5 ms·

Remote work % in industry not correlated with excess productivity growth

47 points by firstSpeaker 3y ago

Swizec 3y ago
> Does Working from Home Boost Productivity Growth? Does it have to? Remote work is great because it reduces carbon emissions, reduces noise pollution, reduces traffic, increases residential rent revenues, increases work satisfaction, increases hobby engagement, improves child rearing, and generally gives people their time back. If we can get all that and maintain the same productivity, working from home feels very worth it.
- twh270 3y ago
  Bingo, came here to say this. The goal of our society should not be to make everyone as "productive" as possible, but to make everyone's lives as good as possible.
  - leetrout 3y ago
    I am sure it had always been this way but it feels worse these days. Disgusting greed.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      I believe that the cancer is worsening. It's been too long since we reminded the powerful that their power comes from our consent and can be revoked.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
  > Remote work is great because it reduces carbon emissions, reduces noise pollution, reduces traffic, increases residential rent revenues, increases work satisfaction, increases hobby engagement, improves child rearing, and generally gives people their time back. All reasons corporations will crush it. They don't want happy workers, they want fearful ones.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    Keep in mind this appliues to the execs as well - my CEO and CTO are huge advocates for WFH because of this.
    - Swizec 3y ago
      > Keep in mind this appliues to the execs as well One challenge is that many execs see WFH as a privilege of being an exec. The modern corner office is a detached home office overlooking the pool.
      - dukeyukey 3y ago
        I can kinda see that but it's just not been true in my experience. My CEO and CTO don't care if you're in the office - they're not in so why would they care? Hell, the CEO only lives a 20 minute walk from the office, and he still doesn't come in!
        Swizec 3y ago
        I think we’re seeing these attitudes change in real time. Progress execs don’t care as long as the work gets done. Conservative execs see wfh as an affront to status. You have to remember that we’re the first generation since pre-industrial times that even can work from home en masse.
- cplusplusfellow 3y ago
  Really difficult to comprehend why this is so difficult for people to understand. I recently started sharing a small office on the lake with a friend. I have about 180sf of it to myself. There are boats that cruise by, views are incredible, the environment is fun an inviting -- and I still have my privacy. It's like WFH but 5 feet from the water. I've been a WFH advocate for 22 years, having spend 20 of those working in my own home. I still refuse to go downtown, but I don't mind going to a place like this. I still work about 70% from my house, and 30% from the office. I work from the office when it suits me. Perhaps if they weren't trying to shove us into a singular zip code from a radius 50 miles away, distract and annoy us, force us to deal with traffic, not to mention the personal and monetary expense of it all -- I'd be willing to entertain the idea that an office is "better."
  - Mutttttioi 3y ago
    There is one thing the companies might not get but i got: I know now how it is to work remote and no i will not go back to the old. I'm now also willing to accept less money for remote only than before and i also thinking of taking my current money and doing an exit faster if the industry doesn't like that and i will just accept a 'lost' of luxury but i do want to look at nature when i have to work (like your lake side office).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- boredemployee 3y ago
  If we consider the very meaning of productivity, I wonder if we really shouldn't be producing less. Increases in productivity have not necessarily led society to greater prosperity, so I think we've been looking at the wrong indicator all this time.
- charles_f 3y ago
  > Does it have to? To be fair they acknowledge in conclusion that it has other positive effects, but their analysis was focused on productivity. But I agree, title of this analysis is weird, as it assumes that it should impact productivity positively and comes as negative since it doesn't. I am glad they conclude its neutral though. If we were starting to see analysis showing it reduces productivity, you'd bet we'd be back in office in no time
- addicted 3y ago
  Remote work is great because it reduces carbon emissions/reduces noise pollution/reduces traffic - These are related. There is absolutely no evidence for this. In the U.S. traffic in 2021 was higher than in 2019 despite significant remote work and has only been going higher since. Electricity consumption has been higher as well (which is obvious…heating or cooling an office space with tens or hundreds of people is almost certainly more efficient than heating tens or hundreds of different spaces with 1-2 people in them). increases residential rent revenues - I’m not sure what you mean but if you mean higher rent, I think most would agree that high rent is a massive problem in the U.S. and high rents aren’t a good thing. increases work satisfaction - Yes, the evidence shows that this appears to be the case for a decent majority of people. But the satisfaction numbers may drop with distance with COVID so we need to see if this holds up. increases hobby engagement - I’m not sure there’s any evidence for this. improves child - there is a correlation here but it’s not clear how much of it is a result of the large percentage of women who’ve dropped out of the workforce to care for children since COVID. and generally gives people their time back - The evidence points in the opposite direction. Since the massive increase in WFH people are very clearly stating that work has taken over all hours in their life. Once again, this may be due to the lack of establishment of norms due to the limited time, so it may improve, but the evidence isn’t clear in either direction. Another point is that most of these benefits are a result of avoiding (although it isn’t clear that this is even the case) bad commutes. Which is largely driven by bad infrastructure design which may not be the case in places which don’t have the bad infrastructure design, which would contain a lot of major population centers outside USA/Canada.
