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No “research” that PwC publishes is worth the digital ink it’s printed on. It’s motivated by whoever is paying them to get the result that they want Whether yo

No “research” that PwC publishes is worth the digital ink it’s printed on. It’s motivated by whoever is paying them to get the result that they want Whether you are into remote work or not, this is meaningless

MBCook 2y ago
That’s why I’m surprised to see this. If this was bunk shouldn’t this reinforce what their clients what to hear?
- bluGill 2y ago
  Which clients? Generally you should have several with different interests.
- hammock 2y ago
  This is an internally-funded whitepaper. PWC accounting and consulting practices are both historically built on lots of travel to client sites. If they can make excuses to travel less, they can charge the same amount for their services but save a LOT of money on flights, hotels and meals. (just an idea)
  - jdlshore 2y ago
    Eh, unlikely. Consultancies usually charge for travel and expenses (or a per diem).
    - Attummm 2y ago
      The thought process is as follows: The customer seems satisfied with the overall cost.But if travel expenses could be lowered, we have the opportunity to reduce the bill slightly while increasing our profit margin. Thus, it can be construed as a win-win.
      - jdlshore 2y ago
        Speaking as a former consultant, just… no. The chain of events here is fantasy-land: 1. Consulting company writes article supportive of remote work 2. But they’re lying because remote work increases their profit margins 3. Because it decreases travel expenses, so they charge more for the same work, but the overall package is less. This is ridiculous conspiracy thinking. The potential profit is miniscule, the reputational cost of being caught is high, and it completely misunderstands how these things are sold. Prices are negotiated exclusive of expenses (typically) and buyers often don’t even see expenses. They often go straight to Accounts Payable and might even come out of an entirely different budget.
        Attummm 2y ago
        My comment explained the monetary incentive for being open to working from home. This plays a role in conducting the study and subsequently publishing it. Furthermore, it explained how it could lead to a win-win scenario. Working from home has many benefits, yet most companies push for going back to the office. There is no lying, nor any conspiracy. Just two sides of an argument. Please note that your comment is about price negotiation, but my comment is about recurring bills for the customer.
rockskon 2y ago
By that logic, the interesting question is who paid them? There's no shortage of money and headlines promoting working in the office. Who had the money to pay for the other side?
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  Microsoft?
- luxuryballs 2y ago
  Perhaps in this case they are being “paid” by the desire to retain their home offices.
- EarthBlues 2y ago
  I do not think that it is obvious that WFH is a superior bargain for software workers in developed countries. An aspect of WFO/WFH debate that seems to have been missed among US commentators is that a remote workforce is easier to extend or supplant with offshore or nearshore staff. Brazilian and Mexican SWE contractors, in particular, have advanced considerably in quality from just a decade ago, and can now easily replace US-based workers at half the cost without compromising quality. I have seen this trend taking form in my own, remote-first work experience, and market research corroborates the trend, with US nearshore job offers increasing steadily quarter over quarter since the pandemic, in contrast to onshore positions which have notoriously been more volatile. Europe is also seeing increased nearshoring, particularly to Turkey and Egypt. Yes, there are many nice things about WFH and I prefer it for my part, but it’s not clear to me that this debate is the obvious slam dunk that one perceives reading comments on HN.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Fast growing as a percentage but still small on an absolute scale. India became such a hub for outsourcing because of the huge pool of English speakers in a single country. Large scale near sourcing to South America has less of a time zone issue but only 1/3 the population of which fewer people speak English + a large number of countries with their own tax codes etc. It’s easy to lump Brazilian and Mexican developers together but cheaper to only operate in one of those countries at which point the talent pool just isn’t that huge. Really it’s Middle America and Canada that are the ‘threats’ except unlike India there isn’t the vast talent pool. Silicon Valley alone has roughly the population of Montana + North Dakota + South Dakota but those states have nowhere near the number of software developers and they want first world compensation. It’s easy to confuse geographic area for talent but those expensive costal cities are huge: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/maps-extremes-us-population-density/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/maps-extremes-us-population...
notepad0x90 2y ago
wouldn't that be against their own business interest? If an executive or the board of some company want PwC's services, knowing that they'll only help confirm a biased opinion, then is it worth spending millions on them? Their main income is a direct result of their capability to advise in the best interests of their clients. If action taken upon their advise, and that action leads to a loss of profit, then their clients paid them to lose money. There aren't enough companies that pay consultants money just for the sake of their ego to sustain a company the size of PwC.
- rtpg 2y ago
  > wouldn't that be against their own business interest? If an executive or the board of some company want PwC's services, knowing that they'll only help confirm a biased opinion, then is it worth spending millions on them? Generally speaking the point is you hire the consultants to get to where you want. You want RTO? Then you hire them and they will tell you how to get there/how to justify it to everyone/how to roll it out. This is in some sense cynical, but in some sense also just logical. You want something to happen, then you pay somebody to do it! The idea that you would hire some external vendors to... decide for you... might make sense in theory but if you're the one defining the strategy surely you will have made some decision. These are business people, not sociologists. Though you talk to many sociologists and they'll tell you they're often hired in to justify an existing decision as well... With fuzzy stuff like this you can make an argument in any direction anyways. It's all pretty self-fulfilling.
