Commentary: The price American industry may pay for remote work

[justaprogressive]

"What began as a means to mitigate public health risk to individuals and keep the economy functioning has persisted beyond what anyone could have envisioned.

During the peak risk period of the pandemic in 2020, more than 40% of the workforce was remote. This number dropped to a little more than 25% last year. Before the pandemic, around 6% of the workforce worked remotely.

With more people working remotely, office building use has been gutted. With these buildings in dense urban areas, businesses such as restaurants and cafes are finding it more difficult to remain afloat. Retail outlets that rely on walk-in traffic are also suffering. Though the overall amount of money being spent may remain the same across the economy, the shift in where it is being spent threatens downtown business life that may not be reestablished for many years.

The biggest loss associated with remote work is not directly economic but rather the random interactions that foster new ideas and innovation. This is why a growing number of companies are scaling back remote work, with Google now on this list. Even Zoom, the facilitator of remote work, is asking its employees to spend more time in the office."

https://nordot.app/1067364938507141583?c=592622757532812385

[DavidDvorkin]

1. The article repeats corporate management bullshit

The biggest loss associated with remote work is not directly economic but rather the random interactions that foster new ideas and innovation. This is why a growing number of companies are scaling back remote work, with Google now on this list. Even Zoom, the facilitator of remote work, is asking its employees to spend more time in the office.

Rubbish. The office is a prison, and management wants control.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

2. Exactly n/t

[Recycle_Guru]

3. I disagree--the rich interactions of in person communication

cannot be overstated. I think it is fair to have employees in office 3 or 4 days with 1 or 2 working from home.

[leftstreet]

9. Most coworkers don't have "rich interactions"

good grief

[Sympthsical]

11. I chortled

Thinking about all the kinds of conversations I have in the office.

I'm good. I don't care what someone's sister-in-law did the other day, I promise.

[madinmaryland]

17. Most of the interactions are being forced to listen to

Conversations that have nothing to do with work and are annoying as fuck.

[haele]

18. Interaction with teammates can also be done over chat or slack.

TEAMs and other office collaboration software can easily allow real-time editing and collaborative work.
The issue I've always had was that a majority of techies and engineers are either extremely introverted or extroverted - ether they don't talk and keep their ideas and questions to themselves until they can meet with a trusted co-worker one on one, or they won't shut up and let anyone else put in a comment or idea -especially if that comment might not totally agree with their particular worldview.

Honestly, after working 15 years in an office environment, I can count the number of times either I've walked into someone's office or someone has walked up to my desk with a real positive innovation idea on one hand. And more than half that time, I was working in a Test and Certification department, where a lot of process improvements going on all the time. New ideas tend to happen in meetings or in sidebars directly afterwards.

I don't want to say outright that personal interactions at the office are overrated, but there are collaboration options that can be just as effective for remote working if set up by an experienced team manager.

Haele

[Sympthsical]

10. Reminds me of when open offices got debunked

I can't remember exactly what I was reading, but after the trend of open office plans to increase cooperation and collaboration started, studies looked at the effects, it turned out everyone was getting massively distracted and wasting time and non-productive busy work increased because employees felt they were being constantly observed. If anyone's ever spent time around tech companies where employees are encouraged to wander around and "collaborate" all day, you see people just pissing about not doing anything. All the work gets done once they cloister in their office/at their desk and clamp down on their tasks.

WFH is the best thing that ever happened to my work productivity - I have so much more free time, I was able to go back to school. I can focus on my work when I am working instead of having errant conversations, getting side-tracked by random unimportant tasks, and constantly leaving my desk to go have 20-30 minute conversations that can be summed up in a 3 minute e-mail. Give me my tasks and leave me alone. I typically finish an entire day within two hours if I'm left alone. The rest of the day is usually punctuated with phone calls that need action/following up and group meetings that I do not need to be present for 50% of the time.

If my job asked me to come back full time, I'd probably quit. I have savings. I can chill until school is done and get a job in my new field.

Management just doesn't like having less control. My philosophy is, "Is the work getting done? Then don't worry about what I'm doing over here."

[TheBlackAdder]

13. Many companies now moved to hoteling, so you aren't always at the same workspace.

.

You book your spots on a first-come basis and you never really know who your neighbors will be. Most times, the team of workers can't find adjacent workstations, so that impedes direct communication. Then, you carry your laptop into the office and plug it into a hub, which has far less capabilities than your at-home workspace.

.

[treestar]

20. +1

are they sure that's where innovation comes from? And why would Zoom interaction be much different?