- vharuck 3y ago
  Many things like this remind me of Robert Kennedy's speech at the University of Kansas: >Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968 https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-famil...
afavour 3y ago
The title here is confusingly worded, makes it sound like just remote work = no excess productivity. But the article makes it clear it goes in both directions, remote work simply doesn't have an effect on productivity one way or another: > Analyzing the relationship between GDP per hour growth and the ability to telework across industries shows that industries that are more adaptable to remote work did not experience a bigger decline or boost in productivity growth since 2020 than less adaptable industries. Thus, teleworking most likely has neither substantially held back nor boosted productivity growth.
- spaceywilly 3y ago
  It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I changed jobs this year directly citing my company’s forced RTO policy, and my manager said I wasn’t the only one doing so. I think the companies that are trying to force RTO will start changing tune pretty quickly when studies like this show there’s really no downside in terms of productivity.
  - bediger4000 3y ago
    CEOs seem to be forcing RTO based mainly on vibes, "spontaneous collaboration", or "organic creative breakthroughs", or "watercooler synergy" or some other corporate gibberish. Data won't make a dent in that.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    they know there is no difference. but doing this means they can force you out, and replace you with someone in Alabama, or India, who will do the job for less. Often much less. An awful lot of tech bro Big4 consulting CEO types are also betting a lot on AI -- cut bodies and let Copilot or GPT do the work. If that doesn't work they can always scrounge up another body or two from Tata or Cap Gemini.
- keenmaster 3y ago
  The savings in time, money, and energy from remote work are investible. Resources will be reallocated from commercial office space, commuting, etc…to other more productive endeavors. We won’t see some of that play out for another 5-10 years (e.g. when mass divestment from commercial real estate happens).
paxys 3y ago
Any study that attempts to measure "productivity" as a single number is inherently flawed.
- schnitzelstoat 3y ago
  In economics, it's just defined as GDP per hour worked. It has a very specific meaning.
mrcode007 3y ago
Title a bit misleading. The study says it had not substantially held back not boosted productivity. It basically says “no measurable effect”. What you’re missing is the economists’ definition of productivity which is amount of goods/services produced over the inputs used to produce them. It is unrelated concept to personal “feeling” of being productive.
cgeo 3y ago
I believe the depiction here is inaccurate as it does not account for commute time. If I have to spend 1.5 hours commuting to the office, it should be considered as 9.5 hours for the same task that I can accomplish in 8 hours at home.
- dheera 3y ago
  Another thing they don't capture is that I can afford a better, more comfortable and ergonomic setup at home than my company is willing to spend on office equipment, as well as access to healthier food and drink than my company is willing to stock the office pantries with. Not to mention the number of meetings I need to take from my uncomfortable car seat on office days because there aren't enough meeting rooms and phone booths in the office.
- TomK32 3y ago
  It's you personal choice (and car-centric infrastructure allowing you) to travel such a long distance to the office.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Only so much as my salary is personal choice. Or the decision to uproot your family's life is personal choice.
ameister14 3y ago
Remote work can result in a significant reduction in expenses for a company. Certainly when covid happened and we ended our office lease we saved thousands per month, even counting the increase in equipment cost for home workers. So even without an increase in productivity the ratio of cost per employee to productivity per employee may improve.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Yes, the staff generally end up paying for way more than they should be.
ralmidani 3y ago
So if it has no measurable effect, and some workers need/want to work remotely for whatever reason, why do some orgs not want to give them that option, especially for desk work in software, insurance, law, etc. that require little to no face-to-face interaction? Could it be that it’s not about productivity or even “culture”, but actually all about control and/or trying to justify the org’s sunk costs in office space purchases/leases? For the record, I would prefer a hybrid arrangement if I could have one that didn’t require a long commute (more than 15-20 minutes). But what works for me might not work for everyone else in the org.
- rthkljlkrj 3y ago
  [dead]
- _uhtu 3y ago
  > Could it be that it’s not about productivity or even “culture”, but actually all about control and/or trying to justify the org’s office space costs? It's 100% about this. I know several people who were forced back to work after being able to do their entire job at full productivity remotely for years, and they were happier and saving money. They were just as able to "brainstorm" with people. It's all about control and justifying office space cost.
- digging 3y ago
  I'm expecting/hoping that eventually the right to WFH for a job that can be done entirely WFH will be recognized as a necessary accommodation for various disabilities, so that these petty flexes can be halted.
  - ralmidani 3y ago
    Yeah, they passed that already in the Netherlands. I think the Netherlands doesn’t stipulates a disability. And honestly, there are reasons other than disabilities and neurodivergence; some people are caregivers, or have young kids, or have a nice home office setup (which a lot of the same companies “flexing” as you put it will never match in the office), or they just don’t want to waste money and time commuting. I believe if the job can be done remotely, it should be a worker’s right. No hassle, no questions asked, and no retaliation or discrimination. However, I’m not sure where you’re located, but I’m not holding my breath for meaningful workers’ rights legislation in the US any time soon.
