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> If remote work boosts productivity in a substantial way, then it should improve productivity performance Not necessarily given the methodology. For example,

> If remote work boosts productivity in a substantial way, then it should improve productivity performance Not necessarily given the methodology. For example, if remote work allows a worker to do their laundry in parallel where they would be otherwise unable to in an office, their productivity has increased, but the gains would not show up in the study. It observes industry productivity, not work productivity.

nox101 3y ago
I think it's going to be both different for different people and different for different types of jobs. maybe making web apps is not affected at all by work from home where as some other jobs, say game dev, where you'd like to tweak something and hand the controller to your partner to test immediately "does it feel better than the last tweak from 15 seconds ago?" is more affected by work from home? In an extreme example, I suspect people practicing to put on a live play together can't each do their role at home over video chat. Or back to games, I suspect adjust local-multiplayer gameplay is not something you can do without actually having multiple people in the same physical location. As for different people, I'm way more productive around others than by myself. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most productive, I'd give being around my teammates to be 9-10, being at a cafe with people I don't know around a 7. Being at home by myself varies from 3 to 10. Their are certainly spurts of productivity at home for me but there's also zero feeling of camaraderie which is something that gives me energy. Maybe it's related to the similar feeling of watching a movie at a full theater on opening night vs watching at home on my large TV. There's an energy at the theater that's missing from the home viewing. Similarly, for me, there's an energy at work with teammates that missing from working at home. By that's just my experience with my jobs.
- maigret 3y ago
  > In an extreme example, I suspect people practicing to put on a live play together can't each do their role at home over video chat For sure - singing in choir and making music remotely is from what I know mainly impossible because of the latency.
logan5201 3y ago
How is industry productivity not relevant to the point being made? It’s quite possible for there to be a direct correlation between work productivity and industry productivity. You are also discounting many other benefits of remote work. While yes someone may be doing laundry when they should be filling out expense reports, they are also not spending time on a lengthy commute. As a result they are also spending less time at the gas station and for car maintenance bills. I’ll admit I do personal chores on the company’s dime, but the time and resources I save by working remote make up for it at the very least.
charlieyu1 3y ago
I'm glad that I'm in an environment that only output is measured. Nobody cares how you get there, what do you daily in the slack hours, etc
lynx23 3y ago
I guess your boss doesn't really care if you managed to do laundry during work hours. You personally might care since you saved yourself some time, but that is a very personal thing. OTOH, if family is at home, it is also very easy for them to grab you for something seemingly important. With the "right" demanding wife, your boss always looses.
- jen20 3y ago
  With the wrong demanding coworker or (especially) midwit middle manager who wants to talk about sportsball or politics, your entire company loses, not sure what your (rather sexist) point is tbh. Distractions happen. They come from lots of sources.
  - stevenhuang 3y ago
    Demanding wife or demanding husband. His point was about family being home.
  - earthling8118 3y ago
    By focusing on the word "wife" and calling it sexism you miss the point of the comment entirely. I agree with your side of the conversation but nitpicking words and throwing in an attack doesn't help the conversation.
    - jen20 3y ago
      I absolutely did not miss the point of the comment entirely, and responded to it fully, pointing out that distractions are just likely to happen in the office as at home, given the wrong set of coworkers.
safety1st 3y ago
Sure, but then we're discussing remote work as an employee benefit, which is a different discussion driven by a different part of the company etc. Not as a thing which improves the company's bottom line which is where C suite and shareholders spend the vast majority of their attention. If it doesn't improve job productivity then at the level where decisions get made I can think of two really significant points regarding remote work. A. There might be an opportunity to reduce cost because we don't need to pay for as much office space and whatever other expenses are incurred by the employee's physical presence B. There might be an opportunity to reduce cost because we could recruit contractors in other countries instead of full-time US employees. (Which in turn is going to undermine labor's bargaining power in the US...) I personally love remote work and believe in the benefits but I think a lot of people with an employee mindset just don't want to acknowledge the existence of B, they may even downvote me for bringing it up, but I guarantee that is one of the main conversations that will come up in the board room as remote work is normalized. Not "oh hey great, now labor can do laundry on company time!"
- ozim 3y ago
  Reducing costs by hiring in other countries is not as easy as it seems. In reality there is an opportunity to hire wider pool of full time applicants in US because now you can offer even 1 day a week in the office instead of 5 or doing 1 day a month. If I have to consider company that is 2h driving away - one way - and be there 5 days a week, that is a deal breaker. Doing that once a week is still much more manageable and opens up opportunities for employees and employers as well. Especially if someone can't just move to next big city on a whim but can drive there once a week.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    > Reducing costs by hiring in other countries is not as easy as it seems. Over the last 2 years, my company has had multiple rounds of layoff with US bearing the brunt of them. All new headcount is in Canada, LATAM and India. India sucks because of timezones and LATAM sucks because of language barriers, but our management loves Canada - cultural compatibility, no language or timezone barriers and Canadian worker is cheaper than even the cheapest US workers. Canada is also opening up its borders big time for "skilled labor", so there will be a downward pressure on wages for a long time.
jfoutz 3y ago
Although it is pretty strong evidence office space is a boondoggle. That’s a lot of pointless overhead costs that hurt the bottom line. I like seeing my peers in person. I like hashing things out in person. Apparently that’s a waste of time and money.
- Garlef 3y ago
  > That’s a lot of pointless overhead costs that hurt the bottom line. Or put the other way: Remote work let's the employee pay for the office space.
  - bilekas 3y ago
    Not quite, you're going to be paying rent for example regardless, you may have to invest in some office furniture which is usually subsidized but if not then consider the savings you would make through the year overall, perhaps transportation costs, lunches etc. Things add up fiscally. Ignoring the lifestyle benefits.
    - 331c8c71 3y ago
      In many places on Earth one would need to pay a substantially higher rent/price to get an extra room to use as an office. And in a family situation one would ideally need two extra rooms...
      - raizer88 3y ago
        Yes, but in a remote work family you can buy an house everywhere. You pay a lot less in rent outside the city.
        marcosdumay 3y ago
        You don't have work anymore as a constraint, but it's not the only constraint to where people live. If you are single and want to live alone, you can certainly optimize the hell out of housing costs. But of course, each single constraint you remove will probably let you reduce your costs by a bit.
rendaw 3y ago
Also poor management could impose an upper limit on productivity, which would allow measuring performance loss but not gain.

