12 ms·

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around work. Ninja Edit: Google has already announced their return to work plans, which involves substantially returning to physical office spaces. From early April: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/04/01/google-wants-workers-to-return-to-the-office-ahead-of-schedule-this-looks-like-a-blow-to-the-remote-work-trend/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/04/01/google-wan...

jedberg 6y ago
Those parents may be a lot more productive once their kids go back to in person school and after school activities that keep them away from 8-5.
- dougbarrett 6y ago
  Maybe for older kids that are involved in extracurricular activities, but for younger kids that won't be the case. With a 4 year old starting pre-k this fall, I'll be lucky to have a distraction free work environment from 9-2 daily.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Pre-pandemic I had a 2 and 4 year old. The 4 year old was gone all day between 9 and 2 MWF for preschool, and we had a nanny the rest of the time. I suspect post-pandemic it will be similar. Someone who works at Google can probably afford a nanny. It's just because people aren't comfortable with others in their home right now that it's a problem.
    - aaronblohowiak 6y ago
      There is a huge nanny crunch / there are much longer lead times for high-end nannies now..
jaegerpicker 6y ago
I can assure you that a much larger cohort of employees are vastly more effective. No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.
- _vertigo 6y ago
  Eh, I'm not so sure. As the parent said, time will tell.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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- Cookingboy 6y ago
  I can assure you all these "assurances" are just based off personal preferences and anecdotal stories. There are pros and cons with office work and WFH, and some people prefer one over the other. A full remote arrangement isn't for everyone, despite how the overwhelming number of introverts on HackerNews paint it as the objectively the best way going forward for all companies.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't frame the community as being on one side of a divisive issue (invariably, the side the commenter disagrees with). It's a trope of lame discussion. You can make your case for the view you think is correct without that. The community is divided on divisive issues. It's as simple as that.
  - briandear 6y ago
    You can use anecdotal stories or, you can look at quarterly earnings. That’s how one can objectively measure how productive a company is. If the earnings are there, it’s hard to prove that remote is, a least, a hindrance to productivity.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    Most employers don't give workers a choice when it comes to open floor plan. And yet everyone sucked it up and did it to pay the bills. My point is this: If you have to be effective working remotely you will be effective working remotely.
deleted 6y ago
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furyofantares 6y ago
Parents being less effective would be due to kids being at home, not due to wfh. It's not much of a distinction when it's all due to covid, but long-term the distinction matters for people who go back to out-of-home childcare/education but continue to wfh.
throwaway122378 6y ago
The majority of employees and google as a whole is more productive. Their stock is up 80% in the last 12 months. Do you have a better indicator of productivity correlated to p&l?
paxys 6y ago
I'm sure some employees are less effective from home and others are the opposite. Looking at their earnings reports from the last few quarters, though, it is pretty clear that the company itself is reaping massive benefits from the pandemic and WFH culture.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Google's product hasn't noticeably changed at all during the pandemic. They're making more money because people are spending more time on the internet and advertisers are switching funding from traditional forms to internet ads.
- EvilEy3 6y ago
  Pandemic, not WFH.
sjg007 6y ago
I disagree. Also most projects are distributed across multiple sites and orgs. In person meetings were always team based and guess what they still are wfh. You lose serendipity and cross pollination but I don’t think companies actually optimize for that. I mean it’s not an OKR nor performance goal.
- lukeschlather 6y ago
  My company has OKRs directly focused around improving serendipity and cross pollination lost due to Covid WFH.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    What have teams been doing to hit those OKRs? How are they measured?
    - lukeschlather 6y ago
      Our people team is in charge of organizing things. Some of it is intangibles like encouraging more communication on Slack, others are more concrete like setting up time to connect people who might not otherwise connect.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Your company is making up fairy tales to support a narrative.
    - lukeschlather 6y ago
      I shudder to live in a world where no one tells fairy tales.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Fairy tales in good faith and with positive intent are always welcome.
reportingsjr 6y ago
100% this. There are some loud people trying to say the opposite, but a lot of places have had productivity tank. I was talking to someone at a large financial company (think 10s of thousands of employees). Their workplace productivity went through the floor when things went work from home. They were willing to allow work from home for now to keep people safe, but will not be continuing in the future due to the efficiency loss. A lot of people don't want to hear this, but it's the truth. Work from home where I work has been kind of awful from a communication and camaraderie standpoint, even though the company was already rather heavily invested in remote work, Google chat, etc.
- sodapopcan 6y ago
