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It’s my opinion that people feel like they are more productive at WFH, but it’s a bit of a hard metric to actually measure. I get the sense that the freedom an

It’s my opinion that people feel like they are more productive at WFH, but it’s a bit of a hard metric to actually measure. I get the sense that the freedom and flexibility might create a feeling of personal productivity to accomplish many things (not just career related) they couldn’t before WFH, but as for job productivity…I bet it’s probably a wash overall. I say this as a remote worker who wouldn’t want to RTO—because I feel like I am more productive at work from home. However, I wouldn’t bet the farm on that if there was a reliable way to measure it.

polka_haunts_us 3y ago
My first job was 40 hours a week in an office, my current job has been full WFH because of covid, transitioning into 3 days in the office. I can tell you factually that the days I'm actually at home in this hybrid setup that I'm way less productive in terms of getting my actual job done than I am days I'm in the office. I think when I was full WFH my at home productivity was actually much higher. However, the days I'm actually in office are way more productive than the average day at my previous job, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the low job productivity WFH days. I think return to office 5 days a week will lower my average in office productivity, resulting in approximate equal job productivity, and leave me less happy overall.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  I've noticed a similar trend in myself. WFH was, averaged out by day, (to the extent I can objectively do that through my own memory) more productive when I was 100% WFH than now, where I am 40-60% WFH. Overall I think it's probably a wash: I think I'm a bit more focused when in the office now than pre-covid, which makes up for the the less focused time at at home. However there may be less tangible benefits, even if overall productivity is a wash, to having the WFH times. 1) Is the obvious work/life balance. Everything that comes with the convenience of not having to commute, freedom to intersperse everyday household chores during the workday even when it means extending working hours a little later, etc. 2) Is that when I'm WFH I seem to be a little less concerned with the immediate work issues and more likely to drift off into peripheral & speculative projects, things that may yield less results in the short term but might (too soon to really say) yield more in the long term. Overall I think my general output is about the same, but I'm more content, and perhaps (though not definitively) doing things that will be more productive in the long term. But there are countless different jobs and responsibilities and personalities that intersect in a way that doesn't lend itself to a single one size fits all rule. But unfortunately, "One rule for all" tends to be the top down approach in most work environments.
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  The first two years of covid pandemic may not be a typical time though. The non-work demands on most people's time and energy, and most people's psychological state, were pretty different than usual. All things that seem like they could effect "productivity" (and/or your perception of productivity) (and hypothetically in either direction), in addition to the factor of whether you were full-time WFH or not.
Joky 3y ago
There is something to be said about individual productivity (whatever that means in a very innovative/creative environment) vs team/company output, just today I saw this in my feed: https://flocrivello.com/changing-my-mind-on-remote-about-being-in-san-francisco/ https://flocrivello.com/changing-my-mind-on-remote-about-bei... And that's coming from someone who actually tried to build a business out of remote work (TeamFlow was the product). I can be much more productive at home when it is about my individual contribution (me coding to deliver something unambiguous), but xxx individuals doing this does not necessarily align into a great product: that does not scale.
- kcplate 3y ago
  I while back I was slammed on here for making essentially a statement that my remote team seems to individually claim/feel more productive but the net team productivity I felt decreased as we transitioned from in office to remote.
  - avocabros 3y ago
    I think this observation is spot on - and you don't have to look far to understand why individual productivity != systems productivity. 100% individual utilization in a system is a negative - manufacturing companies learned this years ago and is where the principles of the toyota system/kanban/lean manufacturing/etc. rose from. The only resource that should be 100% utilized in a process is the bottleneck - and anytime anyone is interrupted to help the bottleneck, that is a net win for the company output, even if individually it feels annoying. It's really unfortunate that it seems so many people are in the "you can pry remote work from my cold dead hands" camp that it's hard to even have a conversation that doesn't devolve into "I feel more productive remote, so you shouldn't care where I work".
    - kcplate 3y ago
      Definitely seems like it’s a strange hill that people are willing to die on these days. I’m pragmatic. I’d rather have a job than look for one. So if my company decides to RTO, I am going to RTO.
cortesoft 3y ago
I have been WFH since the pandemic, and I have grown used to it. My company doesn’t even have offices anymore. However, last week we had a happy hour to all meet in person, and I had a 20 minute conversation with someone about a work topic, and it was amazing how much productive information we were able to share with each other in such a short time. It was just easier to work through things in person than on slack or zoom.
- danaris 3y ago
  But this is not a universal thing. I have absolutely no problem shooting the shit over text, voice, or video chat, and since I went mostly-remote, I have had a number of highly productive conversations over Zoom that looked a lot like a typical casual interaction resulting in good brainstorming. In fact, some of those times, it was even easier to communicate what we needed because one or another of us could share our screens (which is fine in person when you happen to be at someone's desk, or carrying your laptop with you, but if you just run into each other at the water cooler, it often requires a "hey, I'll send you that thing when I get back to my desk and we can continue this over email" or whatever). I think the biggest thing that far too many RTO proponents fail to understand is that different people work differently, have different experiences, and need different environments to be most effective. This has been hidden to a large extent by the fact that (nearly) everyone has been required to work in an office, but now that we've all experienced something different, many of us have seen firsthand that we can do just as well or even so much better if we're not forced into a particular box.
  - kcplate 3y ago
    The problem with that argument is that WFH has a short history with a unmeasurable productivity benefit to the organization vs a long history with in office work productivity measurements. The other problem is that people advocating WFH over RTO tend to focus on the individual benefit to them rather than the holistic benefit to the organization.
    - danaris 3y ago