datadrivenangel 3y ago
This is for GDP per hour. So in aggregate, we're not more productive as a society when we work from home more. But I suspect that this is a result of the increased (virtual) office productivity offsetting less economic activity related to commuting and maintaining the vehicles needed for commuting; we're still slightly below 2019 vehicle miles.
jayd16 3y ago
Does this account for the self selection a business would do; ie a woefully poor policy would not be followed for long and thus aggregate data is not a random sample?
bearjaws 3y ago
I think were at the point in capitalism (late stage corporatism?) that employees are more or less going to capture 'excess productivity' for themselves by doing chores and running errands. Same goes for the office, they will go around and gossip, several long trips to the break room and walks. Go on TikTok and look at the sheer apathy for corporations. "Think of the share holders" memes as an example. It's clear for 99% of workers there is going to be zero reward for producing more, so they simply aren't going to produce more, remote or in person. Exception is startups, which is part of the reason I work for startups.
- gustavus 3y ago
  "I come in and mostly stare at my computer so it looks like I'm working. I'd say in a given week I only do about 15 minutes of actual work. It's a problem of motivation if I bust my ass and Initech ships a few extra units I don't see a dime of that. So where's the motivation Bob?"
TimPC 3y ago
This seems like the worst possible way of answering the question. I'd be much more interested in looking at this company by company within a vertical. Knowing that the teleworkability of software engineering is 80% and that software engineering as an industry adds a lot of value per hour from a productivity perspective doesn't seem causal to me. You could for instance just be measuring that physical presence is more correlated with low value work rather than measuring any notion of productivity. Knowing whether the companies within software that allow remote work add more or less value than the companies within software that don't would be far more informative.
dasil003 3y ago
Regardless of the quality (which in this case seems decent at a glance), I can’t help but feel this type of research is fundamentally harmful to management decision making. One of two things will happen, either those with a pre-existing opinion will use it to justify their viewpoint, or they will use it earnestly as input. The latter is almost worse given that any particular business is going to respond uniquely to WFH and these super high level averages remove all the nuance that a competent leader would use to make decisions about their organization.
legitster 3y ago
In the charts there are some very notable outliers of negative productivity. I wish the author would have labeled which industries are notably underperforming.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ricardo81 3y ago
WFH since the 90's here. I'd take a leap to say that people who WFH (or remote in general) or deal with people who WFH would say it boils down to personality types, maybe some short-term adjustment to working from home and perhaps factor in the space/time suitability someone has in working from home. I remember some fellow working class folk asking me in the early 00's about WFH "oh right, you must be wanking off to porn all day" or some such, like it was some paid opportunity to get that done and everyone who wasn't remote was earning their corn honestly. Well no, I want to work for a living, pay my own way and just like the idea of working from home and hopefully it can be proven that it doesn't harm productivity. After a while it just seemed absurd that people would commute for hours, pollute the atmosphere, waste their time etc to perform the same job. Then again some people just enjoy the company.
DrBazza 3y ago
My previous employer made redundant an employee whose productivity was basically zero when we moved to work from home. It became clear very quickly that he was only really socialising in the office, for want of a better phrase, but when wfh hit, he wasn’t producing anything. Presenteeism and face time.
kkfx 3y ago
A very simple small note: the article observe some "issues" like "inferior equipment at home, distraction, difficult communication etc who actually exists BUT they are not a part of remote working but a part of being unprepared to do so. Once established that WFH meaning having a closed room, well equipped, well connected etc, such issues disappear; once people understand how to relate with others from remote another issue is gone. So to say: so far they have not observed nor boost nor degradation in productivity BECAUSE there are some issues about WFH organization and habits, resolving them will likely boost productivity as well. Beside that: the push against WFH have two reasons: - at small sale remote workers are easy to fire, but ALSO have from a whole country to the whole world of potential job market, not just the market in a close proximity of facing relocations costs. So to say, remote workers are LESS EASIER exploited beyond their signed contracts than in person workers; - al large scale working from remote en mass means a population that start to spread, this means many modern services going down. We have no reasons to Uber when we live in a spread place where parking is never an issue and all have their own cars. We have no reasons to JustEat if we have few restaurants nearby and we normally eat at our home. We have no room for drone delivery of small packages since there are no long-range drones. We have no room for keep visiting shopping malls buying small things that sum up to a significant amount of money for the shop since we live in a large and calm place. Essentially at large scale remote work help small and medium enterprises cutting market slice to the modern giants, avoiding the "sharing economy" and the "not owning anything, use services instead" scenarios.