nox101 3y ago

I think it's going to be both different for different people and different for different types of jobs. maybe making web apps is not affected at all by work from home where as some other jobs, say game dev, where you'd like to tweak something and hand the controller to your partner to test immediately "does it feel better than the last tweak from 15 seconds ago?" is more affected by work from home? In an extreme example, I suspect people practicing to put on a live play together can't each do their role at home over video chat. Or back to games, I suspect adjust local-multiplayer gameplay is not something you can do without actually having multiple people in the same physical location. As for different people, I'm way more productive around others than by myself. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most productive, I'd give being around my teammates to be 9-10, being at a cafe with people I don't know around a 7. Being at home by myself varies from 3 to 10. Their are certainly spurts of productivity at home for me but there's also zero feeling of camaraderie which is something that gives me energy. Maybe it's related to the similar feeling of watching a movie at a full theater on opening night vs watching at home on my large TV. There's an energy at the theater that's missing from the home viewing. Similarly, for me, there's an energy at work with teammates that missing from working at home. By that's just my experience with my jobs.

maigret 3y ago
> In an extreme example, I suspect people practicing to put on a live play together can't each do their role at home over video chat For sure - singing in choir and making music remotely is from what I know mainly impossible because of the latency.

logan5201 3y ago

How is industry productivity not relevant to the point being made? It’s quite possible for there to be a direct correlation between work productivity and industry productivity. You are also discounting many other benefits of remote work. While yes someone may be doing laundry when they should be filling out expense reports, they are also not spending time on a lengthy commute. As a result they are also spending less time at the gas station and for car maintenance bills. I’ll admit I do personal chores on the company’s dime, but the time and resources I save by working remote make up for it at the very least.

