6 ms·

That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average).

by xlii 2y ago

That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). The „on average” is key however. I’d say that most of the people don’t understand the cost of remote work until it hits them and simply not all can bear that cost. It’s not like people are unwilling (occasionally you can find slackers) but it’s more often things like issues caused by functioning without micromanagement (which is the case in many companies), problem with written communication skills, communication process not efficient for remote work (e.g. water cooler knowledge share which is foundational for people breaks without water cooler) etc. Then there’s self-drive requirement that can easily be extinguished by home conflicts, non-prepped environment or depression coming from isolation and lack of physical movement. Efficient teams are more difficult to create when there is no space for people to bond over non-work (team pizza/social events) From my experience, both remote work proponents and opponents are right with their arguments but the crowd cannot be generalized. Some will suck at the desk, some will suck in remote. As for „sit where I can see you” - that’s a standard offshoring practice, nothing new. You do get to the point of „who watches the watchers” conundrum sooner or later ;)

_cenw 2y ago
I still miss that one team that did async work extremely well. On my current team - fully remote, but siloed knowledge due to lack of capacity - there's a high chance that things go missing in dailies.
varispeed 2y ago
> Then there’s self-drive requirement that can easily be extinguished It is 99% extinguished by low pay though. Low pay means person can't afford better living environment, can't afford leaving toxic partner, can't afford to go out or hobbies which leads to depression. > Efficient teams are more difficult to create when there is no space for people to bond over non-work (team pizza/social events) That has nothing to do with efficiency. If you create fake family or cult environment, then it is easier to manipulate workers to do unpaid overtime. They "go hard" until they burn out and they then are thrown away like a trash by the corporation. Efficient teams are composed of happy people, who live in healthy environment. You can't have efficient worker who is worried more about their bills than their current ticket.
- flask_manager 2y ago
  Burn out is hard to manage; its something that happens in the cruisy 20-something hour a week job as well as the 80+ hour pressure cooker. Probably not to the same degree sure, but its not the only thing going on here. Its a whole lot more sustainable if you can build an identity around "here is my team, we are building {___}", and its a lot easier to get there if you meet in person frequently. Genuinely clear objectives can also be a great asset here; but I find that clarity doesnt scale. When Ive been a contractor working on projects measured in weeks or months with small teams, full remote is easy. At corporate gigs where the thing you are doing might be several abstraction layers from a customer; its harder to answer "why are we doing this?". In the second case being able to share in person is important; because its not just the work its the context and other people doing it thats grounding. That motivation brings efficiency; at least for myself.
  - varispeed 2y ago
    > Burn out is hard to manage; its something that happens in the cruisy 20-something hour a week job Usually burn out is also caused by bad management. For instance, noisy open plan office where developers are mixed with sales and other departments to "cross pollinate" and have "creative juices flowing". Most people can't really focus on work and then are blamed for poor performance. If you have bills to pay, you often actually work after work, when you go home, to meet deadlines. Other instance I saw - "busy" meetings throughout the week, repetitive stuff, so certain people can be seen as they are "managing", also peppered throughout the day so you don't get more than an hour of uninterrupted work. Then again blame "why this and that is not delivered?". > and its a lot easier to get there if you meet in person frequently. I accept that some people struggle to adapt to online asynchronous communication, but in person meetings are inefficient from creative point of view. They disrupt flow and don't give opportunity for everyone to be heard. Some people can give answers or ideas instantly (not necessarily a good ones) others need information to simmer in their heads for a while. You of course get a sense of achieving something, but this won't be optimal. Basically just cheap dopamine. > its harder to answer "why are we doing this?" Answer is actually simple. To pay the bills, have roof over one's head, to have kids in good school, to enjoy life outside of work. If you are employee or contractor, you are not building your own thing. It's good to always remember that and keep a healthy distance.
jorvi 2y ago
> That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). Thankfully that's just an opinion, and the stats bear out the opposite. Regretfully, managers and workers who want to RTO will force us to do so regardless.
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  In this day and age, you can find stats to support any possible claim you can imagine ;)
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    > In this day and age, you can find stats to support any possible claim you can imagine ;) Can you support that claim with stats?
    - riehwvfbk 2y ago
      Not OP, but: of course! If you can't find existing stats, just create new ones to support your claim. See also: https://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ https://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/
nuancebydefault 2y ago
I work 2 days from home and 2 days in the office. I couldn't bare full WFH for the reasons mentioned. I would get depressed in the end. I couldn't bare full office, for other reasons mentioned. I would get fully stressed out in the end.
- skeeter_sky 2y ago
  Does 4-day work week feel more productive?
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    Conted per day it is certainly more productive. Where I live, the progressive tax system makes the financial impact of not working full time less severe.
izacus 2y ago
All this is very true. And to add one more thing that is the most problematic: many many people are horrible at determining if they're a type of person who works well from home or not.
mrweasel 2y ago
> yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). Maybe, depending on the tasks. Also it depends on whether or not you take the view of the employee or employer. Say you work 8 hours a day (which even people in offices don't do) as the employer I do agree that you might get more done if people are in the office, but as the employee, I'll add my commute as well, so I now work 9 - 10 hours per day, part of which is completely unproductive. You also need to factor in that there is a shit ton of people who are fairly unproductive even at the office, they just look busy. There are some fields where I can easily see the office being more productive in general, but you also have tasks where you move people for no reason. I think accounting is a pretty good example of a job that almost never require you to be at the office. Many companies even outsource this to other companies that most definitely isn't at the same office. If you instead hired people to do a job, not be in front of a computer for 8 hours, then you could probably have an even higher level of efficiency. Imagine working from home, have a stack of assigned tasks for the day and be informed that once those are done you free to spend whatever remain of your eight hours as you please. I assure you that people will get shit done at light speed. It's about management, and management mostly have not, and have no desire to evolve to handle work-from-home. You need better managers, more highly trained managers and managers that works harder than they do in the office, which many of them don't want to.