47 points by firstSpeaker 3y ago

> Does Working from Home Boost Productivity Growth? Does it have to? Remote work is great because it reduces carbon emissions, reduces noise pollution, reduces traffic, increases residential rent revenues, increases work satisfaction, increases hobby engagement, improves child rearing, and generally gives people their time back. If we can get all that and maintain the same productivity, working from home feels very worth it.

twh270 3y ago
Bingo, came here to say this. The goal of our society should not be to make everyone as "productive" as possible, but to make everyone's lives as good as possible.
- leetrout 3y ago
  I am sure it had always been this way but it feels worse these days. Disgusting greed.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I believe that the cancer is worsening. It's been too long since we reminded the powerful that their power comes from our consent and can be revoked.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
> Remote work is great because it reduces carbon emissions, reduces noise pollution, reduces traffic, increases residential rent revenues, increases work satisfaction, increases hobby engagement, improves child rearing, and generally gives people their time back. All reasons corporations will crush it. They don't want happy workers, they want fearful ones.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  Keep in mind this appliues to the execs as well - my CEO and CTO are huge advocates for WFH because of this.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > Keep in mind this appliues to the execs as well One challenge is that many execs see WFH as a privilege of being an exec. The modern corner office is a detached home office overlooking the pool.
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      I can kinda see that but it's just not been true in my experience. My CEO and CTO don't care if you're in the office - they're not in so why would they care? Hell, the CEO only lives a 20 minute walk from the office, and he still doesn't come in!
      - Swizec 3y ago
        I think we’re seeing these attitudes change in real time. Progress execs don’t care as long as the work gets done. Conservative execs see wfh as an affront to status. You have to remember that we’re the first generation since pre-industrial times that even can work from home en masse.
cplusplusfellow 3y ago
Really difficult to comprehend why this is so difficult for people to understand. I recently started sharing a small office on the lake with a friend. I have about 180sf of it to myself. There are boats that cruise by, views are incredible, the environment is fun an inviting -- and I still have my privacy. It's like WFH but 5 feet from the water. I've been a WFH advocate for 22 years, having spend 20 of those working in my own home. I still refuse to go downtown, but I don't mind going to a place like this. I still work about 70% from my house, and 30% from the office. I work from the office when it suits me. Perhaps if they weren't trying to shove us into a singular zip code from a radius 50 miles away, distract and annoy us, force us to deal with traffic, not to mention the personal and monetary expense of it all -- I'd be willing to entertain the idea that an office is "better."
- Mutttttioi 3y ago
  There is one thing the companies might not get but i got: I know now how it is to work remote and no i will not go back to the old. I'm now also willing to accept less money for remote only than before and i also thinking of taking my current money and doing an exit faster if the industry doesn't like that and i will just accept a 'lost' of luxury but i do want to look at nature when i have to work (like your lake side office).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
boredemployee 3y ago
If we consider the very meaning of productivity, I wonder if we really shouldn't be producing less. Increases in productivity have not necessarily led society to greater prosperity, so I think we've been looking at the wrong indicator all this time.
charles_f 3y ago
> Does it have to? To be fair they acknowledge in conclusion that it has other positive effects, but their analysis was focused on productivity. But I agree, title of this analysis is weird, as it assumes that it should impact productivity positively and comes as negative since it doesn't. I am glad they conclude its neutral though. If we were starting to see analysis showing it reduces productivity, you'd bet we'd be back in office in no time
