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Companies have pretty good metrics for "productivity", its just their overall performance: revenue, profit, cash flow and dept. They could use that, but if the

Companies have pretty good metrics for "productivity", its just their overall performance: revenue, profit, cash flow and dept. They could use that, but if they did, it would show that work from home isn't negatively affecting their performance, and they couldn't use it as an argument to irrationally force people back at the office. People dispute this by asking: "But would we have made more profit if people worked in-office?" And I think the reality is, no, the truth is, when you look at it, whatever impact to company performance remote vs in-office has is so minimal either way that you won't actually see it impact performance in a measurable way. So many other decisions you're taking matter more, that probably whatever allows you to attract and retain better talent and make them happy will actually have the most positive effect on your bottom line.

splitstud 3y ago
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ssss11 3y ago
“But my job of managing and co-ordinating people will be made obsolete if everyone stays home” …
- collyw 3y ago
  I had a remote manager a few years ago and kind of thought that he didn't ad much value to the process. Then they got rid of him and I had to deal with the company owners directly. Absolute nightmare. Good management is one of these things that you don't really notice. Bad management you do notice and not for positive reasons.
  - Breza 3y ago
    I agree. Early in my career, I thought a manager was like a driving teacher, someone to help guide you and hit the brake when you're about to crash. Now that I'm a manager, I think of it more like being a snowplow; you wake up in the morning and you can get your job done thanks to the work that someone else is doing behind the scenes.
ravenstine 3y ago
Companies also need to measure the ratio of resources expended to the amount of value being produced, even if cash flow and profit are good at the moment. Unsustainable business practices can remain hidden until the decline begins. When that happens, inept management has to scramble to figure out what's going on and will almost certainly make worse decisions than a lack of sustainability was sussed out much earlier. An apt example would be companies that need to keep hiring more engineers merely to keep the software from collapsing under its own weight. Often times, upper and middle management aren't paying attention to this and are completely distracted by growth and profit, despite the fact that most of their engineering staff are far less productive, perhaps to the point of hardly producing anything at all.
- atoav 3y ago
  I guess it is about control in the end. Even if your employees are working completely remotely you could always check their output. But the problem is that typically a big part of middle managment has no idea how they would even start to do that. So the alternative is go there and talk to them while observing reactions — and derive your conclusions from that. But that doesn't work as well remotely. You can't surprisingly be there and catch your employees at doing the wrong thing. What other unspeakable evils might they be doing while you are not watching? Now of course you are right, just watching the numbers is not enough. But if your middle managment has no way of knowing if their subordinates are doing their jobs remotely, your business would be in a blind spot even if not a single person worked remotely.
- didibus 3y ago
  > to measure the ratio of resources expended to the amount of value being produced That's just profit. I think what you mean is that they need to make sure they can sustain themselves if revenue drops, say because of an economic downturn? Cash flow and dept measure that to some extent. But even if, we say those metrics don't tell us enough for this scenario, I find it's pretty obvious remote or in-office doesn't seem very impactful either. You'd want to reduce your costs and be leaner, dropping expensive office space actually seems like maybe a way to be leaner. Maybe some layoffs are in order to reduce payroll and cancelling all non revenue generating ventures/projects which are only burning cash and not making any as of yet (at least pausing on them). Etc. I'm hard pressed to imagine how in-office helps you at all here. Unless you magically think employees will be so productive, you can half the staff and still have them operate everything without having to cut any scope or corners. But that's ridiculous. That's what I meant. If that was true, you'd be able to measure some impact to performance, but you don't, and that means you can at best expect a very marginal effect.

splitstud 3y ago

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ssss11 3y ago

“But my job of managing and co-ordinating people will be made obsolete if everyone stays home” …

collyw 3y ago
I had a remote manager a few years ago and kind of thought that he didn't ad much value to the process. Then they got rid of him and I had to deal with the company owners directly. Absolute nightmare. Good management is one of these things that you don't really notice. Bad management you do notice and not for positive reasons.
- Breza 3y ago
  I agree. Early in my career, I thought a manager was like a driving teacher, someone to help guide you and hit the brake when you're about to crash. Now that I'm a manager, I think of it more like being a snowplow; you wake up in the morning and you can get your job done thanks to the work that someone else is doing behind the scenes.

ravenstine 3y ago

Companies also need to measure the ratio of resources expended to the amount of value being produced, even if cash flow and profit are good at the moment. Unsustainable business practices can remain hidden until the decline begins. When that happens, inept management has to scramble to figure out what's going on and will almost certainly make worse decisions than a lack of sustainability was sussed out much earlier. An apt example would be companies that need to keep hiring more engineers merely to keep the software from collapsing under its own weight. Often times, upper and middle management aren't paying attention to this and are completely distracted by growth and profit, despite the fact that most of their engineering staff are far less productive, perhaps to the point of hardly producing anything at all.

atoav 3y ago
I guess it is about control in the end. Even if your employees are working completely remotely you could always check their output. But the problem is that typically a big part of middle managment has no idea how they would even start to do that. So the alternative is go there and talk to them while observing reactions — and derive your conclusions from that. But that doesn't work as well remotely. You can't surprisingly be there and catch your employees at doing the wrong thing. What other unspeakable evils might they be doing while you are not watching? Now of course you are right, just watching the numbers is not enough. But if your middle managment has no way of knowing if their subordinates are doing their jobs remotely, your business would be in a blind spot even if not a single person worked remotely.
didibus 3y ago
> to measure the ratio of resources expended to the amount of value being produced That's just profit. I think what you mean is that they need to make sure they can sustain themselves if revenue drops, say because of an economic downturn? Cash flow and dept measure that to some extent. But even if, we say those metrics don't tell us enough for this scenario, I find it's pretty obvious remote or in-office doesn't seem very impactful either. You'd want to reduce your costs and be leaner, dropping expensive office space actually seems like maybe a way to be leaner. Maybe some layoffs are in order to reduce payroll and cancelling all non revenue generating ventures/projects which are only burning cash and not making any as of yet (at least pausing on them). Etc. I'm hard pressed to imagine how in-office helps you at all here. Unless you magically think employees will be so productive, you can half the staff and still have them operate everything without having to cut any scope or corners. But that's ridiculous. That's what I meant. If that was true, you'd be able to measure some impact to performance, but you don't, and that means you can at best expect a very marginal effect.