not exactly mind-blowing to see that the working populace that's under the influence of extremely dogmatic bosses had a hard time readjusting to a work format that's completely foreign to them -- especially that one exact format that is widely frowned upon there, with their culture of 16h workdays and whatnot. Japan, for all the unexplained praise it gets in some media outlets, has been widely reported to be one of the worst places in the world in terms of a work-life balance. Nobody can generalize an entire country of course, but bad working conditions seem to be the default state of things there (I have several acquaintances and they all left Japan a year or so later after they started getting pressured into almost sleeping in the office). Add to that that their office culture seems centered on interruptions, the much-hated by us the devs technique of "patting you on the shoulder to check how you're progressing", and the idolization of time spent in the office as opposed to "what did you actually do?", and I could have told you that productivity as Japanese understand it took a dive. And as the currently top comment states, measuring WFH in conditions when most employees have no choice but to accept it makes for warped and likely non-objective metrics.

140 points by elsewhen 6y ago

tpmx 6y ago

> Factors affecting adoption and productivity of WFH: > "The requirements by rules and regulations that some tasks must be conducted in the office": 57.7% (part of a multiple answers question)

ekianjo 6y ago

The ongoing need for consensus in Japan is a WFH productivity killer as well.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
burntoutfire 6y ago
The consensus culture is a productivity killer regardless of whether everyone's in office or not. Source: I work in a (Scandinavian) company with such culture, he've had the same glacial pace of progress before and after covid. It's basically the freaking UN over here. (In practice, the consensus culture means that people are free to avoid taking on any responsibility or risks regarding making tougher calls themselves - they can always "put it up for a debate" which predictably goes nowhere, as the issue has no real champion).
- Axsuul 6y ago
  Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_parliament_(expression) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_parliament_(expression)

f430 6y ago

This country is slowly moving into the digital age but still there is a strong cultural attachment to traditions and "if it isn't broken don't fix it" mentality.

rsj_hn 6y ago
Given that in any highly evolved system, the vast majority of mutations are harmful, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" is a wise principle to follow.
- f430 6y ago
  hmmm I don't think you've lived in Japan.

rossdavidh 6y ago

I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a productive state of mind (although I don't know if the social media situation is as bad in Japan as in the U.S. where I live). So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-pandemic times. Nonetheless, and I say this as someone who is by no means opposed to WFH (I have often done it, depending on the contract), the results are not surprising. More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work, and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced. It's the same reason we have gyms for exercise, yoga studios for yoga, art studios for painting, and so on. I'm glad that these researchers tried to measure it, but the results are not at all surprising.

Guest42 6y ago
For me, I think it depends on the office layout/vibe vs. the home layout/vibe. I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me and if a manager stopped by they would often feel compelled to say something. Communicating via email is much more deliberate. Also, it seems as though the places I've worked have opted to silo projects and give them to individuals in a way that minimizes collaboration. It's also nice for people that are invited to a number of meetings for things that don't directly affect them to be able to multi-task at those times. I also think that being watched produces a certain level of anxiety that is counter-productive.
- epr 6y ago
  > I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me I know this isn't a problem for most people, but this is such a huge issue for me. If you are talking in my vicinity, my brain locks on to your speech and prevents me from thinking about anything else. Unless I am listening to someone else speaking that is closer to me / louder there is no way to mentally block this out. If I'm trying to program and someone is talking near me, my productivity drops by maybe 80%. I either put on noise cancelling headphones, ask people to talk elsewhere (which irritates people who don't understand), or get nothing done.