addicted 3y ago
Remote work is great because it reduces carbon emissions/reduces noise pollution/reduces traffic - These are related. There is absolutely no evidence for this. In the U.S. traffic in 2021 was higher than in 2019 despite significant remote work and has only been going higher since. Electricity consumption has been higher as well (which is obvious…heating or cooling an office space with tens or hundreds of people is almost certainly more efficient than heating tens or hundreds of different spaces with 1-2 people in them). increases residential rent revenues - I’m not sure what you mean but if you mean higher rent, I think most would agree that high rent is a massive problem in the U.S. and high rents aren’t a good thing. increases work satisfaction - Yes, the evidence shows that this appears to be the case for a decent majority of people. But the satisfaction numbers may drop with distance with COVID so we need to see if this holds up. increases hobby engagement - I’m not sure there’s any evidence for this. improves child - there is a correlation here but it’s not clear how much of it is a result of the large percentage of women who’ve dropped out of the workforce to care for children since COVID. and generally gives people their time back - The evidence points in the opposite direction. Since the massive increase in WFH people are very clearly stating that work has taken over all hours in their life. Once again, this may be due to the lack of establishment of norms due to the limited time, so it may improve, but the evidence isn’t clear in either direction. Another point is that most of these benefits are a result of avoiding (although it isn’t clear that this is even the case) bad commutes. Which is largely driven by bad infrastructure design which may not be the case in places which don’t have the bad infrastructure design, which would contain a lot of major population centers outside USA/Canada.
vharuck 3y ago
Many things like this remind me of Robert Kennedy's speech at the University of Kansas: >Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968 https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-famil...

afavour 3y ago

The title here is confusingly worded, makes it sound like just remote work = no excess productivity. But the article makes it clear it goes in both directions, remote work simply doesn't have an effect on productivity one way or another: > Analyzing the relationship between GDP per hour growth and the ability to telework across industries shows that industries that are more adaptable to remote work did not experience a bigger decline or boost in productivity growth since 2020 than less adaptable industries. Thus, teleworking most likely has neither substantially held back nor boosted productivity growth.

spaceywilly 3y ago
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I changed jobs this year directly citing my company’s forced RTO policy, and my manager said I wasn’t the only one doing so. I think the companies that are trying to force RTO will start changing tune pretty quickly when studies like this show there’s really no downside in terms of productivity.
- bediger4000 3y ago
  CEOs seem to be forcing RTO based mainly on vibes, "spontaneous collaboration", or "organic creative breakthroughs", or "watercooler synergy" or some other corporate gibberish. Data won't make a dent in that.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  they know there is no difference. but doing this means they can force you out, and replace you with someone in Alabama, or India, who will do the job for less. Often much less. An awful lot of tech bro Big4 consulting CEO types are also betting a lot on AI -- cut bodies and let Copilot or GPT do the work. If that doesn't work they can always scrounge up another body or two from Tata or Cap Gemini.
keenmaster 3y ago
The savings in time, money, and energy from remote work are investible. Resources will be reallocated from commercial office space, commuting, etc…to other more productive endeavors. We won’t see some of that play out for another 5-10 years (e.g. when mass divestment from commercial real estate happens).