  This totally depends. My experience has been that my team is way more effective since work from home (we even work less hours) but that doesn’t mean other teams have the same experience.
- pfundstein 6y ago
  No, I think the truth is that it varies. A counter anecdote is my own example: Our team of network, software and systems engineers has seen productivity increase over the past year of wfh - albeit with casual access to the office and labs.
deleted 6y ago
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zem 6y ago
on the other hand i feel vastly more productive with not spending 2-3 hours every day commuting. i will miss wfh, even though being around my teammates is nice for other reasons.
dcolkitt 6y ago
I'm a parent, who does WFH, and definitely disagree about the preferability of office work. Sure my kids will occasionally pop their heads in the door to say hello. I guess that's an occasional distraction, which has some small productivity cost. You know what hurts productivity more? The soul-crushing experience of missing out on watching your kids grow up because you're spending all day in an office or commuting. If you work from 9-6, and commute an hour each way, that basically means you hardly see your kids at all five days out of the week. That level of depression and alienation is going to do far more to hurt output. By comparison, the productivity impact of taking five minutes to give my daughter a kiss before she takes a nap is a de minims by comparison. The people I work with are all great and interesting people. But frankly, I'd infinitely prefer to spend my lunch hour and coffee breaks and happy hours with my wife and kids. This may just be my preference, but I don't see how anyone with kids could actually prefer being alienated in an office instead of at home with their loved ones.
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  > Sure my kids will occasionally pop their heads in the door to say hello. I guess that's an occasional distraction, which has some small productivity cost. Surely not a bigger productivity cost than a coworker doing the same thing, though.
  - decodebytes 6y ago
    I would even say a less, my kids will often have a specific ask 'can I watch some TV' where I can reply 'yes/no/later/that's really good/bad' and then its done. A co-worker will sometimes not even have a specific ask, but are instead looking for some idle chat.
- bradlys 6y ago
  > If you work from 9-6, and commute an hour each way, that basically means you hardly see your kids at all five days out of the week. So live closer to work. Google pays enough for people to do that. The schools are usually better too.
wuliwong 6y ago
I am personally itching to get back into the office, at least a couple days a week. But, my team has been super productive throughout the pandemic and as of the last time we all chatted about it, I was really the only one who was concerned about getting back to the office. I do not work for Google, btw. Just experience from another tech company.
briandear 6y ago
Going to argue against this as a theme. I work for an extremely huge consumer electronics company based in a zip code not far from Google; my org has been remote for over a year and in that time, we’ve had significant productivity. Most people are claiming to be far more productive since many people had 2 hour daily commutes. Also, our company is so secretive that “water color” innovation isn’t particularly a thing. Since we all have private offices in my org due to confidentiality needs, the only real face to face is in meetings. Meeting where we sit around a table and occasionally use a white board. Most people that work for this company aren’t joining because they need an adult kindergarten (and we don’t get free food either, aside from vending machines.) I don’t care about free food or massages; with the appreciation of RSUs, buying that myself is barely a rounding error. I also saved tens of thousands being remote outside of California since I don’t have to pay resident income tax anymore. My house payment is less than half of what I paid for rent and I have about 3000 more square feet of house. My productivity is much higher because my mental health is much better. And my kids are in schools that have been open full time since August. Being “in” Silicon Valley is fun for a minute, but it’s a gimmick for the most part. I’m not having chance encounters with Tim Draper at the Palo Alto Starbucks raising millions over a latte and if I were to start a company, raising SV VC money would be the result of having something worth funding rather than my kid being on the same little league team with some investor’s kid. As far as “Silicon Valley” talent — that’s a myth. Companies didn’t start in SV because of the talent. They started because of that’s where they happened to live. The incentives that made SV great in the 1960s were killed off by politicians choking the golden goose.
- astrange 6y ago
  I do believe you got free dinner, but maybe not. > The incentives that made SV great in the 1960s were killed off by politicians choking the golden goose. Nah, it's still there. It will be there as long as California bans noncompete agreements. (California being expensive is not because of politicians, it's because the voters want it to be expensive so they can sell you their house.)
mohuddle 6y ago
Working from home has actually increased productivity for the two teams I manage. Far less waisted time with "drive by" coworkers. We're also more flexible with time off when needed. Add to that my ability to help around the house. Before I was basically absent from the house for 9-10 hours a day M-F. Now I can make my kids lunch, go on a walk with them, or sign off a little early and go to a park.
- deleted 6y ago
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comeonseriously 6y ago
> (especially parents!) Riiiiight... Kids are often not as big a distraction as the immature coworker(s) who can't be bothered to, you know, shut up and actually work.
- sethammons 6y ago
  My desk was near the ping pong table for a while. shudders