polka_haunts_us 3y ago

My first job was 40 hours a week in an office, my current job has been full WFH because of covid, transitioning into 3 days in the office. I can tell you factually that the days I'm actually at home in this hybrid setup that I'm way less productive in terms of getting my actual job done than I am days I'm in the office. I think when I was full WFH my at home productivity was actually much higher. However, the days I'm actually in office are way more productive than the average day at my previous job, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the low job productivity WFH days. I think return to office 5 days a week will lower my average in office productivity, resulting in approximate equal job productivity, and leave me less happy overall.

ineedasername 3y ago
I've noticed a similar trend in myself. WFH was, averaged out by day, (to the extent I can objectively do that through my own memory) more productive when I was 100% WFH than now, where I am 40-60% WFH. Overall I think it's probably a wash: I think I'm a bit more focused when in the office now than pre-covid, which makes up for the the less focused time at at home. However there may be less tangible benefits, even if overall productivity is a wash, to having the WFH times. 1) Is the obvious work/life balance. Everything that comes with the convenience of not having to commute, freedom to intersperse everyday household chores during the workday even when it means extending working hours a little later, etc. 2) Is that when I'm WFH I seem to be a little less concerned with the immediate work issues and more likely to drift off into peripheral & speculative projects, things that may yield less results in the short term but might (too soon to really say) yield more in the long term. Overall I think my general output is about the same, but I'm more content, and perhaps (though not definitively) doing things that will be more productive in the long term. But there are countless different jobs and responsibilities and personalities that intersect in a way that doesn't lend itself to a single one size fits all rule. But unfortunately, "One rule for all" tends to be the top down approach in most work environments.
jrochkind1 3y ago
The first two years of covid pandemic may not be a typical time though. The non-work demands on most people's time and energy, and most people's psychological state, were pretty different than usual. All things that seem like they could effect "productivity" (and/or your perception of productivity) (and hypothetically in either direction), in addition to the factor of whether you were full-time WFH or not.

Joky 3y ago

There is something to be said about individual productivity (whatever that means in a very innovative/creative environment) vs team/company output, just today I saw this in my feed: https://flocrivello.com/changing-my-mind-on-remote-about-being-in-san-francisco/ https://flocrivello.com/changing-my-mind-on-remote-about-bei... And that's coming from someone who actually tried to build a business out of remote work (TeamFlow was the product). I can be much more productive at home when it is about my individual contribution (me coding to deliver something unambiguous), but xxx individuals doing this does not necessarily align into a great product: that does not scale.

kcplate 3y ago
I while back I was slammed on here for making essentially a statement that my remote team seems to individually claim/feel more productive but the net team productivity I felt decreased as we transitioned from in office to remote.
- avocabros 3y ago
  I think this observation is spot on - and you don't have to look far to understand why individual productivity != systems productivity. 100% individual utilization in a system is a negative - manufacturing companies learned this years ago and is where the principles of the toyota system/kanban/lean manufacturing/etc. rose from. The only resource that should be 100% utilized in a process is the bottleneck - and anytime anyone is interrupted to help the bottleneck, that is a net win for the company output, even if individually it feels annoying. It's really unfortunate that it seems so many people are in the "you can pry remote work from my cold dead hands" camp that it's hard to even have a conversation that doesn't devolve into "I feel more productive remote, so you shouldn't care where I work".
  - kcplate 3y ago
    Definitely seems like it’s a strange hill that people are willing to die on these days. I’m pragmatic. I’d rather have a job than look for one. So if my company decides to RTO, I am going to RTO.

cortesoft 3y ago

I have been WFH since the pandemic, and I have grown used to it. My company doesn’t even have offices anymore. However, last week we had a happy hour to all meet in person, and I had a 20 minute conversation with someone about a work topic, and it was amazing how much productive information we were able to share with each other in such a short time. It was just easier to work through things in person than on slack or zoom.

danaris 3y ago
But this is not a universal thing. I have absolutely no problem shooting the shit over text, voice, or video chat, and since I went mostly-remote, I have had a number of highly productive conversations over Zoom that looked a lot like a typical casual interaction resulting in good brainstorming. In fact, some of those times, it was even easier to communicate what we needed because one or another of us could share our screens (which is fine in person when you happen to be at someone's desk, or carrying your laptop with you, but if you just run into each other at the water cooler, it often requires a "hey, I'll send you that thing when I get back to my desk and we can continue this over email" or whatever). I think the biggest thing that far too many RTO proponents fail to understand is that different people work differently, have different experiences, and need different environments to be most effective. This has been hidden to a large extent by the fact that (nearly) everyone has been required to work in an office, but now that we've all experienced something different, many of us have seen firsthand that we can do just as well or even so much better if we're not forced into a particular box.
- kcplate 3y ago
  The problem with that argument is that WFH has a short history with a unmeasurable productivity benefit to the organization vs a long history with in office work productivity measurements. The other problem is that people advocating WFH over RTO tend to focus on the individual benefit to them rather than the holistic benefit to the organization.
  - danaris 3y ago