paxys 3y ago

Any study that attempts to measure "productivity" as a single number is inherently flawed.

schnitzelstoat 3y ago
In economics, it's just defined as GDP per hour worked. It has a very specific meaning.

mrcode007 3y ago

Title a bit misleading. The study says it had not substantially held back not boosted productivity. It basically says “no measurable effect”. What you’re missing is the economists’ definition of productivity which is amount of goods/services produced over the inputs used to produce them. It is unrelated concept to personal “feeling” of being productive.

cgeo 3y ago

I believe the depiction here is inaccurate as it does not account for commute time. If I have to spend 1.5 hours commuting to the office, it should be considered as 9.5 hours for the same task that I can accomplish in 8 hours at home.

dheera 3y ago
Another thing they don't capture is that I can afford a better, more comfortable and ergonomic setup at home than my company is willing to spend on office equipment, as well as access to healthier food and drink than my company is willing to stock the office pantries with. Not to mention the number of meetings I need to take from my uncomfortable car seat on office days because there aren't enough meeting rooms and phone booths in the office.
TomK32 3y ago
It's you personal choice (and car-centric infrastructure allowing you) to travel such a long distance to the office.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  Only so much as my salary is personal choice. Or the decision to uproot your family's life is personal choice.

ameister14 3y ago

Remote work can result in a significant reduction in expenses for a company. Certainly when covid happened and we ended our office lease we saved thousands per month, even counting the increase in equipment cost for home workers. So even without an increase in productivity the ratio of cost per employee to productivity per employee may improve.

ChatGTP 3y ago
Yes, the staff generally end up paying for way more than they should be.

ralmidani 3y ago

So if it has no measurable effect, and some workers need/want to work remotely for whatever reason, why do some orgs not want to give them that option, especially for desk work in software, insurance, law, etc. that require little to no face-to-face interaction? Could it be that it’s not about productivity or even “culture”, but actually all about control and/or trying to justify the org’s sunk costs in office space purchases/leases? For the record, I would prefer a hybrid arrangement if I could have one that didn’t require a long commute (more than 15-20 minutes). But what works for me might not work for everyone else in the org.

rthkljlkrj 3y ago
[dead]
_uhtu 3y ago
> Could it be that it’s not about productivity or even “culture”, but actually all about control and/or trying to justify the org’s office space costs? It's 100% about this. I know several people who were forced back to work after being able to do their entire job at full productivity remotely for years, and they were happier and saving money. They were just as able to "brainstorm" with people. It's all about control and justifying office space cost.
digging 3y ago
I'm expecting/hoping that eventually the right to WFH for a job that can be done entirely WFH will be recognized as a necessary accommodation for various disabilities, so that these petty flexes can be halted.
- ralmidani 3y ago
  Yeah, they passed that already in the Netherlands. I think the Netherlands doesn’t stipulates a disability. And honestly, there are reasons other than disabilities and neurodivergence; some people are caregivers, or have young kids, or have a nice home office setup (which a lot of the same companies “flexing” as you put it will never match in the office), or they just don’t want to waste money and time commuting. I believe if the job can be done remotely, it should be a worker’s right. No hassle, no questions asked, and no retaliation or discrimination. However, I’m not sure where you’re located, but I’m not holding my breath for meaningful workers’ rights legislation in the US any time soon.

datadrivenangel 3y ago

This is for GDP per hour. So in aggregate, we're not more productive as a society when we work from home more. But I suspect that this is a result of the increased (virtual) office productivity offsetting less economic activity related to commuting and maintaining the vehicles needed for commuting; we're still slightly below 2019 vehicle miles.

jayd16 3y ago

Does this account for the self selection a business would do; ie a woefully poor policy would not be followed for long and thus aggregate data is not a random sample?