zacharycohn 6y ago
WFH during a global health crisis != WFH
jp0d 6y ago
That's just nonsense. Australia has had one of the harshest lockdown measures in the developed world and we're quite Corona free at the moment. We're living in our own little bubble. Everyone who could, had to work from home during the lockdown. Everyone else was supported by a salary equivalent payment from the govt. Now, people are back at work. But when it can be done from home, most people are still choosing to do it that way. And we're haven't lost any productivity. Rather gained more due to savings in commuting time. Also, as our lives get easier, we're more grateful because of it and the overall positivity definitely helps with productivity. I've been lucky to work for a company that promotes this more. Even after everything is normal, no one is being forced to come back to the office. Because it doesn't matter. We get the same thing done more effectively. You're right about one thing. I'm also itching to get back to work. I do that once or twice a week. Mostly to catch up with mates and grab some lunch together.
- mcbain 6y ago
  I think it will be interesting to see how some of the companies in Australia with head offices in the US go over the next year. There are signs from the FANG (well “GA” here, the rest effectively don’t exist) will push for people back in offices. On the flip side Atlassian just came out and said the reverse. https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/four-times-a-year-in-the-office-atlassian-goes-all-in-on-wfh-20210428-p57n4w.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/four-times-a-...
  - a2tech 6y ago
    Microsoft has also said that they're envisioning a permanent work from home setup. Some people I know just gave up their apartment in Washington and moved to our small city in the midwest because even after MS adjusted his salary down he's coming out way ahead.
    - jp0d 6y ago
      I don't see why MS would adjust his salary. He is still doing the exact same work. If anything he is paying the rent, electricity and internet bills that MS otherwise would pay for him! Am I missing something? I understand that living costs could be lower in his small city. But how is that MS's concern. He get's paid for his work/talent! It's not an attack on your statement. I'm genuinely curious.
somesoftdev 6y ago
That's probably a case-by-case scenario but the last year has been a struggle for me. I much more prefer my usual 30m commute over working from our 45m2 apartment with my wife doing the same, my daughter attending online classes and few apartments in my building being renovated during work hours. Man, I miss my office and my desk.
DannyBee 6y ago
As someone else says in the thread, all these "assurances" are based on combinations personal preference and anecdote. I am overall responsible for the team that produces and figures out developer productivity metrics for Google. I can assure you there is lots and lots of real data on this, so there isn't a lot of need for random supposition based on people's desires (WFH vs not) and biases. There are too many comments in this thread to read every single one, but most suppositions i read seemed just to reflect biases and personal preferences rather than any real data. It's IMHO a little odd to see people assume that any really successful tech company is not going to be able to figure out and succeed at maintaining whatever overall level of productivity they want (IE pre-covid, pre-covid-50%, pre-covid+50%). The ability to adapt and be productive/effective in changing conditions is often one of the things that makes companies successful in the first place. The thing that is much harder to fix is stuff like personal well being.
- notbitter 6y ago
  Care to share some of that real data? You're right about the haze of wishful thinking around the issue and seem to be in a position to clear it up a bit. You can infer something about the value of face time from the universal FAANG commitment to centralized HQs, despite the huge costs of this policy.
  - DannyBee 6y ago
    Here's a longer answer: I actually really wish i could (and other companies could), because I think it would make for some really interesting papers/studies/etc. We normally publish a bunch of our productivity, inclusion, etc research in journals and conferences. For example, https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/ts/5555/01/09361116/1rseRl0gaA0 https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/ts/5555/01/09361116/1r... For this particular topic, I believe we have published some small amount of stuff, and there is some public info in articles like this: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/how-google-improved-employee-productivity-during-covid-19-pandemic.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/how-google-improved-employee... But I know for both us, and others i've talked to, there is a bunch of good reasons folks don't want to publish the more raw data, some privacy, some competitive, some legal, etc. In this case, not releasing the data often means we don't publish more formal papers or studies because of the inability to make the underlying data available with the paper (for example). I will say while this situation is a bit sad to me from an academic perspective, pragmatically, even with all the data from us, MS, apple, etc, i don't think it would pragmatically answer the broader questions for a whole ton of reasons. It's definitely useful for research and further exploration, and trying to distill overall considerations and insight. It's probably useful on the internet to spike someone who says "WFH is more productive" or "Office is more productive". But it also won't tell you what the future of work should be for your company.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> vastly less effective (especially parents!) ... A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office Well... are they really itching to get back into the office, or just itching for day cares to open back up?

