4 ms·

Plenty of reasons. For many companies the transition to remote during covid was a massive drop in performance of their staff. For developers, IT and the like,

by bbarn 4y ago

Plenty of reasons. For many companies the transition to remote during covid was a massive drop in performance of their staff. For developers, IT and the like, most of us had some experience, if not had already transitioned, but in those industries that hadn't, it's easy to look at those two years and say "this was worse". Unless your company is VERY focused on remote staffing, collaboration is just easier in person for most roles. Add in time zone differences and it gets even more difficult. Some people are bad at working remotely at home. Especially if there are distractions in their home office. (Like my wife, my dogs, my daughter, etc.) It can be hard to get others to take working from home seriously. I've gone as far as to rent an office for myself to go to every day. When remote becomes a possibility, the idea of living elsewhere soon follows for many people. (as in this article) Even without crossing national borders, many US companies have tax and legal implications across state lines. Even supporting benefits for employees becomes more difficult as almost all health insurance networks are state based. There are no doubt a thousand and one people that could reply "But not me, why should I change" but the simple truth is many people are easier to get higher quality work out of in person in an office, and an office is easier to manage than a distributed workforce.

klabb3 4y ago
> For many companies the transition to remote during covid was a massive drop in performance of their staff. This was the expected outcome, since most companies hadn't prepared at all for a multi-year global lockdown. However, my understanding is that even companies that had very little preparation handled the pandemic absolutely fantastic, and other factors were much more important (supply chain of physical goods, jobs that could only be done in-person, reduced travel and leisure etc). If productivity dropped for white-collar WFH type of jobs across the board, I think we would never hear the end of it. Instead, the media zeitgeist is blaming the "anti-work" culture, that people aren't taking minimum wage jobs anymore etc. It's definitely not the narrative I'd expect if "WFH=low productivity" were true.

by bbarn 4y ago

klabb3 4y ago

> For many companies the transition to remote during covid was a massive drop in performance of their staff. This was the expected outcome, since most companies hadn't prepared at all for a multi-year global lockdown. However, my understanding is that even companies that had very little preparation handled the pandemic absolutely fantastic, and other factors were much more important (supply chain of physical goods, jobs that could only be done in-person, reduced travel and leisure etc). If productivity dropped for white-collar WFH type of jobs across the board, I think we would never hear the end of it. Instead, the media zeitgeist is blaming the "anti-work" culture, that people aren't taking minimum wage jobs anymore etc. It's definitely not the narrative I'd expect if "WFH=low productivity" were true.