7 ms·

> A survey late last year of 9,000 knowledge workers commissioned by workplace chat software company Slack found 20% want to work remotely, 17% in the office an

by colmvp 6y ago

> A survey late last year of 9,000 knowledge workers commissioned by workplace chat software company Slack found 20% want to work remotely, 17% in the office and 63% a mix of the two. That's pretty much where I'm at. I like the idea of hopping into the office maybe once or twice a week to interact with my co-workers, but otherwise I'm extremely productive at home especially without having to endure the 1-2 hours commute. I joined a company last last year and they moved to this hybrid model once they found there was practically no efficiency loss with respect to moving everyone to remote. But some people still missed going into the office so they re-opened their physical offices albeit at limited capacity.

dominotw 6y ago
> once they found there was practically no efficiency loss how did they measure this?
- chanc3e 6y ago
  From my perspective we measured by deadlines missed/hit. We hit all, so no measurable loss on productivity.
  - tomrod 6y ago
    There was certainly a productivity per hour worked hit, as people replaced their commutes or more with screen time. Folks are overall more productive, yes, but at a cost of more hours worked. The marginal productivity and its rate of improvement is not as high. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-global-productivity-slump-what-policies-to-rekindle/%3famp?espv=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-...
    - boring_twenties 6y ago
      Even if that's true, I'd certainly rather spend N hours a day programming than N-2 hours programming plus 2 hours commuting.
      - midasuni 6y ago
        You spent n-2 hours a day before? Productively?
        boring_twenties 6y ago
        Pick any value of N that you like. Commuting time definitely subtracted from my productive time.
      - tomrod 6y ago
        Very few people translated commuting into working. Whereas before you had N-2 hours working, many folks now have N+M, M>0.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    Nice. Should be interesting to experiment with 4 day workweek next.
    - kilbuz 6y ago
      Let's use binary search instead :)
burlesona 6y ago
This is mostly how I feel as well. However, I wonder how well the hybrid office thing will work out in practice. Specifically, if you’re in the 63% of people who want to “pop into the office sometimes,” and you come in on some random Tuesday.... is anyone else even there? It seems like the probability of seeing the people you want to see by chance (when 83% are either always or usually remote) is very low. So my guess is that for the hybrid thing to still have the social aspect of office work it probably needs to be paired with a policy like “we all come to work on Tuesdays.” But if you do that then the all-remote crowd isn’t getting what they want (they still need to live in travel range if they have to be in the office once a week). So the alternative is to do something more like “we all come to the office for one week every quarter,” and in that case it’s more of a company retreat than normal work. So as I said, I’m curious how things will unfold as life opens back up. My best guess is we’ll end up converging on 2-4 different archetypical models which will become part of a company’s identity and recruiting pitch, and people will self select into the work style they prefer.
- drstewart 6y ago
  I think many (most) places will return to in-office by default with a permissive WFH system, so you can choose to WFH on any given day with no/minimal notice. Places that are remote first by default - a category which will continue growing - will have minimal to no in-office component.
- ipaddr 6y ago
  I went through the process before covid. Your personal desks go away replaced with work stations / long tables where anyone can dock. It become more like a school libruary where everyone is working on different things . Then you have these community meetings every few months where everyone comes in for a meeting but there are not enough work stations so everyone just hangs around until people trickle home.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Honestly that sounds amazing. Just to be able to run around and get appointments or errands done during the day avoiding traffic and work a little longer at home has been a godsend.
scj 6y ago
One note I have about numbers like these... Is the question phrased in a way that distinguishes between "working remotely as you have during COVID times" vs. "working remotely post-COVID" I think it's important to distinguish that in the mind of the responder. At the very least, get people thinking in terms of "What would WFH be like if the kids were at school much of the day?" or "What would WFH be like if we could meet with friends at 17:30?" or whatever. What we've experienced over the last year is far less social, and far more stressful than what WFH could be. Personally, I'd like to WFH most of the time, with sprint & release planning sessions in person.
- packetlost 6y ago
  For me, it probably depends on if I have the option to go to a cafe and how nice my home office is. Right now, I'm stuck in my bedroom basically 24 hours a day because I have roommates (1 of which also works from home) and don't have room to move outside of my bedroom. This is extremely depressing. I absolutely hate it and I'd say I'm probably operating at 60% productivity or less and have been for most of the last year. But, I'm moving in May and will at least have my desk not in my bedroom. Even then, I'd rather be in person for most meetings. I think it's extremely important to have face-to-face communication the majority of the time both for social reasons, but also because it's just more efficient. Understanding on what the team is doing over the last year has dropped significantly as well, and the (remote) barriers to communication are real and have a larger than I think people realize impact.
  - midasuni 6y ago
    So you want other people to go to the office to deliver your preference for face to face meetings? Your company has to pay for desk space and for meeting space?
    - packetlost 6y ago
      > So you want other people to go to the office to deliver your preference for face to face meetings? Yes, I think that's an entirely reasonable expectation to be the norm. It's what was the norm/expectation when I started and I do not see a reason that should change. My boss has said that it will most likely be the expectation once it's safe to return to the office, so I am not alone. > Your company has to pay for desk space and for meeting space? Yes, actually. They aren't paying for my home office and it wasn't an expectation in the original employment contract. Further, we work with specialized scientific hardware. We need the space anyway.
rconti 6y ago
I'm afraid of "partial" WFH meaning that I have a schedule opposite others, and there are many people I simply never see. I tend to be a fairly black-and-white thinker, so it's easier to envision 100% office or 100% WFH, and harder to get my head around a mixed arrangement. Particularly if that mixed arrangement means I don't have my 'own' desk and equipment in the office. That said, even though I've done WFH in bits and pieces here and there, I've enjoyed WFH this past year a lot more than I thought I would. I'm thinking of my post-Covid schedule being in the office tues-thurs, so that I still have a consistent block of time where I'm going in "every day" for a few days, rather than every other day.

