4 ms·

> has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces Curious, what are the outcomes?

foxpurple 5y ago
Replacing predictions with experienced reality. Seeing things continue as normal and at full pace while working from home which many expected was not possible. Our company was quite restrictive of working from home previously but after last year seeing that we had our most productive year ever, things loosened up a lot.
- ludamad 5y ago
  Does anyone have a convincing break-down of the overall economic effect? Remote has meant I sleep more (compared to a long commute). As well, my home has advantages - there's a dog here, patio access, etc. I think communication can be hard to do right, but I'm not sure if this resulted in more faults
magneticnorth 5y ago
I was mostly just referring to the fact that team/org/company productivity does not seem reduced compared to pre-pandemic times. As far as I know, no major tech company is dealing with more outages/incidents or slower product launches than they typically saw, unless their business model was directly impacted by spending pattern changes. I think most companies expected lower output from forced-all-remote teams but don't seem to be seeing it.
- ribosometronome 5y ago
  Wasn't the video game industry fairly impacted by the transition?
  - munk-a 5y ago
    The video game industry noticeably rolled back a number of release dates but I don't know if it's fair to attribute that to team productivity or just a combination of supply line issues (big name games tend to launch with merch and physical perks that definitely would be impacted) along with the cost and stress of dealing with the pandemic. We've got some confounded variables here so it's hard to tell.
    - jeremyjh 5y ago
      Delays in video game releases are highly visible. Many companies had regular schedules that were clearly and obviously disrupted. It would be far less visible in many other software sectors, at least in the short-term. How would I know if AWS launched 18 new services instead of 27 last year? Often new product features/releases are not announced until they are ready to ship.
    - resonious 5y ago
      I'm under the impression that video games are always crunching anyway, so maybe the pandemic was just a good excuse to delay and finally get the time they needed.
  - 55555 5y ago
    Investment banks have also been hurt by this, although many would argue this has been a good thing. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-13/fraud-is-no-fun-without-friends https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-13/fraud-... But you can begin to see some limits of remote work. Obviously military units shouldn't be training remotely. The bonding is too important.
    - admissionsguy 5y ago
      Very interesting, it's the first concrete example of the damage to social cohesion due to covid restrictions I've seen described. It is portrayed in a positive light (I suppose) in the article, though the anecdotal examples I know from real life are rather dark.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  The usual way to explain this away is that social capital was built while people could meet in person, and is now slowly fading away. I don't know how true that is; it could be completely true, or it could be just a false "fact" that pro-physical-presence people cling to. Another factor that I didn't consider is that there was basically nothing to do but work in many places - most things fun were either banned/shut down, or unattractive because they came with the implied threat of catching COVID. This includes vacation. I bet once recovery sets in, a lot of saved-up vacation time gets used at once, especially in countries and companies where significant amounts of vacation can be banked.

Replacing predictions with experienced reality. Seeing things continue as normal and at full pace while working from home which many expected was not possible. Our company was quite restrictive of working from home previously but after last year seeing that we had our most productive year ever, things loosened up a lot.

ludamad 5y ago
Does anyone have a convincing break-down of the overall economic effect? Remote has meant I sleep more (compared to a long commute). As well, my home has advantages - there's a dog here, patio access, etc. I think communication can be hard to do right, but I'm not sure if this resulted in more faults

magneticnorth 5y ago

I was mostly just referring to the fact that team/org/company productivity does not seem reduced compared to pre-pandemic times. As far as I know, no major tech company is dealing with more outages/incidents or slower product launches than they typically saw, unless their business model was directly impacted by spending pattern changes. I think most companies expected lower output from forced-all-remote teams but don't seem to be seeing it.

ribosometronome 5y ago
Wasn't the video game industry fairly impacted by the transition?
- munk-a 5y ago
  The video game industry noticeably rolled back a number of release dates but I don't know if it's fair to attribute that to team productivity or just a combination of supply line issues (big name games tend to launch with merch and physical perks that definitely would be impacted) along with the cost and stress of dealing with the pandemic. We've got some confounded variables here so it's hard to tell.
  - jeremyjh 5y ago
    Delays in video game releases are highly visible. Many companies had regular schedules that were clearly and obviously disrupted. It would be far less visible in many other software sectors, at least in the short-term. How would I know if AWS launched 18 new services instead of 27 last year? Often new product features/releases are not announced until they are ready to ship.
  - resonious 5y ago
    I'm under the impression that video games are always crunching anyway, so maybe the pandemic was just a good excuse to delay and finally get the time they needed.
- 55555 5y ago
  Investment banks have also been hurt by this, although many would argue this has been a good thing. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-13/fraud-is-no-fun-without-friends https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-13/fraud-... But you can begin to see some limits of remote work. Obviously military units shouldn't be training remotely. The bonding is too important.
  - admissionsguy 5y ago
    Very interesting, it's the first concrete example of the damage to social cohesion due to covid restrictions I've seen described. It is portrayed in a positive light (I suppose) in the article, though the anecdotal examples I know from real life are rather dark.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
The usual way to explain this away is that social capital was built while people could meet in person, and is now slowly fading away. I don't know how true that is; it could be completely true, or it could be just a false "fact" that pro-physical-presence people cling to. Another factor that I didn't consider is that there was basically nothing to do but work in many places - most things fun were either banned/shut down, or unattractive because they came with the implied threat of catching COVID. This includes vacation. I bet once recovery sets in, a lot of saved-up vacation time gets used at once, especially in countries and companies where significant amounts of vacation can be banked.