charlieyu1 3y ago

I'm glad that I'm in an environment that only output is measured. Nobody cares how you get there, what do you daily in the slack hours, etc

lynx23 3y ago

I guess your boss doesn't really care if you managed to do laundry during work hours. You personally might care since you saved yourself some time, but that is a very personal thing. OTOH, if family is at home, it is also very easy for them to grab you for something seemingly important. With the "right" demanding wife, your boss always looses.

jen20 3y ago
With the wrong demanding coworker or (especially) midwit middle manager who wants to talk about sportsball or politics, your entire company loses, not sure what your (rather sexist) point is tbh. Distractions happen. They come from lots of sources.
- stevenhuang 3y ago
  Demanding wife or demanding husband. His point was about family being home.
- earthling8118 3y ago
  By focusing on the word "wife" and calling it sexism you miss the point of the comment entirely. I agree with your side of the conversation but nitpicking words and throwing in an attack doesn't help the conversation.
  - jen20 3y ago
    I absolutely did not miss the point of the comment entirely, and responded to it fully, pointing out that distractions are just likely to happen in the office as at home, given the wrong set of coworkers.

safety1st 3y ago

Sure, but then we're discussing remote work as an employee benefit, which is a different discussion driven by a different part of the company etc. Not as a thing which improves the company's bottom line which is where C suite and shareholders spend the vast majority of their attention. If it doesn't improve job productivity then at the level where decisions get made I can think of two really significant points regarding remote work. A. There might be an opportunity to reduce cost because we don't need to pay for as much office space and whatever other expenses are incurred by the employee's physical presence B. There might be an opportunity to reduce cost because we could recruit contractors in other countries instead of full-time US employees. (Which in turn is going to undermine labor's bargaining power in the US...) I personally love remote work and believe in the benefits but I think a lot of people with an employee mindset just don't want to acknowledge the existence of B, they may even downvote me for bringing it up, but I guarantee that is one of the main conversations that will come up in the board room as remote work is normalized. Not "oh hey great, now labor can do laundry on company time!"

ozim 3y ago
Reducing costs by hiring in other countries is not as easy as it seems. In reality there is an opportunity to hire wider pool of full time applicants in US because now you can offer even 1 day a week in the office instead of 5 or doing 1 day a month. If I have to consider company that is 2h driving away - one way - and be there 5 days a week, that is a deal breaker. Doing that once a week is still much more manageable and opens up opportunities for employees and employers as well. Especially if someone can't just move to next big city on a whim but can drive there once a week.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  > Reducing costs by hiring in other countries is not as easy as it seems. Over the last 2 years, my company has had multiple rounds of layoff with US bearing the brunt of them. All new headcount is in Canada, LATAM and India. India sucks because of timezones and LATAM sucks because of language barriers, but our management loves Canada - cultural compatibility, no language or timezone barriers and Canadian worker is cheaper than even the cheapest US workers. Canada is also opening up its borders big time for "skilled labor", so there will be a downward pressure on wages for a long time.

jfoutz 3y ago

Although it is pretty strong evidence office space is a boondoggle. That’s a lot of pointless overhead costs that hurt the bottom line. I like seeing my peers in person. I like hashing things out in person. Apparently that’s a waste of time and money.

Garlef 3y ago
> That’s a lot of pointless overhead costs that hurt the bottom line. Or put the other way: Remote work let's the employee pay for the office space.
- bilekas 3y ago
  Not quite, you're going to be paying rent for example regardless, you may have to invest in some office furniture which is usually subsidized but if not then consider the savings you would make through the year overall, perhaps transportation costs, lunches etc. Things add up fiscally. Ignoring the lifestyle benefits.
  - 331c8c71 3y ago
    In many places on Earth one would need to pay a substantially higher rent/price to get an extra room to use as an office. And in a family situation one would ideally need two extra rooms...
    - raizer88 3y ago
      Yes, but in a remote work family you can buy an house everywhere. You pay a lot less in rent outside the city.
      - marcosdumay 3y ago
        You don't have work anymore as a constraint, but it's not the only constraint to where people live. If you are single and want to live alone, you can certainly optimize the hell out of housing costs. But of course, each single constraint you remove will probably let you reduce your costs by a bit.

rendaw 3y ago

Also poor management could impose an upper limit on productivity, which would allow measuring performance loss but not gain.