by xlii 2y ago

_cenw 2y ago

I still miss that one team that did async work extremely well. On my current team - fully remote, but siloed knowledge due to lack of capacity - there's a high chance that things go missing in dailies.

varispeed 2y ago

> Then there’s self-drive requirement that can easily be extinguished It is 99% extinguished by low pay though. Low pay means person can't afford better living environment, can't afford leaving toxic partner, can't afford to go out or hobbies which leads to depression. > Efficient teams are more difficult to create when there is no space for people to bond over non-work (team pizza/social events) That has nothing to do with efficiency. If you create fake family or cult environment, then it is easier to manipulate workers to do unpaid overtime. They "go hard" until they burn out and they then are thrown away like a trash by the corporation. Efficient teams are composed of happy people, who live in healthy environment. You can't have efficient worker who is worried more about their bills than their current ticket.

flask_manager 2y ago
Burn out is hard to manage; its something that happens in the cruisy 20-something hour a week job as well as the 80+ hour pressure cooker. Probably not to the same degree sure, but its not the only thing going on here. Its a whole lot more sustainable if you can build an identity around "here is my team, we are building {___}", and its a lot easier to get there if you meet in person frequently. Genuinely clear objectives can also be a great asset here; but I find that clarity doesnt scale. When Ive been a contractor working on projects measured in weeks or months with small teams, full remote is easy. At corporate gigs where the thing you are doing might be several abstraction layers from a customer; its harder to answer "why are we doing this?". In the second case being able to share in person is important; because its not just the work its the context and other people doing it thats grounding. That motivation brings efficiency; at least for myself.
- varispeed 2y ago
  > Burn out is hard to manage; its something that happens in the cruisy 20-something hour a week job Usually burn out is also caused by bad management. For instance, noisy open plan office where developers are mixed with sales and other departments to "cross pollinate" and have "creative juices flowing". Most people can't really focus on work and then are blamed for poor performance. If you have bills to pay, you often actually work after work, when you go home, to meet deadlines. Other instance I saw - "busy" meetings throughout the week, repetitive stuff, so certain people can be seen as they are "managing", also peppered throughout the day so you don't get more than an hour of uninterrupted work. Then again blame "why this and that is not delivered?". > and its a lot easier to get there if you meet in person frequently. I accept that some people struggle to adapt to online asynchronous communication, but in person meetings are inefficient from creative point of view. They disrupt flow and don't give opportunity for everyone to be heard. Some people can give answers or ideas instantly (not necessarily a good ones) others need information to simmer in their heads for a while. You of course get a sense of achieving something, but this won't be optimal. Basically just cheap dopamine. > its harder to answer "why are we doing this?" Answer is actually simple. To pay the bills, have roof over one's head, to have kids in good school, to enjoy life outside of work. If you are employee or contractor, you are not building your own thing. It's good to always remember that and keep a healthy distance.

jorvi 2y ago

> That’s an unpopular opinion but given more than a decade of remote work experience I’d say: yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). Thankfully that's just an opinion, and the stats bear out the opposite. Regretfully, managers and workers who want to RTO will force us to do so regardless.

4gotunameagain 2y ago
In this day and age, you can find stats to support any possible claim you can imagine ;)
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  > In this day and age, you can find stats to support any possible claim you can imagine ;) Can you support that claim with stats?
  - riehwvfbk 2y ago
    Not OP, but: of course! If you can't find existing stats, just create new ones to support your claim. See also: https://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ https://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

nuancebydefault 2y ago

I work 2 days from home and 2 days in the office. I couldn't bare full WFH for the reasons mentioned. I would get depressed in the end. I couldn't bare full office, for other reasons mentioned. I would get fully stressed out in the end.

skeeter_sky 2y ago
Does 4-day work week feel more productive?
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  Conted per day it is certainly more productive. Where I live, the progressive tax system makes the financial impact of not working full time less severe.

izacus 2y ago

All this is very true. And to add one more thing that is the most problematic: many many people are horrible at determining if they're a type of person who works well from home or not.

mrweasel 2y ago

> yes, people are less efficient in remote environment (on average). Maybe, depending on the tasks. Also it depends on whether or not you take the view of the employee or employer. Say you work 8 hours a day (which even people in offices don't do) as the employer I do agree that you might get more done if people are in the office, but as the employee, I'll add my commute as well, so I now work 9 - 10 hours per day, part of which is completely unproductive. You also need to factor in that there is a shit ton of people who are fairly unproductive even at the office, they just look busy. There are some fields where I can easily see the office being more productive in general, but you also have tasks where you move people for no reason. I think accounting is a pretty good example of a job that almost never require you to be at the office. Many companies even outsource this to other companies that most definitely isn't at the same office. If you instead hired people to do a job, not be in front of a computer for 8 hours, then you could probably have an even higher level of efficiency. Imagine working from home, have a stack of assigned tasks for the day and be informed that once those are done you free to spend whatever remain of your eight hours as you please. I assure you that people will get shit done at light speed. It's about management, and management mostly have not, and have no desire to evolve to handle work-from-home. You need better managers, more highly trained managers and managers that works harder than they do in the office, which many of them don't want to.