bearjaws 3y ago

I think were at the point in capitalism (late stage corporatism?) that employees are more or less going to capture 'excess productivity' for themselves by doing chores and running errands. Same goes for the office, they will go around and gossip, several long trips to the break room and walks. Go on TikTok and look at the sheer apathy for corporations. "Think of the share holders" memes as an example. It's clear for 99% of workers there is going to be zero reward for producing more, so they simply aren't going to produce more, remote or in person. Exception is startups, which is part of the reason I work for startups.

gustavus 3y ago
"I come in and mostly stare at my computer so it looks like I'm working. I'd say in a given week I only do about 15 minutes of actual work. It's a problem of motivation if I bust my ass and Initech ships a few extra units I don't see a dime of that. So where's the motivation Bob?"

TimPC 3y ago

This seems like the worst possible way of answering the question. I'd be much more interested in looking at this company by company within a vertical. Knowing that the teleworkability of software engineering is 80% and that software engineering as an industry adds a lot of value per hour from a productivity perspective doesn't seem causal to me. You could for instance just be measuring that physical presence is more correlated with low value work rather than measuring any notion of productivity. Knowing whether the companies within software that allow remote work add more or less value than the companies within software that don't would be far more informative.

dasil003 3y ago

Regardless of the quality (which in this case seems decent at a glance), I can’t help but feel this type of research is fundamentally harmful to management decision making. One of two things will happen, either those with a pre-existing opinion will use it to justify their viewpoint, or they will use it earnestly as input. The latter is almost worse given that any particular business is going to respond uniquely to WFH and these super high level averages remove all the nuance that a competent leader would use to make decisions about their organization.

legitster 3y ago

In the charts there are some very notable outliers of negative productivity. I wish the author would have labeled which industries are notably underperforming.

deleted 3y ago

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ricardo81 3y ago

WFH since the 90's here. I'd take a leap to say that people who WFH (or remote in general) or deal with people who WFH would say it boils down to personality types, maybe some short-term adjustment to working from home and perhaps factor in the space/time suitability someone has in working from home. I remember some fellow working class folk asking me in the early 00's about WFH "oh right, you must be wanking off to porn all day" or some such, like it was some paid opportunity to get that done and everyone who wasn't remote was earning their corn honestly. Well no, I want to work for a living, pay my own way and just like the idea of working from home and hopefully it can be proven that it doesn't harm productivity. After a while it just seemed absurd that people would commute for hours, pollute the atmosphere, waste their time etc to perform the same job. Then again some people just enjoy the company.

DrBazza 3y ago

My previous employer made redundant an employee whose productivity was basically zero when we moved to work from home. It became clear very quickly that he was only really socialising in the office, for want of a better phrase, but when wfh hit, he wasn’t producing anything. Presenteeism and face time.

kkfx 3y ago

A very simple small note: the article observe some "issues" like "inferior equipment at home, distraction, difficult communication etc who actually exists BUT they are not a part of remote working but a part of being unprepared to do so. Once established that WFH meaning having a closed room, well equipped, well connected etc, such issues disappear; once people understand how to relate with others from remote another issue is gone. So to say: so far they have not observed nor boost nor degradation in productivity BECAUSE there are some issues about WFH organization and habits, resolving them will likely boost productivity as well. Beside that: the push against WFH have two reasons: - at small sale remote workers are easy to fire, but ALSO have from a whole country to the whole world of potential job market, not just the market in a close proximity of facing relocations costs. So to say, remote workers are LESS EASIER exploited beyond their signed contracts than in person workers; - al large scale working from remote en mass means a population that start to spread, this means many modern services going down. We have no reasons to Uber when we live in a spread place where parking is never an issue and all have their own cars. We have no reasons to JustEat if we have few restaurants nearby and we normally eat at our home. We have no room for drone delivery of small packages since there are no long-range drones. We have no room for keep visiting shopping malls buying small things that sum up to a significant amount of money for the shop since we live in a large and calm place. Essentially at large scale remote work help small and medium enterprises cutting market slice to the modern giants, avoiding the "sharing economy" and the "not owning anything, use services instead" scenarios.