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The Five-Day Office Week Isn’t Coming Back. WFH Is Here to Stay

33 points by ipeefreely 5y ago

peakaboo 5y ago
This is the only thing about the pandemic that almost everybody agrees on - working from home has been great and extreamly beneficial to a lot of people who never understood the value of it before.
GreenJon 5y ago
Good. I've noticed more job opportunities that stress a remote(/hybrid) nature the past couple of months, and I greatly appreciate it. As long as there are options for those who need them (being in the office because the home situation is too distracting vs needing to WFH because someone's coming to fix a pipe), I think it works. Employees have shown they get the work done (and are working more hours with the lack of a commute + water cooler time which is its own issue). There are reasons that being on-site job necessary of course, but if the only one is the employer is paranoid and wants to hover over their employees, that says more about them. Granted, all the landlords who have or are building massive office blocks might be in trouble, but frankly they can deal with it.
theonething 5y ago
This is good, but I'd love to see this headline be commonplace: "The Five-Day Work Week Isn't Coming Back"
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Might get here sooner than you think. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=four+day+week https://hn.algolia.com/?q=four+day+week
ssss11 5y ago
I’m seeing a big push in the corporate world to get workers back in offices. Any idea why? Is it just the rent they’re paying and they want that to be got a reason? Is it that CxO’s believe we’ll all produce better work off in the office? Something else?
- jschveibinz 5y ago
  At the C-suite level, the bottom line should be the biggest concern. If productivity is as good or better than before, then the obvious choice is to reduce facility related expenses, have more offsite workers and make more profit. Middle management (and/or CxO’s as you refer to them) will want to return to status quo because the job of aligning the workforce under corporate policies becomes so much harder when the workforce is not in one location. The roles of middle management will need to change in the new work model, and nobody really likes change. For startups, I think that companies smaller than 50 employees and less than 3 years old will likely not do as well in a distributed work environment. There just isn’t enough common culture or process to make it work, in my opinion.
  - ggm 5y ago
    > For startups, I think that companies smaller than 50 employees and less than 3 years old will likely not do as well in a distributed work environment. There just isn’t enough common culture or process to make it work, in my opinion. It is possible this is why some startups will fail sooner. It is possible this is why some pre IPO private buyouts will be less likely, there won't be enough "there" there to acquire as a work culture or visible asset holding outcome. But I personally believe the ones which survive being more WFH will be more resilient long-term and make more persisting value long term. So I half agree and half disagree. Founder-Vesting-VC wins may be net smaller in my case. That's a downside for one point of view.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    Personally speaking, the big split is if I actually have to collaborate with someone or not. If I just need to focus on writing code, wfh is great. But if i actually need to design something, use a whiteboard, and have a conversation, it's a million times easier in the office. This is why I think productivity went up in the short term, companies had plenty of stuff in their backlogs already and WFH let it get done faster. Give it a few years though and I'm expecting product and feature quality to start going down.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
icouldbebetter 5y ago
Good. The corporate environment before the pandemic needed a shake up. All this land and office space developed and paid for so that middle management can hover over their employees is a fiscal waste. It's also not sustainable. If commuting to the office is not absolutely necessary, then businesses should only look at their bottom line to see if a permanent physical workspace is necessary. I don't think onsite collaboration should be done away with but instead it should be downsized and voluntary. Employees should take the initiative to come to the office with something to do in mind.

33 points by ipeefreely 5y ago

This is the only thing about the pandemic that almost everybody agrees on - working from home has been great and extreamly beneficial to a lot of people who never understood the value of it before.

GreenJon 5y ago

Good. I've noticed more job opportunities that stress a remote(/hybrid) nature the past couple of months, and I greatly appreciate it. As long as there are options for those who need them (being in the office because the home situation is too distracting vs needing to WFH because someone's coming to fix a pipe), I think it works. Employees have shown they get the work done (and are working more hours with the lack of a commute + water cooler time which is its own issue). There are reasons that being on-site job necessary of course, but if the only one is the employer is paranoid and wants to hover over their employees, that says more about them. Granted, all the landlords who have or are building massive office blocks might be in trouble, but frankly they can deal with it.

theonething 5y ago

This is good, but I'd love to see this headline be commonplace: "The Five-Day Work Week Isn't Coming Back"

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Might get here sooner than you think. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=four+day+week https://hn.algolia.com/?q=four+day+week

ssss11 5y ago

I’m seeing a big push in the corporate world to get workers back in offices. Any idea why? Is it just the rent they’re paying and they want that to be got a reason? Is it that CxO’s believe we’ll all produce better work off in the office? Something else?

jschveibinz 5y ago
At the C-suite level, the bottom line should be the biggest concern. If productivity is as good or better than before, then the obvious choice is to reduce facility related expenses, have more offsite workers and make more profit. Middle management (and/or CxO’s as you refer to them) will want to return to status quo because the job of aligning the workforce under corporate policies becomes so much harder when the workforce is not in one location. The roles of middle management will need to change in the new work model, and nobody really likes change. For startups, I think that companies smaller than 50 employees and less than 3 years old will likely not do as well in a distributed work environment. There just isn’t enough common culture or process to make it work, in my opinion.
- ggm 5y ago
  > For startups, I think that companies smaller than 50 employees and less than 3 years old will likely not do as well in a distributed work environment. There just isn’t enough common culture or process to make it work, in my opinion. It is possible this is why some startups will fail sooner. It is possible this is why some pre IPO private buyouts will be less likely, there won't be enough "there" there to acquire as a work culture or visible asset holding outcome. But I personally believe the ones which survive being more WFH will be more resilient long-term and make more persisting value long term. So I half agree and half disagree. Founder-Vesting-VC wins may be net smaller in my case. That's a downside for one point of view.
- xxpor 5y ago
  Personally speaking, the big split is if I actually have to collaborate with someone or not. If I just need to focus on writing code, wfh is great. But if i actually need to design something, use a whiteboard, and have a conversation, it's a million times easier in the office. This is why I think productivity went up in the short term, companies had plenty of stuff in their backlogs already and WFH let it get done faster. Give it a few years though and I'm expecting product and feature quality to start going down.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago

icouldbebetter 5y ago

Good. The corporate environment before the pandemic needed a shake up. All this land and office space developed and paid for so that middle management can hover over their employees is a fiscal waste. It's also not sustainable. If commuting to the office is not absolutely necessary, then businesses should only look at their bottom line to see if a permanent physical workspace is necessary. I don't think onsite collaboration should be done away with but instead it should be downsized and voluntary. Employees should take the initiative to come to the office with something to do in mind.