jedberg 6y ago

Those parents may be a lot more productive once their kids go back to in person school and after school activities that keep them away from 8-5.

dougbarrett 6y ago
Maybe for older kids that are involved in extracurricular activities, but for younger kids that won't be the case. With a 4 year old starting pre-k this fall, I'll be lucky to have a distraction free work environment from 9-2 daily.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Pre-pandemic I had a 2 and 4 year old. The 4 year old was gone all day between 9 and 2 MWF for preschool, and we had a nanny the rest of the time. I suspect post-pandemic it will be similar. Someone who works at Google can probably afford a nanny. It's just because people aren't comfortable with others in their home right now that it's a problem.
  - aaronblohowiak 6y ago
    There is a huge nanny crunch / there are much longer lead times for high-end nannies now..

jaegerpicker 6y ago

I can assure you that a much larger cohort of employees are vastly more effective. No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.

_vertigo 6y ago
Eh, I'm not so sure. As the parent said, time will tell.
deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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Cookingboy 6y ago
I can assure you all these "assurances" are just based off personal preferences and anecdotal stories. There are pros and cons with office work and WFH, and some people prefer one over the other. A full remote arrangement isn't for everyone, despite how the overwhelming number of introverts on HackerNews paint it as the objectively the best way going forward for all companies.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't frame the community as being on one side of a divisive issue (invariably, the side the commenter disagrees with). It's a trope of lame discussion. You can make your case for the view you think is correct without that. The community is divided on divisive issues. It's as simple as that.
- briandear 6y ago
  You can use anecdotal stories or, you can look at quarterly earnings. That’s how one can objectively measure how productive a company is. If the earnings are there, it’s hard to prove that remote is, a least, a hindrance to productivity.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  Most employers don't give workers a choice when it comes to open floor plan. And yet everyone sucked it up and did it to pay the bills. My point is this: If you have to be effective working remotely you will be effective working remotely.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

furyofantares 6y ago

Parents being less effective would be due to kids being at home, not due to wfh. It's not much of a distinction when it's all due to covid, but long-term the distinction matters for people who go back to out-of-home childcare/education but continue to wfh.

throwaway122378 6y ago

The majority of employees and google as a whole is more productive. Their stock is up 80% in the last 12 months. Do you have a better indicator of productivity correlated to p&l?

paxys 6y ago

I'm sure some employees are less effective from home and others are the opposite. Looking at their earnings reports from the last few quarters, though, it is pretty clear that the company itself is reaping massive benefits from the pandemic and WFH culture.

colinmhayes 6y ago
Google's product hasn't noticeably changed at all during the pandemic. They're making more money because people are spending more time on the internet and advertisers are switching funding from traditional forms to internet ads.
EvilEy3 6y ago
Pandemic, not WFH.

sjg007 6y ago

I disagree. Also most projects are distributed across multiple sites and orgs. In person meetings were always team based and guess what they still are wfh. You lose serendipity and cross pollination but I don’t think companies actually optimize for that. I mean it’s not an OKR nor performance goal.

lukeschlather 6y ago
My company has OKRs directly focused around improving serendipity and cross pollination lost due to Covid WFH.
- walterbell 6y ago
  What have teams been doing to hit those OKRs? How are they measured?
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    Our people team is in charge of organizing things. Some of it is intangibles like encouraging more communication on Slack, others are more concrete like setting up time to connect people who might not otherwise connect.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Your company is making up fairy tales to support a narrative.
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    I shudder to live in a world where no one tells fairy tales.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Fairy tales in good faith and with positive intent are always welcome.

reportingsjr 6y ago

100% this. There are some loud people trying to say the opposite, but a lot of places have had productivity tank. I was talking to someone at a large financial company (think 10s of thousands of employees). Their workplace productivity went through the floor when things went work from home. They were willing to allow work from home for now to keep people safe, but will not be continuing in the future due to the efficiency loss. A lot of people don't want to hear this, but it's the truth. Work from home where I work has been kind of awful from a communication and camaraderie standpoint, even though the company was already rather heavily invested in remote work, Google chat, etc.