jiofih 6y ago

> from the employer’s viewpoint This being purely subjective, and especially based on employers’ assessments only, discredits the entire study. And on top of that, these are not normal conditions - people are obviously under way more pressure and in fragile states due to the pandemic.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Agreed, subjective studies like this are worse than useless, because they're destined to just reflect the inherent biases of the respondents. IIRC Google did have some objective data that purely looked at average commit rates and lines of code before and after working from home, and they saw a significant decrease in productivity during WFH (again, to your point, this was pretty early on in the pandemic and tons of people were dealing with childcare issues, etc.) I remember people commenting "oh, lines of code, ha ha, you can't use that to measure productivity", and while that may be true for comparing individuals and groups, across a very large sample size over time (i.e. all Google developers), this is actually an excellent objective metric to gauge productivity.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  Isn't Google famous for long work hours and providing amenities to keep people at work longer? I would think any workplace that had a standard 50+ hour work week is going to see a drop in productivity when moving to WFH. Left to their own devices, most people in that situation are going to work less.
  - mattr47 6y ago
    Is Google standard 50 hours a week?
- opo 6y ago
  >...IIRC Google did have some objective data that purely looked at average commit rates and lines of code before and after working from home, and they saw a significant decrease in productivity during WFH In trying to find out more info on this, I only found references to an internal subjective survey (which as you point out are not that valuable): >...Most notably from the June internal survey, only 31% of company engineers reported feeling "highly productive," down 8% from earlier this year. Furthermore, only 53% of engineers reportedly felt satisfied with their ability to manage their workloads. Of those, 30% spent less time coding that quarter than the previous quarter. When google was asked for comment: >...In a response to The Information, a Google spokesperson said the company-wide productivity rebounded after a short decline and has since exceeded pre-quarantine levels. I don't know if this measure of productivity was objective either, but I suspect, that Google is much more interested in meeting product deadlines, numbers of deferred features and those kinds of things are fairly easy to measure. It sounds like Google's experience has been similar to every other tech company and having the bulk of people working from home has not hurt productivity. https://austonia.com/google-struggle-with-work-from-home https://austonia.com/google-struggle-with-work-from-home

tpmx 6y ago

It's kind of weird that they included manufacturing and retail in the mix.

rossdavidh 6y ago
At least they split it out and show different productivity for different fields.

ipatec 6y ago

I don't believe Japan is a good example. Having worked for a Japanese company for about 4.5 years I was really wondering how they handle the WFH. Japanese companies are very hierarchical and permanent reviews and monitoring are required in order to reach a decision. I can see WFH not being as efficient as office presence.

tpmx 6y ago
Yeah, I think many are aware that Japan has a pretty special work culture, especially when it comes to the importance of butts-in-seats.
manmal 6y ago
Off-topic, maybe you have an answer to this: How do the Japanese work so much? I read that they have naps in the office, but still - I think I would burn out super quick.
- tpmx 6y ago
  No direct experience with working in Japan, but in Taiwan people rested their heads on a pillow on the work desk to nap for an hour after lunch. So essentially shifting some of the sleep time at home towards sleep time at work. Never quite understood the thinking behind that. My hunch is that I'm not understanding "face" properly.
  - manmal 6y ago
    That’s what I was referring to, yes. I heard of a situation during a merger where the Japanese delegation took turns sleeping, while the other delegation was up all day. As a consequence, the Japanese delegation got their way because they had more stamina.
    - brigandish 6y ago
      Sleeping at work is sometimes allowed because it's accepted there is such a chronic lack of sleep generally. If they were taking turns sleeping it means they probably already were overworked and needed a nap. The story sounds like "history is written by the victors" or just more fetishing of Japan.

eivarv 6y ago

Somewhat weird. From my own experience during the pandemic (two organizations, from lead to manager), productivity has been higher than ever. I kinda suspected this, as I'd been doing certain work from home earlier – but I was always surprised to hear leadership exclaim their fears about WFH, and their suspicions of both efficiency and productivity. The worst part is, though, that many are vying for a swift return to a traditional colocated work-place – even though they agree that the current situation works fine (pandemic, and its specifics aside). I've even heard some say it's different to actually be able to pop up and peek over their employees shoulders, to see "what they're actually doing", even in cases things are going better than planned already...

nitwit005 6y ago
I was working from home two days a week at one company, and my immediate manager pressed me to reduce it to one day. I mentioned that he'd lose an hour and a half of my productivity to the commute, and he just nodded. Rarely saw him in the office. He wanted the concept of me being there.
- eivarv 6y ago
  Jibes with my own experience. It infuriates me to no end that (bad) leaders would rather go by their own feeling of control, rather than look at the numbers.
GuB-42 6y ago
This is Japan, very different work culture compared to the western world.
itronitron 6y ago
I think a lot of managers measure their own performance by how many faces they have spoken with over the course of the day.

atleta 6y ago

I expected it to be a usual "WFH improves efficiency" (without much data) piece, so I'm surprised. Working from home is different, definitely has its own issues those need to be solved and may not work for all teams/companies/roles and/or all the time. But what occurred to me after actually reading the article is that if WFH is what a lot of people want, it might one of the ways we'll handle the fact that due to increased general productivity a lot of jobs won't have to be 40 hours/week. (Actually, as far as I'm aware, it's already around 35 hours on average in Germany.) So instead of cutting back to 30, you might be able choose to work (mostly) from home at a 70%-ish efficiency. (Disclaimer: I've spent most of the past 10+ years working remotely. Mostly from home, sometimes from coworking places. Now those were fun and a productivity killer for sure.)