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    > Generally speaking the point is you hire the consultants to get to where you want. So in this case all those companies are paying PwC to conclude that hybrid > in office > full remote?
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      I'm sure if you get into the details, the answer will be "It depends...", which is obviously true, but also self serving for a consultant. To figure out which is true for your company, they would come in, spend a few months studying you workplace. This would include several interviews with leaders and SMEs that the leaders hand select. Given this study process, it wont be surprising that the consultants end echoing back the opinions of leadership. I been through many consultant assisted re-orgs. Somehow, the leaders who brought them in always end up with promotions and more control. On one hand, yes, this usually gets oversold to the rank and file with promises of efficiency. On the other hand, the consultants are doing what they are paid for: finding a way to get their stakeholders what they want, when the stakeholders dont have a roadmap to get it.
GeoAtreides 2y ago
Surely if a thief argues against stealing we will not dismiss their argument just because they're a thief; might call them a hypocrite, sure, but the validity of an argument is independent by the moral standing of whoever is presenting it. That's to say, one should read the report, especially the methodology, before fully dismissing it.
- aubanel 2y ago
  I disagree with this: when an actor is known for repeated bad faith, it's often a net gain of time to dismiss what they say by default. Only if someone else presents the same argument should you take the time to analyze it.
  - GeoAtreides 2y ago
    Saying you disagree with my original comment might be inaccurate, seeing how it didn't touch on repeated bad faith; not that habitual lying would make any difference to the validity of any argument (which depends only on being logical sound). I do agree ignoring known and mercenary liars does save time.
    - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
      Given the history of PwC and the Big 4, whether you specifically mention repeated bad faith or not, it's relevant to whether your analogy holds.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- at_a_remove 2y ago
  I disagree, for a purely practical reason: given the number of people on the planet, multiplied by the average number of views and opinions they might hold, gives me so many arguments I could spend lifetime upon lifetime evaluating were I to take them each in full seriousness. Faced with this flood, I must then, if I am to get anything done at all, develop many methods of winnowing on which of them I might spend my time, which on this Earth is without doubt limited. Hypocrisy suggests at least two excellent reasons to immediately discard. First, if I take the option that the person who puts forth the proposition were proselytizing in good faith, then I am left to wonder if this position is consequently so burdensome that even its champions find it too difficult to bear. Never cause harm to any other living thing, and as you extend this past the miniscule deaths of the wee crawling and flying things the broom and mask of the Jain hope to avoid and on to microscopic deaths of the hapless bacteria, it is simply not something tenable, you will fall short simply as a matter of existing, and you have no examples to follow, despite the exhortations. On the other tine of this fork, perhaps the person is operating in bad faith, and wishes to covertly establish an imbalanced set of transactions or relationships, favoring them or their ilk, all via the mechanism of disapproval. Give away your property and do not be chained by material goods. Why, yes, I am picking up what you have dropped but pay no mind to that, you ought to focus on your own sins, you know, now that I have explained them to you. You may have noticed how so many of the people with rude behaviors will deflect to your uncivilized and impolite faux pas of pointing out said rudeness. A virtue, yes, but especially good to possess for people who are not me.
abadpoli 2y ago
You’re completely off the mark here. I’ve worked at a Big4 company before on reports like this. These reports aren’t paid for by other companies at all. They’re internally funded and done by the internal research teams. The motivations behind them are numerous: marketing, having artifacts to help rank at the top of stuff like Gartner reports, and even because believe it or not the people that work there sometimes genuinely enjoy researching and publishing reports. Reports like this are the consulting company equivalent of a tech company’s engineering blog bragging about their new scalable infrastructure or whatever. If you see a report published by a company that says “PwC did research for us”, then yes, it has likely been influenced by that company. But a report like this that is entirely PwC branded is not that.
- emeril 2y ago
  yeah, at least PwC + Deloitte are more legitimate than say KPMG or E&Y IMO this is judging by all the time I spend reading their "handbooks" professionally
- lq9AJ8yrfs 2y ago
  I saw examples of both your and GP's experiences in my experience at a big4. Unfortunately none I saw (sample size: a handful in detail and perhaps dozens to a skim) followed even basic statistical practices I had learned in undergraduate studies at a well-respected university. There were clues that at least some of the parties involved knew better, but the imperative to publish completely overwhelmed any instinct for academic rigor. It was dressed up as "eminence", which came after sold work and delivered work (in order) in annual reviews. Statistical rigor would probably help eminence, but there were faster paths to eminence.
  - Agingcoder 2y ago
    Comparing 74 and 75 with no confidence interval and claiming one was bigger than the other was rather bold I thought.
paulcole 2y ago
Ever noticed that HN commenters are quick to point out the tiniest errors in articles that they disagree with yet won’t even give the slightest effort to consider the validity of something they’re agree with? Office work is good = “There’s an issue with the sample size and methodology plus I think this was written by a marketing person” Remote work is good = “Go off king”
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  This is all of humanity, not just HN commentators.
  - paulcole 2y ago
    Go off king!

