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A company stating that they'd like people to work in the office, or from home, doesn't mean that they're correct about that, even in their particular context. C

A company stating that they'd like people to work in the office, or from home, doesn't mean that they're correct about that, even in their particular context. Companies do all sorts of things that contradict established science in terms of increasing productivity. As an example, from the sounds of these e-mails Tesla has their factory workers working longer than 40 hours a week, which is well established to decrease overall productivity.

Closi 4y ago
> As an example, from the sounds of these e-mails Tesla has their factory workers working longer than 40 hours a week, which is well established to decrease overall productivity. Productivity is very context dependent - if your job is working on a production line often your productivity is fairly fixed - you have x seconds to do y task while the car moves by. If you do it faster, the next car isn’t coming down the line any faster. You aren’t allowed to do it slower. A 42 hour average week on a 4 on 4 off shift is a pretty standard working arrangement for a factory. Also factory workers are paid hourly, so often offering fewer hours for a blue collar job isn’t seen as a bonus as it is for a salaried position. What shift pattern and hours would you propose instead that provides 24/7 cover and will be attractive to frontline workers? (12 hour days with 4 on and 4 off is often seen as the dream in factories that don’t have it!)
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  I don't know Tesla's shift pattern, and if it's indeed 42 hours, I agree that there's probably not a lot of functional differences between a 40 hour week and a 42 hour week, particularly if the 42 hour week has shifts laid out in a way that makes sense. So I may have been wrong about Tesla itself, but there's plenty of companies of all stripes that go significantly above 40 hours a week, even in contexts where there have been studies demonstrating reduced productivity when working 50+ hours. I'm not necessarily saying Tesla is absolutely wrong here, just that the argument that "well Tesla is doing it, and they know their business, so they must be right" is BS - companies are routinely wrong about how to optimize productivity.
  - Closi 4y ago
    > I'm not necessarily saying Tesla is absolutely wrong here, just that the argument that "well Tesla is doing it, and they know their business, so they must be right" is BS - companies are routinely wrong about how to optimize productivity. That's not what I said - I said tesla genuinely think it. I never said that they must be right, but also they are probably in a better position to judge than you or me for their business IMO. If their existing remote work situation was all sunshine and rainbows for Tesla then they probably wouldn't be making the move back. They aren't doing this to spite people working from home, they will be doing it because they genuinely think it isn't productive in their use case.

Closi 4y ago

> As an example, from the sounds of these e-mails Tesla has their factory workers working longer than 40 hours a week, which is well established to decrease overall productivity. Productivity is very context dependent - if your job is working on a production line often your productivity is fairly fixed - you have x seconds to do y task while the car moves by. If you do it faster, the next car isn’t coming down the line any faster. You aren’t allowed to do it slower. A 42 hour average week on a 4 on 4 off shift is a pretty standard working arrangement for a factory. Also factory workers are paid hourly, so often offering fewer hours for a blue collar job isn’t seen as a bonus as it is for a salaried position. What shift pattern and hours would you propose instead that provides 24/7 cover and will be attractive to frontline workers? (12 hour days with 4 on and 4 off is often seen as the dream in factories that don’t have it!)

ryanbrunner 4y ago
I don't know Tesla's shift pattern, and if it's indeed 42 hours, I agree that there's probably not a lot of functional differences between a 40 hour week and a 42 hour week, particularly if the 42 hour week has shifts laid out in a way that makes sense. So I may have been wrong about Tesla itself, but there's plenty of companies of all stripes that go significantly above 40 hours a week, even in contexts where there have been studies demonstrating reduced productivity when working 50+ hours. I'm not necessarily saying Tesla is absolutely wrong here, just that the argument that "well Tesla is doing it, and they know their business, so they must be right" is BS - companies are routinely wrong about how to optimize productivity.
- Closi 4y ago
  > I'm not necessarily saying Tesla is absolutely wrong here, just that the argument that "well Tesla is doing it, and they know their business, so they must be right" is BS - companies are routinely wrong about how to optimize productivity. That's not what I said - I said tesla genuinely think it. I never said that they must be right, but also they are probably in a better position to judge than you or me for their business IMO. If their existing remote work situation was all sunshine and rainbows for Tesla then they probably wouldn't be making the move back. They aren't doing this to spite people working from home, they will be doing it because they genuinely think it isn't productive in their use case.