nostromo 6y ago

I'd like to see more follow on research in normal times. Right now, travel is difficult, restaurants are closed, events are nonexistent, etc., etc. So, yes, people may mostly be working ok (if not great) at home -- but I wonder if that will be the same when the outside world isn't so dire and boring.

s0rce 6y ago
This has a big impact for me. I'll go on some hikes on the local trails but other than that I'm not doing much. No longer trips, no seeing friends, not going out to eat, no travel, etc. My job is pretty interesting and I can work on various longer term interesting projects so I'll do that if I feel like it while I otherwise might have done non-work stuff.

monkeydust 6y ago

3 days office. 2 days home. That's what most people want where I work.

rossdavidh 6y ago
I have done that before, and it worked well. Not completely without downsides, but definitely the best of both worlds (for programmers, anyway).
ipaddr 6y ago
It sounds good but you don't have a decicated workspace as everyone rotates pods and you lose the face to face advantage because no one is there on on the same days because there are not enough seats / pods. Everyone ends up coming in for townhall type meetings and there are not enough workspaces.
- cobalt 6y ago
  depends on where you work. my last job did that (~20 engineers) and everyone had a dedicated desk
  - ipaddr 6y ago
    I like that better. My old company went rotating because they wanted a space in a certain building and had to settle for a smaller space. At that point you lose the benefits. If you keep the full space you lose out on rent savings.
ganoushoreilly 6y ago
This is the best of both worlds I think. I've always allowed employees to work their own hours as long as we tend to a core of 10-2. Some had 4 day work weeks, and worked in the office, many others would do one day in, one day out or some other combination. I find it makes it easier for people to co-ordinate normal life tasks like going to the bank etc. as well as work around all those things that pop up. We're definitely going to see more hybridization and I think now that the number crunchers realize they can save on physical space (we cut down our 5 offices to only one still active), the savings will far outweigh the losses on paper. I do think there is value in understanding nuance with an in person conversation though so i'm not sure 100% WF is the best long term plan.

toptal 6y ago

This research paper from Harvard concludes the exact opposite and is much better researched: https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Work%20from%20Anywhere_forthcoming%20SMJ_ee8cc7c5-c90e-4ad9-a1f4-47309d693a5c.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Work%20from%20An... I’m sure the culture, infrastructure, and other variables as they relate to a company have an ability to greatly change the outcome.

sciprojguy 6y ago
It lost me in the first sentence of the body of the paper. I am not "human capital"; I am a person hired to do a job.

bluepizza 6y ago

A stubborn refusal to adapt the work practices to a completely new scenario and take advantage from such scenario would be the major factor here, not working from home itself. One has to ask the actual goal of anyone who refuses to adapt - do they want to perpetuate the current status quo at any cost, or do they actually want to achieve results for the company?

29athrowaway 6y ago

Factors affecting my WFH experience, using the factors from the article: - Telecommunication environment: a quiet dedicated room. - Requirements by rules and regulations that some tasks must be conducted in the office: N/A - Types of work that cannot be completed at home: None - Distractions from family: Not more than the distractions from people at the office (coffee walks, casual talk, loud conversations outside meeting rooms). I much rather be distracted by my family than some random dude asking about my weekend. - Private room for work: check - Loss of face to face communication: Yes, please. - Lack of pressure from boss, colleagues and subordinates: N/A. I still have the same goals and the same deadlines. - Interaction with customers: Over zoom. - Other reasons: N/A

wreath 6y ago
> I much rather be distracted by my family than some random dude asking about my weekend. I never understood this actually. What is so bad/annoying about a colleague asking how was your weekend? When I hear similar things like "Football talk at the water cooler" etc I wonder what makes an individual hate their colleague this much that simple interactions like this become an annoyance.
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  I never said anything about it being bad or annoying. They are just less relevant than spending more time with my family. I prefer taking a coffee break at home and talk to my kids rather than some random colleague at work that I will likely never see again in less than 3 years.

rvba 6y ago

> This column uses survey data from Japan Survey data is completely unreliable. Lots of companies never reply, since they wont even trust if their own data will not be used against them. Those who reply can have an agenda.

isaacgreyed 6y ago

Does anyone know anything about japenese office culture that might be relevant to this? Maybe part of the SV culture like open offices makes this a whole different deal then how japan is.

astrange 6y ago
Open offices and micromanagement are the default in Japan, we didn't invent them. It's actually a lot worse there because the culture is much more intense and yet the pay is low.
- isaacgreyed 6y ago
  Even more interesting that the productivity dropped then.