MBCook 2y ago

That’s why I’m surprised to see this. If this was bunk shouldn’t this reinforce what their clients what to hear?

bluGill 2y ago
Which clients? Generally you should have several with different interests.
hammock 2y ago
This is an internally-funded whitepaper. PWC accounting and consulting practices are both historically built on lots of travel to client sites. If they can make excuses to travel less, they can charge the same amount for their services but save a LOT of money on flights, hotels and meals. (just an idea)
- jdlshore 2y ago
  Eh, unlikely. Consultancies usually charge for travel and expenses (or a per diem).
  - Attummm 2y ago
    The thought process is as follows: The customer seems satisfied with the overall cost.But if travel expenses could be lowered, we have the opportunity to reduce the bill slightly while increasing our profit margin. Thus, it can be construed as a win-win.
    - jdlshore 2y ago
      Speaking as a former consultant, just… no. The chain of events here is fantasy-land: 1. Consulting company writes article supportive of remote work 2. But they’re lying because remote work increases their profit margins 3. Because it decreases travel expenses, so they charge more for the same work, but the overall package is less. This is ridiculous conspiracy thinking. The potential profit is miniscule, the reputational cost of being caught is high, and it completely misunderstands how these things are sold. Prices are negotiated exclusive of expenses (typically) and buyers often don’t even see expenses. They often go straight to Accounts Payable and might even come out of an entirely different budget.
      - Attummm 2y ago
        My comment explained the monetary incentive for being open to working from home. This plays a role in conducting the study and subsequently publishing it. Furthermore, it explained how it could lead to a win-win scenario. Working from home has many benefits, yet most companies push for going back to the office. There is no lying, nor any conspiracy. Just two sides of an argument. Please note that your comment is about price negotiation, but my comment is about recurring bills for the customer.

rockskon 2y ago

By that logic, the interesting question is who paid them? There's no shortage of money and headlines promoting working in the office. Who had the money to pay for the other side?