by colmvp 6y ago

dominotw 6y ago

> once they found there was practically no efficiency loss how did they measure this?

chanc3e 6y ago
From my perspective we measured by deadlines missed/hit. We hit all, so no measurable loss on productivity.
- tomrod 6y ago
  There was certainly a productivity per hour worked hit, as people replaced their commutes or more with screen time. Folks are overall more productive, yes, but at a cost of more hours worked. The marginal productivity and its rate of improvement is not as high. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-global-productivity-slump-what-policies-to-rekindle/%3famp?espv=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-...
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    Even if that's true, I'd certainly rather spend N hours a day programming than N-2 hours programming plus 2 hours commuting.
    - midasuni 6y ago
      You spent n-2 hours a day before? Productively?
      - boring_twenties 6y ago
        Pick any value of N that you like. Commuting time definitely subtracted from my productive time.
    - tomrod 6y ago
      Very few people translated commuting into working. Whereas before you had N-2 hours working, many folks now have N+M, M>0.
- dominotw 6y ago
  Nice. Should be interesting to experiment with 4 day workweek next.
  - kilbuz 6y ago
    Let's use binary search instead :)

burlesona 6y ago

This is mostly how I feel as well. However, I wonder how well the hybrid office thing will work out in practice. Specifically, if you’re in the 63% of people who want to “pop into the office sometimes,” and you come in on some random Tuesday.... is anyone else even there? It seems like the probability of seeing the people you want to see by chance (when 83% are either always or usually remote) is very low. So my guess is that for the hybrid thing to still have the social aspect of office work it probably needs to be paired with a policy like “we all come to work on Tuesdays.” But if you do that then the all-remote crowd isn’t getting what they want (they still need to live in travel range if they have to be in the office once a week). So the alternative is to do something more like “we all come to the office for one week every quarter,” and in that case it’s more of a company retreat than normal work. So as I said, I’m curious how things will unfold as life opens back up. My best guess is we’ll end up converging on 2-4 different archetypical models which will become part of a company’s identity and recruiting pitch, and people will self select into the work style they prefer.

drstewart 6y ago
I think many (most) places will return to in-office by default with a permissive WFH system, so you can choose to WFH on any given day with no/minimal notice. Places that are remote first by default - a category which will continue growing - will have minimal to no in-office component.
ipaddr 6y ago
I went through the process before covid. Your personal desks go away replaced with work stations / long tables where anyone can dock. It become more like a school libruary where everyone is working on different things . Then you have these community meetings every few months where everyone comes in for a meeting but there are not enough work stations so everyone just hangs around until people trickle home.
- asdff 6y ago
  Honestly that sounds amazing. Just to be able to run around and get appointments or errands done during the day avoiding traffic and work a little longer at home has been a godsend.

scj 6y ago

One note I have about numbers like these... Is the question phrased in a way that distinguishes between "working remotely as you have during COVID times" vs. "working remotely post-COVID" I think it's important to distinguish that in the mind of the responder. At the very least, get people thinking in terms of "What would WFH be like if the kids were at school much of the day?" or "What would WFH be like if we could meet with friends at 17:30?" or whatever. What we've experienced over the last year is far less social, and far more stressful than what WFH could be. Personally, I'd like to WFH most of the time, with sprint & release planning sessions in person.

packetlost 6y ago
For me, it probably depends on if I have the option to go to a cafe and how nice my home office is. Right now, I'm stuck in my bedroom basically 24 hours a day because I have roommates (1 of which also works from home) and don't have room to move outside of my bedroom. This is extremely depressing. I absolutely hate it and I'd say I'm probably operating at 60% productivity or less and have been for most of the last year. But, I'm moving in May and will at least have my desk not in my bedroom. Even then, I'd rather be in person for most meetings. I think it's extremely important to have face-to-face communication the majority of the time both for social reasons, but also because it's just more efficient. Understanding on what the team is doing over the last year has dropped significantly as well, and the (remote) barriers to communication are real and have a larger than I think people realize impact.
- midasuni 6y ago
  So you want other people to go to the office to deliver your preference for face to face meetings? Your company has to pay for desk space and for meeting space?
  - packetlost 6y ago
    > So you want other people to go to the office to deliver your preference for face to face meetings? Yes, I think that's an entirely reasonable expectation to be the norm. It's what was the norm/expectation when I started and I do not see a reason that should change. My boss has said that it will most likely be the expectation once it's safe to return to the office, so I am not alone. > Your company has to pay for desk space and for meeting space? Yes, actually. They aren't paying for my home office and it wasn't an expectation in the original employment contract. Further, we work with specialized scientific hardware. We need the space anyway.

rconti 6y ago

I'm afraid of "partial" WFH meaning that I have a schedule opposite others, and there are many people I simply never see. I tend to be a fairly black-and-white thinker, so it's easier to envision 100% office or 100% WFH, and harder to get my head around a mixed arrangement. Particularly if that mixed arrangement means I don't have my 'own' desk and equipment in the office. That said, even though I've done WFH in bits and pieces here and there, I've enjoyed WFH this past year a lot more than I thought I would. I'm thinking of my post-Covid schedule being in the office tues-thurs, so that I still have a consistent block of time where I'm going in "every day" for a few days, rather than every other day.