asperous 6y ago

Employers generally do not have clear quantitive measures of employee performance [1]. With that in mind this informal survey is more likely gauging management’s perception of work performance... also during a highly unusual time. I’m not sure this survey can really speak to WFH. We need higher quality evidence than this. [1] Woods and West, The psychology of work and organizations, 2020

Dudeman112 6y ago
I'll hold on to accepting WFH articles as valid when there isn't a pandemic around and lock downs all over the world.

lgunsch 6y ago

My own experience working from home probably follows this. I've gone back to work now, but I spent 6 months working at home. At the end it took me 12 hours of time to make up an 8 hour work day. It was just not sustainable for me.

asciimov 6y ago
My partner has had the opposite experience. They can typically knock out their work in 4-5 hours. Also, they have gained back a total commute time of ~2.5 hrs per day. That's like 24 extra days they've gotten back this past year in commute alone (24 DAYS!). Granted they are privileged enough to have their own home office, with a door and are able to play music without headphones, and have no kids. As opposed to the office, which is in a cube farm.
- astrange 6y ago
  If you're living with someone and had a long commute you're in a more ideal situation for WFH. (I mean, if you had kids it'd probably be even more ideal, not less.) I live alone and practically next to my office, so while there's still advantages it mainly means I have to do chores more often and cook a lot more.

maxrev17 6y ago

I don't think you can generalise. In an open plan office with tonnes of pointless meetings, and only able to help one person at a time with queries (as a tech lead), I've found working from home enabled me to be far more productive. I guess company culture, your role etc. All play a part.

astrange 6y ago
Note Japanese companies typically use the worst possible open-office layout, where everyone sits in a row next to their manager and competes to be the last to leave the office so they won't look lazy.

marm7 6y ago

I have 5 teams, with 4-6 devs/SA, my data says we are actually getting 23% more done the last year, due to WFH, comparing with the previous 2 years. The 23% is the total, some teams have a higher increase due to the “best” teams have not increased with much. The “less better” have a higher increase. My case, WFH gave me the opportunity to hand out bonuses over the normal bonus and some team members feel less stressed and have time to exercise.

lmilcin 6y ago

My subjective data is that overall productivity as measured by output has roughly stayed at the same level, but this is only because people I work with are now more available after hours and are more likely to work long hours. I expect then productivity to fall when people start feeling burnout. I also feel new joiners don't get nearly enough attention and their productivity is impaired from the start. People who have worked for couple of years are getting more time for their tasks only because they have easier time fending off distractions -- but tasks behind those distractions don't necessarily go away and probably amass in some kind of technical / organizational debt due to less casual communication.

mkl95 6y ago

I have been WFH since early August. These have easily been the most productive months of my life. I am switching to 50% WFH soon and it's not going to be easy at all.

boulos 6y ago

It’s too bad that neither this paper, nor the previous detailed survey one have a breakdown of “reasons for reduced productivity by industry”. They report 80% productivity for IT, much less for retail, but it would be nice to see the “top reasons” tables by industry, to tease out “is the IT industry problem mostly bad internet and family distractions?” while Banking / Finance is mostly regulatory? I do appreciate that they allowed people to enter values above 100 for “more productive”. I suspect very few did though. Some box plots would could be illuminating. [1] https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/20090004.html https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/20090004.htm...

siliconc0w 6y ago

Somewhat ironically I'm actually more collaborative w/ WFH because in the office there was no way to have a quick unscheduled conversation with someone. Meeting spaces were always occupied and talking at the crammed together desks annoys everyone. Even ignoring the commuting, health, or 'quiet space is good for productivity' arguments, contention for quiet meeting space is the fatal scalability flaw with open offices.

deleted 6y ago

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sologoub 6y ago

Looks like we are comparing productivity of well established routines, child care, lower overall stress and uncertainty, with the pandemic induced disruption, loss of childcare and many other social services, isolation, inability to optimize working conditions and so on. Any surprises that NOT being under constant threat of death, and for parents having to juggle childcare as well, is a lot more productive?

brigandish 6y ago

> “Some tasks cannot be conducted at home although these are not required by the rules and regulations” Anyone know where the Hanko stamp is?

max_hammer 6y ago

I did WFH remotely for 1 year from India. I had a separate room for office and productivity was high. Moved to Germany staying in 1 Room 36 square meter apartment and can't work from home. My meetings disturb wife. Her watching TV/Cooking disturbs me. Now I work from office and feeling more happy. Talking to real people instead of Zoom call and going out to grab some lunch uplifts my mood

erikerikson 6y ago

Comparing a parent's in-office productivity to WFH productivity while providing childcare strikes me as oblivious. Clearly parents aren't the entire workforce but we're not a minor portion either.