marcosdumay 2y ago
Microsoft?
luxuryballs 2y ago
Perhaps in this case they are being “paid” by the desire to retain their home offices.
EarthBlues 2y ago
I do not think that it is obvious that WFH is a superior bargain for software workers in developed countries. An aspect of WFO/WFH debate that seems to have been missed among US commentators is that a remote workforce is easier to extend or supplant with offshore or nearshore staff. Brazilian and Mexican SWE contractors, in particular, have advanced considerably in quality from just a decade ago, and can now easily replace US-based workers at half the cost without compromising quality. I have seen this trend taking form in my own, remote-first work experience, and market research corroborates the trend, with US nearshore job offers increasing steadily quarter over quarter since the pandemic, in contrast to onshore positions which have notoriously been more volatile. Europe is also seeing increased nearshoring, particularly to Turkey and Egypt. Yes, there are many nice things about WFH and I prefer it for my part, but it’s not clear to me that this debate is the obvious slam dunk that one perceives reading comments on HN.
- Retric 2y ago
  Fast growing as a percentage but still small on an absolute scale. India became such a hub for outsourcing because of the huge pool of English speakers in a single country. Large scale near sourcing to South America has less of a time zone issue but only 1/3 the population of which fewer people speak English + a large number of countries with their own tax codes etc. It’s easy to lump Brazilian and Mexican developers together but cheaper to only operate in one of those countries at which point the talent pool just isn’t that huge. Really it’s Middle America and Canada that are the ‘threats’ except unlike India there isn’t the vast talent pool. Silicon Valley alone has roughly the population of Montana + North Dakota + South Dakota but those states have nowhere near the number of software developers and they want first world compensation. It’s easy to confuse geographic area for talent but those expensive costal cities are huge: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/maps-extremes-us-population-density/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/maps-extremes-us-population...

notepad0x90 2y ago

wouldn't that be against their own business interest? If an executive or the board of some company want PwC's services, knowing that they'll only help confirm a biased opinion, then is it worth spending millions on them? Their main income is a direct result of their capability to advise in the best interests of their clients. If action taken upon their advise, and that action leads to a loss of profit, then their clients paid them to lose money. There aren't enough companies that pay consultants money just for the sake of their ego to sustain a company the size of PwC.

rtpg 2y ago
> wouldn't that be against their own business interest? If an executive or the board of some company want PwC's services, knowing that they'll only help confirm a biased opinion, then is it worth spending millions on them? Generally speaking the point is you hire the consultants to get to where you want. You want RTO? Then you hire them and they will tell you how to get there/how to justify it to everyone/how to roll it out. This is in some sense cynical, but in some sense also just logical. You want something to happen, then you pay somebody to do it! The idea that you would hire some external vendors to... decide for you... might make sense in theory but if you're the one defining the strategy surely you will have made some decision. These are business people, not sociologists. Though you talk to many sociologists and they'll tell you they're often hired in to justify an existing decision as well... With fuzzy stuff like this you can make an argument in any direction anyways. It's all pretty self-fulfilling.
- andsoitis 2y ago
  > Generally speaking the point is you hire the consultants to get to where you want. So in this case all those companies are paying PwC to conclude that hybrid > in office > full remote?
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I'm sure if you get into the details, the answer will be "It depends...", which is obviously true, but also self serving for a consultant. To figure out which is true for your company, they would come in, spend a few months studying you workplace. This would include several interviews with leaders and SMEs that the leaders hand select. Given this study process, it wont be surprising that the consultants end echoing back the opinions of leadership. I been through many consultant assisted re-orgs. Somehow, the leaders who brought them in always end up with promotions and more control. On one hand, yes, this usually gets oversold to the rank and file with promises of efficiency. On the other hand, the consultants are doing what they are paid for: finding a way to get their stakeholders what they want, when the stakeholders dont have a roadmap to get it.