sodapopcan 6y ago
This totally depends. My experience has been that my team is way more effective since work from home (we even work less hours) but that doesn’t mean other teams have the same experience.
pfundstein 6y ago
No, I think the truth is that it varies. A counter anecdote is my own example: Our team of network, software and systems engineers has seen productivity increase over the past year of wfh - albeit with casual access to the office and labs.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

zem 6y ago

on the other hand i feel vastly more productive with not spending 2-3 hours every day commuting. i will miss wfh, even though being around my teammates is nice for other reasons.

dcolkitt 6y ago

I'm a parent, who does WFH, and definitely disagree about the preferability of office work. Sure my kids will occasionally pop their heads in the door to say hello. I guess that's an occasional distraction, which has some small productivity cost. You know what hurts productivity more? The soul-crushing experience of missing out on watching your kids grow up because you're spending all day in an office or commuting. If you work from 9-6, and commute an hour each way, that basically means you hardly see your kids at all five days out of the week. That level of depression and alienation is going to do far more to hurt output. By comparison, the productivity impact of taking five minutes to give my daughter a kiss before she takes a nap is a de minims by comparison. The people I work with are all great and interesting people. But frankly, I'd infinitely prefer to spend my lunch hour and coffee breaks and happy hours with my wife and kids. This may just be my preference, but I don't see how anyone with kids could actually prefer being alienated in an office instead of at home with their loved ones.

bluefirebrand 6y ago
> Sure my kids will occasionally pop their heads in the door to say hello. I guess that's an occasional distraction, which has some small productivity cost. Surely not a bigger productivity cost than a coworker doing the same thing, though.
- decodebytes 6y ago
  I would even say a less, my kids will often have a specific ask 'can I watch some TV' where I can reply 'yes/no/later/that's really good/bad' and then its done. A co-worker will sometimes not even have a specific ask, but are instead looking for some idle chat.
bradlys 6y ago
> If you work from 9-6, and commute an hour each way, that basically means you hardly see your kids at all five days out of the week. So live closer to work. Google pays enough for people to do that. The schools are usually better too.

wuliwong 6y ago

I am personally itching to get back into the office, at least a couple days a week. But, my team has been super productive throughout the pandemic and as of the last time we all chatted about it, I was really the only one who was concerned about getting back to the office. I do not work for Google, btw. Just experience from another tech company.

briandear 6y ago

Going to argue against this as a theme. I work for an extremely huge consumer electronics company based in a zip code not far from Google; my org has been remote for over a year and in that time, we’ve had significant productivity. Most people are claiming to be far more productive since many people had 2 hour daily commutes. Also, our company is so secretive that “water color” innovation isn’t particularly a thing. Since we all have private offices in my org due to confidentiality needs, the only real face to face is in meetings. Meeting where we sit around a table and occasionally use a white board. Most people that work for this company aren’t joining because they need an adult kindergarten (and we don’t get free food either, aside from vending machines.) I don’t care about free food or massages; with the appreciation of RSUs, buying that myself is barely a rounding error. I also saved tens of thousands being remote outside of California since I don’t have to pay resident income tax anymore. My house payment is less than half of what I paid for rent and I have about 3000 more square feet of house. My productivity is much higher because my mental health is much better. And my kids are in schools that have been open full time since August. Being “in” Silicon Valley is fun for a minute, but it’s a gimmick for the most part. I’m not having chance encounters with Tim Draper at the Palo Alto Starbucks raising millions over a latte and if I were to start a company, raising SV VC money would be the result of having something worth funding rather than my kid being on the same little league team with some investor’s kid. As far as “Silicon Valley” talent — that’s a myth. Companies didn’t start in SV because of the talent. They started because of that’s where they happened to live. The incentives that made SV great in the 1960s were killed off by politicians choking the golden goose.

astrange 6y ago
I do believe you got free dinner, but maybe not. > The incentives that made SV great in the 1960s were killed off by politicians choking the golden goose. Nah, it's still there. It will be there as long as California bans noncompete agreements. (California being expensive is not because of politicians, it's because the voters want it to be expensive so they can sell you their house.)

mohuddle 6y ago

Working from home has actually increased productivity for the two teams I manage. Far less waisted time with "drive by" coworkers. We're also more flexible with time off when needed. Add to that my ability to help around the house. Before I was basically absent from the house for 9-10 hours a day M-F. Now I can make my kids lunch, go on a walk with them, or sign off a little early and go to a park.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

comeonseriously 6y ago

> (especially parents!) Riiiiight... Kids are often not as big a distraction as the immature coworker(s) who can't be bothered to, you know, shut up and actually work.

