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Can you link these studies? I often feel like people greatly misrepresent what these studies find. Anecdotally, we've been happy to cut remote senior engineers

Can you link these studies? I often feel like people greatly misrepresent what these studies find. Anecdotally, we've been happy to cut remote senior engineers and bring in local people, sometimes at a significantly higher total comp, just because they play such an important role in coordination, which is far more important than their trivia knowledge about our system.

jack_riminton 2y ago
Here are some: 1) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... 2) https://www.nber.org/papers/w28731 https://www.nber.org/papers/w28731 3) https://scholar.harvard.edu/eharrington/publications/working-remotely-selection-treatment-and-market-provision-remote-work https://scholar.harvard.edu/eharrington/publications/working...
- MiguelX413 2y ago
  You should use DOI links: 1) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 2) https://doi.org/10.3386/w28731 https://doi.org/10.3386/w28731 3) https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4466130 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4466130 , respectively
- coffeedan 2y ago
  A few things: - the first two were conducted while we were in the thick of the pandemic and loathe to be near anyone outside of our pod. WFH made sense then, and I’m sure people were more comfortable knowing they wouldn’t get Covid WFH - the third was in 2023 when the world opened up, but studied call center operators. Yes, I can see how they would be more productive at home. However, imho any position that requires collaboration and many interactions between staff is more productive in the office and this study doesn’t address that.
  - thesz 2y ago
    Let me quote the first one, which is meta-analysis: ". Of the articles published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 79% (n = 19) demonstrated that work-from-home increased productivity and performance whereas 21% (n = 5) showed mixed or no effects. Of the articles published during the pandemic, 23% (n = 3) showed positive effects, 38% (n = 5) revealed mixed results, and 38% (n = 5) showed negative effects." So it seems that there are numerous studies that show WFH is beneficial to productivity, that are done before pandemic.
lolinder 2y ago
Just a note that from your anecdote it sounds like you're a company that is partially (and decreasingly) remote. My experience has been that that kind of hybrid—where some employees are always colocated and others are always not—doesn't work because the organization's culture stays synchronous and in-person-oriented, so the remote employees are hamstrung in ways that don't happen in an organization where remote is evenly distributed.
- zeroCalories 2y ago
  I think it's the opposite, remote workers are not reliable teammates. When we need ad hoc help from a remote engineer, we need to grab a 30 minute slot on their calendar, or we need to send them a long async email or DM chain. Eventually the conversation slows down, and they start responding once a day. When our senior engineers are physically available I can put myself in their office or at their desk and demand they help me. More remote-more slow.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    What you're describing is exactly the kind of problematic culture difference that I'm warning about. This is what I said earlier: > because the organization's culture stays synchronous and in-person-oriented Asynchronous does not mean slow, but it is different and requires structuring your work differently. Remote works much better asynchronously, but at an organization that has too few remote employees will never learn to do that. It's not that you're doing something wrong or that they are, it's that your organization is designed to be incompatible with remote workers. If you're not willing to adapt, then you're absolutely on the right track by phasing out remote, but don't take your anecdotes from working in an organization that refused to change as evidence that remote doesn't work. > When our senior engineers are physically available I can put myself in their office or at their desk and demand they help me. Slight tangent, but this is exactly why a lot of people like myself will never go back into an office. I don't want to be paid to be at someone's beck and call whenever they want to interrupt me, I want to be given a large chunk of work that I can work on independently without interruption unless I'm specifically designated to be on call as part of a regular rotation (at which point you can interrupt me just as well on slack as you could in the office).

jack_riminton 2y ago

Here are some: 1) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... 2) https://www.nber.org/papers/w28731 https://www.nber.org/papers/w28731 3) https://scholar.harvard.edu/eharrington/publications/working-remotely-selection-treatment-and-market-provision-remote-work https://scholar.harvard.edu/eharrington/publications/working...

MiguelX413 2y ago
You should use DOI links: 1) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 2) https://doi.org/10.3386/w28731 https://doi.org/10.3386/w28731 3) https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4466130 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4466130 , respectively
coffeedan 2y ago
A few things: - the first two were conducted while we were in the thick of the pandemic and loathe to be near anyone outside of our pod. WFH made sense then, and I’m sure people were more comfortable knowing they wouldn’t get Covid WFH - the third was in 2023 when the world opened up, but studied call center operators. Yes, I can see how they would be more productive at home. However, imho any position that requires collaboration and many interactions between staff is more productive in the office and this study doesn’t address that.
- thesz 2y ago
  Let me quote the first one, which is meta-analysis: ". Of the articles published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 79% (n = 19) demonstrated that work-from-home increased productivity and performance whereas 21% (n = 5) showed mixed or no effects. Of the articles published during the pandemic, 23% (n = 3) showed positive effects, 38% (n = 5) revealed mixed results, and 38% (n = 5) showed negative effects." So it seems that there are numerous studies that show WFH is beneficial to productivity, that are done before pandemic.

lolinder 2y ago

Just a note that from your anecdote it sounds like you're a company that is partially (and decreasingly) remote. My experience has been that that kind of hybrid—where some employees are always colocated and others are always not—doesn't work because the organization's culture stays synchronous and in-person-oriented, so the remote employees are hamstrung in ways that don't happen in an organization where remote is evenly distributed.

zeroCalories 2y ago
I think it's the opposite, remote workers are not reliable teammates. When we need ad hoc help from a remote engineer, we need to grab a 30 minute slot on their calendar, or we need to send them a long async email or DM chain. Eventually the conversation slows down, and they start responding once a day. When our senior engineers are physically available I can put myself in their office or at their desk and demand they help me. More remote-more slow.
- lolinder 2y ago
  What you're describing is exactly the kind of problematic culture difference that I'm warning about. This is what I said earlier: > because the organization's culture stays synchronous and in-person-oriented Asynchronous does not mean slow, but it is different and requires structuring your work differently. Remote works much better asynchronously, but at an organization that has too few remote employees will never learn to do that. It's not that you're doing something wrong or that they are, it's that your organization is designed to be incompatible with remote workers. If you're not willing to adapt, then you're absolutely on the right track by phasing out remote, but don't take your anecdotes from working in an organization that refused to change as evidence that remote doesn't work. > When our senior engineers are physically available I can put myself in their office or at their desk and demand they help me. Slight tangent, but this is exactly why a lot of people like myself will never go back into an office. I don't want to be paid to be at someone's beck and call whenever they want to interrupt me, I want to be given a large chunk of work that I can work on independently without interruption unless I'm specifically designated to be on call as part of a regular rotation (at which point you can interrupt me just as well on slack as you could in the office).