jeeeb 6y ago

One thing I think is worth considering is the effect of living spaces on WFH enjoyment/productivity. There’s a lot less living space in the typical Japanese house/apartment compared to the much of the west. A lot of the apartments young people live in in the cities are little more than bedrooms with a kitchen area and unit bathroom attached, often with poor natural lighting to boot. That wouldn’t be a pleasant space to work months on end in. I lived for a number of years in a “2DK” (2x rooms + dining/kitchen) apartment in Tokyo. While a reasonable size by Tokyo standards, frankly it was small and cramped. I can’t imagine really enjoying WFH there. Comparatively, I now live in Australia in a house with about 4x the floor area of that apartment. WFH here is great - I can start the day at the dining table while eating breakfast, move to my study during the day and then when I feel like a change I can move to the couch in the afternoon. I could even sit in the garden if I wanted. It’s a great environment for focusing on a particular task. We’re doing 3 days in the office currently and I’m pushing to maintain that - office for collaboration and team building, home for focusing. In Japan in comparison the current discussion seems to be about more people moving to the regions. That helps solve the living space problem but makes in office collaboration harder. It will be interesting to see if the trend sticks.

em-bee 6y ago
this! also japanese work culture: don't go home until the boss leaves, which more or less translates to people being used to working under oversight, and more likely to stop working if the oversight goes away.

anotherevan 6y ago

"You are not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work."

NalNezumi 6y ago

I don't know if "evidence from Japan" should at all be used as some example for the rest of the world. This is after all a country that is still today, using FAX machines in certain institutes. (although I've never seen one) There's two things that makes WFH productivity incomparable to west at least. One is the ridiculously small homes majority of (young) Japanese have to live in; if you suddenly have to WFH in that house your living room, bed room, eating/cooking room + WFH office all becomes one 10-20sqm shared space. Expecting one to be productive here is kind of ludicrous. Second is the low digitization + old, conservative work culture. Low digitization means the old-school work culture can't adapt to remote work, and most people either do commute anyway (Lockdown in Japan is not legally enforceable) or just have to work in a unproductive structure to start with.

ddevault 6y ago

I would strongly recommend against generalizing a study about WFH in Japan to the rest of the world. Japan's working culture is unique (and uniquely fucked up). WFH is severely stigmatized, and even working from the office is entirely unlike what western workers are likely to be used to for most Japanese employees. 80+ hour work weeks are the norm, and the productivity does not reflect the time spent. It's common to sleep at your desk or on the train just to have the appearance of being more committed to the company. Working for many Japanese companies is more like a lifestyle than a job. It can occupy your entire waking life.

gfxgirl 6y ago

While certain tech companies say they haven't seen a reduction in performance via WFH, all my game dev friends say performance/velocity is 1/2 to 1/4th speed with WFH. Their thinking is that game devs (artists, game designers, programmers) need to collaborate, to adjust something and then call to their colleagues "how's this feel?" etc...

amir734jj 6y ago

There should be a poll in HN to see who likes working from home over working in the office. For me personally, I love working from home. The company I work for offers free lunch but the quality is terrible but the management usually invites you to a lunch meeting so I have to eat the unhealthy food. Not to mention ping pong after lunch, useless meetings and mandatory greetings (hello, how was your weekend, happy Monday, happy Friday) and etc.

pdimitar 6y ago

It's not exactly mind-blowing to see that the working populace that's under the influence of extremely dogmatic bosses had a hard time readjusting to a work format that's completely foreign to them -- especially that one exact format that is widely frowned upon there, with their culture of 16h workdays and whatnot. Japan, for all the unexplained praise it gets in some media outlets, has been widely reported to be one of the worst places in the world in terms of a work-life balance. Nobody can generalize an entire country of course, but bad working conditions seem to be the default state of things there (I have several acquaintances and they all left Japan a year or so later after they started getting pressured into almost sleeping in the office). Add to that that their office culture seems centered on interruptions, the much-hated by us the devs technique of "patting you on the shoulder to check how you're progressing", and the idolization of time spent in the office as opposed to "what did you actually do?", and I could have told you that productivity as Japanese understand it took a dive. And as the currently top comment states, measuring WFH in conditions when most employees have no choice but to accept it makes for warped and likely non-objective metrics.