[BeyondGeography]

4. Here's a thought

Rather than drag people back to desks from their cozy homes to fill space that’s really not needed anymore, convert said space into apartments that change the supply/demand equation and make it easier for people to live closer to each other and to their jobs. Supplement that with massive investments in public transportation and then you might get somewhere.

What’s missing from these anti WFH screeds is how fundamentally unattractive some cities have made themselves for workers. NYC is what I know, and as long as government there dances to the tune of commercial real estate interests people are going to resist the “urge” to either commute several hours a day to get to a desk or move into town for $4-$5k monthly rent.

By way of example, we have an apartment north of the city that is 35 miles from my wife’s office in lower Manhattan. Door-to-door that takes 90 minutes on average each way. If NYC functioned like a European city she could take a direct train there from where we live which would easily take an hour off the r/t. It’s no coincidence that WFH is hurting Paris and London much less than NY. On the periphery of public discussion people are actually working on this. But it will take at least another decade even if all the public and private interests magically align.

Time, not corporate innovation, is life’s most precious currency. And it’s not all about self-indulgence either. The days my wife goes to work she loses three hours, most of which is actually spent working when she’s at home. Is our economy shrinking because of WFH? Is job satisfaction down? (hint: it’s up) People will only change basic behavior out of absolute necessity or for a better way of life. Change the game, cities, until then we ain’t coming back.

[area51]

5. +1 n/t

[TxGuitar]

6. Exactly n/t

[Chakaconcarne]

7. In person is more productive overall + we need to maintain more face to face interaction..in general

I appreciate a lot of the benefits from remote work.. especially the option of not needing to send young kids off to expensive childcare. That's the big one IMO.

3 days on site, 2 remote sounds good to me and an option for parents with kids younger than kindergarten age to work 5 days remote.

I have the option to work remote 5 days a week, I go in instead... But I don't have a long commute either, nor do I have to take care of small children.

[inthewind21]

8. False

in person is NOT more productive. And there are many many studies out there that agree. I have been remote for 15 years. It's amazing how much more I can get done by NOT being in the office.

https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/

[Sympthsical]

14. Same

I get absurd amounts done when I'm at home and left alone. I do have to interact via phone and conference calls/zoom, and that's fine. But as far as my concrete tasks, I typically sit at my desk in "work mode" by 8 or 9am and finish up all the concrete daily tasks by noon at the latest. After that, I'm doing homework for school while waiting for the phone to ring and checking e-mail every 15-20 mins just to make sure nothing needs immediate attention.

Replacing that with an hour+ long commute in crazy traffic, an eight-hour adventure where I'm actively not doing very much except wasting half the time, then a commute home in crazy traffic (all of this involving a bridge). Hard pass if it's not necessary. And the past few years have proven it's not necessary. I'm fortunate that my boss recognizes this. However, if someone above her gets a bug up their whumptus and demands us back, I'll probably quit (or angle for severance). I can make it two years on savings until school's done. Plus my partner's management in a major hospital system. We'd be fine.

It's not the in person, either. My next job will be in nursing, so that'll be more workplace oriented. It's just the huge waste of time. I cannot stand being inefficient/wasting my time. It makes me nuts when I'm forced to sit there and do nothing just for the look of it.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. With the advent of Teams, Skype and the like, more meetings occur. People aren't BSing in the halls.

.

I can't tell you how many people would come by and distract us with chit chat or other crap.

Sure, you have the one-on-one interactions, but productivity diminishes. We've seen projects flourish when working remote because those constant distractions are eliminated and people attend virtual meetings. While you are in a meeting, you can still do your work.

One other thing is that many commuters have to take busses and rides that are set to time schedules, so they cut out of the office early so they don't miss their rides. Working remotely eliminates the commutation time, delays in traffic which often screws early and late in-person meetings.

.

[ok_cpu]

15. It's amazing how quickly things shifted

from the benefits of a global workforce (offshoring) to people can only be effective when they sit next to each other.

It's almost as if what's best for the work / worker isn't the driver.

[leftstreet]

16. +1

Excellent observation!

[MichMan]

19. Anyone that can get their entire day's work done in a few hours needs to be assigned more work.

Not much different than me hiring someone to do a job at my home and they bill me for 8 hours of work even though they finish in 3 hours.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

21. Disagree. The quality of work can go down if it's required to be sustained over a certain

amount of time, depending on the work. I had a high-production, high-quality job where we were generally expected to work more of a 25- to 30-hour week, and to speak up if we weren't, because that meant we were overloaded. We were paid full time and had full benefits.