It is a win-win for me as I love working from home and the new office is only 4 minutes from my house if I do need to meet with a client or come into the office for other reasons.
I have no desire to go back to a cubicle farm and helicopter bosses.
The problem will be expanding expectations. It has always been thus with working, but the “convenience” of working at home will make it worse.
You’re an employer. There is a management position opening up and you have two candidates who work remotely. Both are roughly equal in abilities, but one - because he has a family - logs in at nine and off at five. The other - who has no family - seems to be available almost 24 hours a day. The second one would seem to be the natural choice, but if you are the kind of company that rewards overworking, won’t this eventually evolve into a corporate expectation of 24/7 availability?
“Going to work” helped create a clear divide between working and not working. Working from home blurs that line. It is a slippery slope.
Well then......cut down on all the meetings.
I know several people wfh full time, and every one has increased productivity. Fewer meetings, and less interference from nitwit supervisors, as well as fewer distractions by office busybodies are some of the factors. For serious workers, wfh is a gift. For slackers, maybe more an opportunity to slack. Big surprise.
I know someone who has been WFH at IBM for many years now. He puts in at least 60 minutes, probably more, on the computer than previously.
For myself, I have always worked only 40 hours per week. Part of this is the IT consulting project metrics are usually based on a 40 hour week. When I have been a contractor, I always bill “honest hours”. As much as possible, I try to do the same when working full time. Hasn’t been much of an issue yet.
I get more work done, in less time, with less frustration working from home.
The five monkeys in middle management can’t stand it though, and are compelling our return to the orifice real soon now.
If they want to pay me for 8 and get 8, rather than paying me for 8 and getting 10, so be it.
But I’m going to keep my door shut when I go back. Want to ask me a question? Hit me up on Teams...
I see zero evidence of decreased productivity in the article. Did I miss it?
I do see an increase in Zoom/WebEx time. Well, duh. When you’re not in a conference room and are instead on a WebEx, of course you’ll have more WebEx time. It’s math.
I also see no evidence people actually require more hours to get the same output. Working from home allows me to step away from my desk and take care of some personal tasks when I have breaks. Those won’t show up in any of their totals, but they happen.
As for those people who are trying to simultaneously watch their kids as they “work from home”, that’s not how it should be done. I’ve been out of the office since 2008 and back when my kids were in school they knew that when I had my office door closed, I was at work and they couldn’t just barge in. That’s completely different than someone who’s sitting in their living room with that TV on, and the kids playing.
In the end, this article has little factual information and is positioned to set the narrative that we should all be back in the office like good little minions. I’m not falling for it. Besides, what could be more green than not burning gas to get to and from the office? And how much easier is it for employers to fill positions when the labor market is the entire country rather than local?
The losers in WFH are controlling managers, auto manufacturers, real estate developers, restaurants, etc, the winners are the workers and the employers (whether they know it or not).
I think that most of the pressure will come from outside of the organization. High rise rentals, office equipment and supplies organizations, restaurants, bars, retail operations, etc that pay taxes to the urban governments. There will be some from the weenies in personnel that can’t monitor your desk cleanliness, Jab compliance, charitable donations and from the power tyrants.
We have off-site staff from several states away who have outstanding skills. We would not have hired them previously because they'll never relocate near enough to commute.
Working remotely forced accountability on others for the first time. They can't hide in a crowd or in meetings. Now they have to deliver what they owe or have nothing to show for it. Processes that previously took weeks now take half a day to a day.
I've found the ones that don't work well remotely are the incompetent ones, both those assigned to tasks and the Dilbertonian pointy-haired bosses.
Someone here once said I was not telling the truth that we are being spied on by Office 365. Just more proof in the article that we are.
FTA: A global survey from Microsoft that tracked 30,000 users of its ubiquitous Office 365 software across 30+ countries throughout 2020, comes to similar conclusions: in essence, we have simply replaced old fashioned in-office presenteeism with a digital version, with employees expected to be online more frequently. Microsoft’s data show that remote workers spent a staggering 148 per cent more minutes per week in virtual meetings and sent 42 per cent more instant messages after hours and 200 per cent more on weekends. Jared Spataro, a Microsoft vice-president who commented on the findings, says he has seen this phenomenon on his own team, with employees attending meetings unnecessarily in an attempt to demonstrate engagement.
i am already seeing CNN propaganda that companies need to get rid of the 4o hour work week altogether. Won’t it be fun when they eliminate hours to 31 1/2 hours per week to avoid Obamacare mandates?
Working from home is a dream come true for me. After 23 years in the office with constant co-worker interruptions, way too long meetings, and nearby cube-dwellers talking too loud on the phone COVID-19 meant working from home for 15 months.
My productivity went through the roof. I started finishing my assigned work each sprint with 2-3 days left. Since COVID-19 slammed our revenue by more than 40% the R&D budget was shrunk - so I spend my extra time working on new product features that were put on hold.
In April 2021 I was one of less than 20% in our company to get a bonus and then in June got the biggest raise of my career. This was due to the first perfect Performance Review I ever earned. In addition I have been told that next April I will be promoted to the highest level on our company’s engineering track.
How did I do it? I decided to give back to the company half of the 15 hours per week I used to spend commuting to the office. Combine that with much shorter meetings due to all being on Teams plus no co-worker interruptions (my family has been great at abiding by my work hours), no neighbors yelling on the phone, and 15 minute lunches since the kitchen was 10 steps away.
Added bonuses of working from home: 400 miles less automobile expenses; cheaper and healthier lunches at home; my wife was able to get a better job since I am now able to drive the kids to and from school and summer camps; and no more paying state income taxes to the RINO overlord in the next state (I work in a no-state-income-tax state).
WFH might not be for everyone, but for those that can do it well, the benefits are incredible. My company has allowed about 5% of the workers to go fully WFH, and about 35% to go partial (2-3 days per week). All others are required to return to the office. (So far in 2 1/2 months only 2 workers have left that I know of over being forced back into the office - none on the engineering side - both pencil pushing middle managers.)
One of my first bosses often said, “The work expands to fit the time available for it.”
He was comparing the differing amounts of time logged into employee’s time sheets for a given type of project, when we were slow vs. when we were busy.
WFH is nice, I’ve done it quite a bit but also never completely left the office or the area of the office so I was able to be there when necessary.
I’m a contrarian to this subject compared to the many who live it because they are receivers of benefit from it. What I see is more like Loaf From Home based on the number of couples and families out and about at all times of the day somehow justifying to themselves their absence from regular work hours. I have also managed people who are on their own and are supposed to be WFH, they start to justify a lot of things that just aren’t so like their productivity and attention to work.
In LFH relationships are killed, nuance is lost, convenience of sharing ideas and asking questions is gone, mentoring is absent and so is stimulation of the creative process by associations and none of this can be replaced by LFH.
All of this comes from someone who worked world wide and managed several virtual teams that were successful in delivering complex projects. One of the things I found essential was to plan for face-to-face opportunities even if it was a partially necessary meeting that included a meal and social gathering. I am an engineer not known for being a social butterfly but I think I can see what is necessary for people to be human and get the best effort from them.
LFH has its place but not always. I’m sorry for some to say that it is time to really go back to work.
It’s been a long time since I worked in an office building, but I remember it being endless made-up meetings to justify everyone’s productivity (or lack thereof) while at the same time getting absolutely nothing done.
And that’s not to mention the between-meeting time where co-workers pop their heads into your office to drone on about the party they were at or the girl they got drunk enough to sleep with them the night before.