sethammons 6y ago
My desk was near the ping pong table for a while. shudders

zacharycohn 6y ago

WFH during a global health crisis != WFH

jp0d 6y ago

That's just nonsense. Australia has had one of the harshest lockdown measures in the developed world and we're quite Corona free at the moment. We're living in our own little bubble. Everyone who could, had to work from home during the lockdown. Everyone else was supported by a salary equivalent payment from the govt. Now, people are back at work. But when it can be done from home, most people are still choosing to do it that way. And we're haven't lost any productivity. Rather gained more due to savings in commuting time. Also, as our lives get easier, we're more grateful because of it and the overall positivity definitely helps with productivity. I've been lucky to work for a company that promotes this more. Even after everything is normal, no one is being forced to come back to the office. Because it doesn't matter. We get the same thing done more effectively. You're right about one thing. I'm also itching to get back to work. I do that once or twice a week. Mostly to catch up with mates and grab some lunch together.

mcbain 6y ago
I think it will be interesting to see how some of the companies in Australia with head offices in the US go over the next year. There are signs from the FANG (well “GA” here, the rest effectively don’t exist) will push for people back in offices. On the flip side Atlassian just came out and said the reverse. https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/four-times-a-year-in-the-office-atlassian-goes-all-in-on-wfh-20210428-p57n4w.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/four-times-a-...
- a2tech 6y ago
  Microsoft has also said that they're envisioning a permanent work from home setup. Some people I know just gave up their apartment in Washington and moved to our small city in the midwest because even after MS adjusted his salary down he's coming out way ahead.
  - jp0d 6y ago
    I don't see why MS would adjust his salary. He is still doing the exact same work. If anything he is paying the rent, electricity and internet bills that MS otherwise would pay for him! Am I missing something? I understand that living costs could be lower in his small city. But how is that MS's concern. He get's paid for his work/talent! It's not an attack on your statement. I'm genuinely curious.

somesoftdev 6y ago

That's probably a case-by-case scenario but the last year has been a struggle for me. I much more prefer my usual 30m commute over working from our 45m2 apartment with my wife doing the same, my daughter attending online classes and few apartments in my building being renovated during work hours. Man, I miss my office and my desk.

DannyBee 6y ago

As someone else says in the thread, all these "assurances" are based on combinations personal preference and anecdote. I am overall responsible for the team that produces and figures out developer productivity metrics for Google. I can assure you there is lots and lots of real data on this, so there isn't a lot of need for random supposition based on people's desires (WFH vs not) and biases. There are too many comments in this thread to read every single one, but most suppositions i read seemed just to reflect biases and personal preferences rather than any real data. It's IMHO a little odd to see people assume that any really successful tech company is not going to be able to figure out and succeed at maintaining whatever overall level of productivity they want (IE pre-covid, pre-covid-50%, pre-covid+50%). The ability to adapt and be productive/effective in changing conditions is often one of the things that makes companies successful in the first place. The thing that is much harder to fix is stuff like personal well being.

notbitter 6y ago
Care to share some of that real data? You're right about the haze of wishful thinking around the issue and seem to be in a position to clear it up a bit. You can infer something about the value of face time from the universal FAANG commitment to centralized HQs, despite the huge costs of this policy.
- DannyBee 6y ago
  Here's a longer answer: I actually really wish i could (and other companies could), because I think it would make for some really interesting papers/studies/etc. We normally publish a bunch of our productivity, inclusion, etc research in journals and conferences. For example, https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/ts/5555/01/09361116/1rseRl0gaA0 https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/ts/5555/01/09361116/1r... For this particular topic, I believe we have published some small amount of stuff, and there is some public info in articles like this: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/how-google-improved-employee-productivity-during-covid-19-pandemic.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/how-google-improved-employee... But I know for both us, and others i've talked to, there is a bunch of good reasons folks don't want to publish the more raw data, some privacy, some competitive, some legal, etc. In this case, not releasing the data often means we don't publish more formal papers or studies because of the inability to make the underlying data available with the paper (for example). I will say while this situation is a bit sad to me from an academic perspective, pragmatically, even with all the data from us, MS, apple, etc, i don't think it would pragmatically answer the broader questions for a whole ton of reasons. It's definitely useful for research and further exploration, and trying to distill overall considerations and insight. It's probably useful on the internet to spike someone who says "WFH is more productive" or "Office is more productive". But it also won't tell you what the future of work should be for your company.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> vastly less effective (especially parents!) ... A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office Well... are they really itching to get back into the office, or just itching for day cares to open back up?