3 ms·

Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires tha

Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely?

daveoc64 3y ago
It's crazy to think that without having anything to back it up.
- MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
  Do you have any proof you’re more productive at home other than staying you don’t have to commute and can do laundry during the day? Edit: I’m not sure why I can’t reply to the guy below me but plenty of Google results about surveys that show WFH is less productive.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    That would be the same data wouldn't it. Provide some data that it goes one way or the other.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Yes, there's tons of evidence that distractions are incredibly costly, especially for complex or creative work, and that modern offices are super distracting places. Sure you could imagine a hypothetical world in which offices were designed differently, but for the most part RTO is return-to-open-office, with multiple distractions per hour.
    - unethical_ban 3y ago
      Yes, there's tons of evidence that distractions are incredibly costly, especially for complex or creative work, and that home offices are cramped places where work intrudes on the home sanctum; where the chores and unfinished personal tasks of one's life haunt the mind of the worker and distract them from the undivided attention of their work tasks and interactions with coworkers. I am more on edge from waiting for someone to message me while at home than I ever was when I thought someone was going to walk up to me. Disclaimer: like everyone else here, this is an opinion. Thinking WFH is magical is also an opinion. WFH has some upsides, and some people get more upside than others.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - lkramer 3y ago
    It's certainly more efficient for me that I don't have to commute 2 hours per day on my own dime to spend the day in some open plan office with inferior equipment to what I have at home...
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    > I’m not sure why I can’t reply to the guy below me You can't reply too fast, there's a timeout > but plenty of Google results about surveys that show WFH is less productive And plenty show WFH is more productive. And some show there's a trust gap, which might explain the productivity difference. I would say there's no definitive study yet. Some companies have banked on WFH even before the pandemic. It could well be that it's a market and there's a split that optimises productivity.
  - dijit 3y ago
    I dislike that you’re being downvoted, downvoting is not a disagree button. There’s a lot of studies that show that productivity is better at home for some individuals, I don’t think there has been a proper meta-study because there’s studies that prove whatever you want to believe right now. Even without citing any study, it does feel organic that it depends entirely on your job, your level of autonomy, your existing relationship to your colleagues and manager, the level of trust and ultimately your home situation. Having 3 kids running around most of the day in a 2bedroom apartment is not going to be as productive as sitting in an air conditioned office that has good physical and auditory privacy. However, it’s also true that management has been basically cutting costs extremely in terms of office space for decades, you don’t even get enough personal space or privacy for a cubicle now: let alone a door you could close. Erosion of the quality of the office over this period of time has created a pretty large gulf to cross. I would argue that most people have better working conditions at home than the torrid open office that we’ve been subjected to.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > downvoting is not a disagree button. It's not anything other than a "something pressed a button" button. Offering nothing more than a poor man's analytics system, at best. No additional information can be obtained from it. But, that is still good information, as it tells that there is activity in the vicinity of the comment, which is why one comes here to post and not instead write in their private journal.
eikenberry 3y ago
Ranking productivity over retention is what is crazy. Enterprises have fostered a culture that promotes thinking of people as replaceable commodities instead of assets that gain value over time. The turnover that view engenders means there is no institutional knowledge built up over time, forever keeping the company on unstable footing as they never really know what's going on.
taylodl 3y ago
Is it crazy to think a big company should have a comprehensive onboarding program that includes training and shadowing someone? Especially for an intern? That can all be done remotely.
apercu 3y ago
Everyone is different. I spent 8.5 years commuting in the Toronto area with traffic getting worse and worse each year. Being a morning person meant I lost my most productive work hours in the car (public transport would take almost twice as long) and arrived at the office stressed from the 1.5 hour drive, all while getting emails and calls that I couldn't really deal with in the car, stressing me out more, arriving at the office in no mood to be able to think clearly. I quit that job (difficult, financially and emotionally, because as the President of the company I had literally built large parts and hire more than 2/3rds of the team), and went back to consulting. It was night and day, in far fewer hours I produced a lot more, simply because I eliminated stresses and had more and better focus time. It also helped me create and set up boundaries, because the modern workplace is pretty toxic, at all levels. Maybe always has been.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? For much work, yes, even moreso per hour the employee must dedicate to work (which, in working from office is substantially more than WFH for the same on-the-clock hours.) > Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely? Why would it be harder to train people up remotely, in general? Sure, there's cases whwre this is likely true, but they probably largely correspond to the same types of work that weren't remotable in the first place.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
> Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Not per se but this is an assertion that's being made by the people in powerful positions[0] without really being backed up. I hear at least as much "it just feels better" talk from pro-RTO managers as I do from pro-WFH contributors. Rather than think that working from an office is more productive, pro-RTO arguers want others to assume that it is. It's not an entirely unreasonable thought but the actual "thinking" is sidestepped in order to skip to the desired conclusion. 0: They make organizational decisions and can choose the terminate the employment of the persons who need to be employed for health insurance and income.
mrguyorama 3y ago
How much more productive? 2%? 50%? That matters. Making a lot of people miserable for an extra 2% productivity sure seems like the American way but maybe we should stop being okay with that.
antod 3y ago
It can be, provided your colleagues are all there, your team has its own dedicated space, meeting rooms are alway available, connectivity is good etc etc. If not, and you're still having to work remotely just in the office with crowded hotdesking, shit wifi and no rooms available, worse coffee, worse monitors and keyboards etc, then no - being at home is way better.

Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely?

daveoc64 3y ago

It's crazy to think that without having anything to back it up.

MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
Do you have any proof you’re more productive at home other than staying you don’t have to commute and can do laundry during the day? Edit: I’m not sure why I can’t reply to the guy below me but plenty of Google results about surveys that show WFH is less productive.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  That would be the same data wouldn't it. Provide some data that it goes one way or the other.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Yes, there's tons of evidence that distractions are incredibly costly, especially for complex or creative work, and that modern offices are super distracting places. Sure you could imagine a hypothetical world in which offices were designed differently, but for the most part RTO is return-to-open-office, with multiple distractions per hour.
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    Yes, there's tons of evidence that distractions are incredibly costly, especially for complex or creative work, and that home offices are cramped places where work intrudes on the home sanctum; where the chores and unfinished personal tasks of one's life haunt the mind of the worker and distract them from the undivided attention of their work tasks and interactions with coworkers. I am more on edge from waiting for someone to message me while at home than I ever was when I thought someone was going to walk up to me. Disclaimer: like everyone else here, this is an opinion. Thinking WFH is magical is also an opinion. WFH has some upsides, and some people get more upside than others.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- lkramer 3y ago
  It's certainly more efficient for me that I don't have to commute 2 hours per day on my own dime to spend the day in some open plan office with inferior equipment to what I have at home...
- jemmyw 3y ago
  > I’m not sure why I can’t reply to the guy below me You can't reply too fast, there's a timeout > but plenty of Google results about surveys that show WFH is less productive And plenty show WFH is more productive. And some show there's a trust gap, which might explain the productivity difference. I would say there's no definitive study yet. Some companies have banked on WFH even before the pandemic. It could well be that it's a market and there's a split that optimises productivity.
- dijit 3y ago
  I dislike that you’re being downvoted, downvoting is not a disagree button. There’s a lot of studies that show that productivity is better at home for some individuals, I don’t think there has been a proper meta-study because there’s studies that prove whatever you want to believe right now. Even without citing any study, it does feel organic that it depends entirely on your job, your level of autonomy, your existing relationship to your colleagues and manager, the level of trust and ultimately your home situation. Having 3 kids running around most of the day in a 2bedroom apartment is not going to be as productive as sitting in an air conditioned office that has good physical and auditory privacy. However, it’s also true that management has been basically cutting costs extremely in terms of office space for decades, you don’t even get enough personal space or privacy for a cubicle now: let alone a door you could close. Erosion of the quality of the office over this period of time has created a pretty large gulf to cross. I would argue that most people have better working conditions at home than the torrid open office that we’ve been subjected to.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > downvoting is not a disagree button. It's not anything other than a "something pressed a button" button. Offering nothing more than a poor man's analytics system, at best. No additional information can be obtained from it. But, that is still good information, as it tells that there is activity in the vicinity of the comment, which is why one comes here to post and not instead write in their private journal.

eikenberry 3y ago

Ranking productivity over retention is what is crazy. Enterprises have fostered a culture that promotes thinking of people as replaceable commodities instead of assets that gain value over time. The turnover that view engenders means there is no institutional knowledge built up over time, forever keeping the company on unstable footing as they never really know what's going on.

taylodl 3y ago

Is it crazy to think a big company should have a comprehensive onboarding program that includes training and shadowing someone? Especially for an intern? That can all be done remotely.

apercu 3y ago

Everyone is different. I spent 8.5 years commuting in the Toronto area with traffic getting worse and worse each year. Being a morning person meant I lost my most productive work hours in the car (public transport would take almost twice as long) and arrived at the office stressed from the 1.5 hour drive, all while getting emails and calls that I couldn't really deal with in the car, stressing me out more, arriving at the office in no mood to be able to think clearly. I quit that job (difficult, financially and emotionally, because as the President of the company I had literally built large parts and hire more than 2/3rds of the team), and went back to consulting. It was night and day, in far fewer hours I produced a lot more, simply because I eliminated stresses and had more and better focus time. It also helped me create and set up boundaries, because the modern workplace is pretty toxic, at all levels. Maybe always has been.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? For much work, yes, even moreso per hour the employee must dedicate to work (which, in working from office is substantially more than WFH for the same on-the-clock hours.) > Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely? Why would it be harder to train people up remotely, in general? Sure, there's cases whwre this is likely true, but they probably largely correspond to the same types of work that weren't remotable in the first place.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

> Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Not per se but this is an assertion that's being made by the people in powerful positions[0] without really being backed up. I hear at least as much "it just feels better" talk from pro-RTO managers as I do from pro-WFH contributors. Rather than think that working from an office is more productive, pro-RTO arguers want others to assume that it is. It's not an entirely unreasonable thought but the actual "thinking" is sidestepped in order to skip to the desired conclusion. 0: They make organizational decisions and can choose the terminate the employment of the persons who need to be employed for health insurance and income.

mrguyorama 3y ago

How much more productive? 2%? 50%? That matters. Making a lot of people miserable for an extra 2% productivity sure seems like the American way but maybe we should stop being okay with that.

antod 3y ago

It can be, provided your colleagues are all there, your team has its own dedicated space, meeting rooms are alway available, connectivity is good etc etc. If not, and you're still having to work remotely just in the office with crowded hotdesking, shit wifi and no rooms available, worse coffee, worse monitors and keyboards etc, then no - being at home is way better.