GeoAtreides 2y ago

Surely if a thief argues against stealing we will not dismiss their argument just because they're a thief; might call them a hypocrite, sure, but the validity of an argument is independent by the moral standing of whoever is presenting it. That's to say, one should read the report, especially the methodology, before fully dismissing it.

aubanel 2y ago
I disagree with this: when an actor is known for repeated bad faith, it's often a net gain of time to dismiss what they say by default. Only if someone else presents the same argument should you take the time to analyze it.
- GeoAtreides 2y ago
  Saying you disagree with my original comment might be inaccurate, seeing how it didn't touch on repeated bad faith; not that habitual lying would make any difference to the validity of any argument (which depends only on being logical sound). I do agree ignoring known and mercenary liars does save time.
  - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
    Given the history of PwC and the Big 4, whether you specifically mention repeated bad faith or not, it's relevant to whether your analogy holds.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
at_a_remove 2y ago
I disagree, for a purely practical reason: given the number of people on the planet, multiplied by the average number of views and opinions they might hold, gives me so many arguments I could spend lifetime upon lifetime evaluating were I to take them each in full seriousness. Faced with this flood, I must then, if I am to get anything done at all, develop many methods of winnowing on which of them I might spend my time, which on this Earth is without doubt limited. Hypocrisy suggests at least two excellent reasons to immediately discard. First, if I take the option that the person who puts forth the proposition were proselytizing in good faith, then I am left to wonder if this position is consequently so burdensome that even its champions find it too difficult to bear. Never cause harm to any other living thing, and as you extend this past the miniscule deaths of the wee crawling and flying things the broom and mask of the Jain hope to avoid and on to microscopic deaths of the hapless bacteria, it is simply not something tenable, you will fall short simply as a matter of existing, and you have no examples to follow, despite the exhortations. On the other tine of this fork, perhaps the person is operating in bad faith, and wishes to covertly establish an imbalanced set of transactions or relationships, favoring them or their ilk, all via the mechanism of disapproval. Give away your property and do not be chained by material goods. Why, yes, I am picking up what you have dropped but pay no mind to that, you ought to focus on your own sins, you know, now that I have explained them to you. You may have noticed how so many of the people with rude behaviors will deflect to your uncivilized and impolite faux pas of pointing out said rudeness. A virtue, yes, but especially good to possess for people who are not me.

abadpoli 2y ago

You’re completely off the mark here. I’ve worked at a Big4 company before on reports like this. These reports aren’t paid for by other companies at all. They’re internally funded and done by the internal research teams. The motivations behind them are numerous: marketing, having artifacts to help rank at the top of stuff like Gartner reports, and even because believe it or not the people that work there sometimes genuinely enjoy researching and publishing reports. Reports like this are the consulting company equivalent of a tech company’s engineering blog bragging about their new scalable infrastructure or whatever. If you see a report published by a company that says “PwC did research for us”, then yes, it has likely been influenced by that company. But a report like this that is entirely PwC branded is not that.

emeril 2y ago
yeah, at least PwC + Deloitte are more legitimate than say KPMG or E&Y IMO this is judging by all the time I spend reading their "handbooks" professionally
lq9AJ8yrfs 2y ago
I saw examples of both your and GP's experiences in my experience at a big4. Unfortunately none I saw (sample size: a handful in detail and perhaps dozens to a skim) followed even basic statistical practices I had learned in undergraduate studies at a well-respected university. There were clues that at least some of the parties involved knew better, but the imperative to publish completely overwhelmed any instinct for academic rigor. It was dressed up as "eminence", which came after sold work and delivered work (in order) in annual reviews. Statistical rigor would probably help eminence, but there were faster paths to eminence.
- Agingcoder 2y ago
  Comparing 74 and 75 with no confidence interval and claiming one was bigger than the other was rather bold I thought.

paulcole 2y ago

Ever noticed that HN commenters are quick to point out the tiniest errors in articles that they disagree with yet won’t even give the slightest effort to consider the validity of something they’re agree with? Office work is good = “There’s an issue with the sample size and methodology plus I think this was written by a marketing person” Remote work is good = “Go off king”

disgruntledphd2 2y ago
This is all of humanity, not just HN commentators.
- paulcole 2y ago
  Go off king!