I was working from home fulltime for well over a year prior to the pandemic. Prior to that, I went into an open office every day for about 10 years.
Overall, if you subtract the time from a 1-hour round-trip commute, distractions from coworkers, and longer lunch breaks I had while going into the office, I'm definitely more productive at home.
At least most of the time.
Lately, I've noticed that my boundaries between work and home have been slipping. I'm less likely to tell my wife that I can't help her with something in the house during my work hours. I tend to run errands in the middle of the day. I was doing better, but I need to tighten things up a bit. I'm still productive, but there are weeks that could have been "highly productive" but instead started merging into my home life too much.
I'd wager that a lot of people have an ebb and flow in their productivity at home as boundaries become fuzzy and bad habits come and then go as you realize they're having an impact. And while I don't have kids, I can see how having kids would make working from home a huge challenge.
Let's also not forget that 2020 is a steaming pile of shit, and it's had more horrific distractions than any year in recent memory.
My experience is the complete opposite. I spent a lot of time at a very large company that has always had a "WFH if you want" policy. By and large, the highly productive people were doing a hybrid work-from-office 3-4 days a week and WFH 1-2 days a week. In contrast, the people who self-selected into always WFH were almost exclusively slackers who took advantage of the situation to watch Netflix or sit at the pool all day and get nothing done.
I know it's just an anecdote, but I think it's important because this is probably what executives are most worried about. It doesn't take very much effort to find people posting on Twitter that they love WFH during COVID because it means they get to sit at the beach all day. I've got people on my own timeline that choose WFH because they see it as a chance to slack off without supervision.
A single slacker on a dev team of 5-10 can completely ruin the team's output, and (speaking from experience) it's really hard to prevent, oversee, or correct a slacker situation remotely. You might say "then fire them if they're a slacker", but once you're at the point where you're ready to fire them, the damage and lost productivity has already been done.
Why is your work more important than your wife? I see it as a feature that when WFH you can help your wife with the odd task in the middle of the day, which you couldn't do at the office.
When you stop work for something that you would not have stopped for if you were not working remotely, stop the work clock. Start it again when you resume work.
Work until the work clock reaches 5.
This might help in a couple ways.
1. It will make you more aware during the work day day how much time you spent so far on non-work stuff. That may make it easier to do things like help your wife or run errands without inadvertently doing so many of those things on the same day that you don't get enough work done.
2. When you do stop work to do something else, knowing that you'll make up the time later that day might make it more guilt free.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/BETTERLINE-Professional-Analog-Chess-...
> Let's also not forget that 2020 is a steaming pile of shit, and it's had more horrific distractions than any year in recent memory.
I think that this is probably the bigger reason for any productivity hit that might be happening. Let's see how things are after the election (actually, after the inauguration) and after covid is in the rear-view mirror.
Ebb and flow, indeed.
COVID has deteriorated my mental health significantly, and the last time my productivity was this low, I was a teenager living with my parents.
I've spent the majority of my career working from home, and I suspect this data has little if any relationship to workspaces -- almost everyone I know is bent out of shape right now.
In short, it's hard to draw a conclusion on such short time horizons - especially when "normal" is drastically different right now.
But I've been surprised by how much I'm thrown off by having my kids home during the school day (remote learning because of covid). Even with a decently soundproof office. It just prevents the house in general from being calm and quiet during my peak work hours.
Suppose for example that Google enacted this policy:
(1) They reimburse each employee up to $30k to upgrade their home office, including soundproofing. After Google trained local builders on effective soundproofing strategies and designs.
(2) Google provides (with installation) a Google Jamboard to facilitate virtual whiteboard sessions.
(3) Google updates their team rules and meeting rules s.t. if anyone in a team or meeting is remote, then the entire team or meeting is remote.
(4) Google invests in networking infrastructure (as needed) to ensure decent network connectivity from the employee's home office to Google's internal networks.
I imagine that all FAANG companies could afford this. The open question, to me at least, is whether or not that magnitude of investment would make WFH a net win for those companies. But if they see WFH as a short term measure, I assume the answer is no.
(2) What for? They just gave you a lump sum. Google is not a builder, its a software company!
(3) ??? How can you come up with this? Why would I work remote, just because someone else works remote. I makes zero sense. This rule would effectively eliminate remote work. If you work remote, it's your business. There should be policies in place to foster inclusion of remote workers. However, there could still be the option for "fully remote teams", which is generally a better choice.
(4) Again, Google is not a builder or telecom service. If you want to work from home, make sure you move to a place with a good internet connection..
Tzzz. Expectations people really have. How about Google also does your laundry, takes care of your child while you WFH, so you don't get distracted and perhaps prepares lunch and pads you on the back after 5pm for a job well done?
You joke, but some people are like this. While I think Google should make accommodations, especially for parents, some people ask for way too much...
One of the advantages of compensating people in kind is that there's no need to do this. If the business need is that people have a quiet space in which to work, then the business can soundproof a space for everyone. That's the relevant type of parity. That it costs more to soundproof the condo in NYC isn't relevant.
#1. Move out of my apartment into a bigger apartment with a dedicated home office.
#2. Move out of my rented apartment into a home that I own and could upgrade with soundproofing.
The cost of this would far exceed $30k. My primary goal now (barring get an unexpected huge end-of-year raise) is to move to a satellite office of my current company or work for a company outside the Bay Area. I’ve spent the past few months outside the Bay Area, and I can’t really imagine moving back next year. The cost of houses rose so much faster than my salary, it just makes no sense.
(When offices are open) Dialing into a well equipped conference room is mucb better than doing a meeting with 5 or 10 people in little phonebooth rooms, if there are even enough rooms. Taking conference calls at open office desks is a non-starter.
> then the entire team or meeting is remote.
There’s nothing more annoying than having a remote meeting with people sharing an audio device. The quality is terrible.
1) the first 3-5 months were hard to figure out a good rhythm and is super impacted by how busy your house is (do you have kids, live-in parents, special needs kids etc)
2) many people have figured out a good rhythm by now and are doing fine
3) people who were new at the company this year are definitely having a much harder time since just sitting next to people is an easier way to sort of learn stuff by over hearing stuff rather than bugging people
4) long term "everybody working from home" likely is not a good setup.. more likely a mix is going to be a good setup.. where very likely new people should expect to be onsite for fairly extended periods of time until they have a much better sense of what to work on.. the other benefit of the "starting onsite" concept would be there would be less of the "oh but you live in north dakota so we don't want to pay you" shenanigans..
The model that I have seen with moderate-to-great levels of success at the large consulting companies (which have long had a strong remote work culture) is that the companies schedule new hires so that all new hires start at the same time every year, and for "new hire training", the company rents out an entire hotel for 2 months and has all new hires stay there. Those 2 months then are a mixture of intensive job training and social events.
By the end, all of the new hires have received plenty of training, had good conversations with managers/leadership about what type of work is expected, and IMO most importantly, have had a chance to make very strong bonds with coworkers that then become your "cohort" for the next 1-2 years that you can ask questions about work, collaborate, commiserate, or even become friends outside of work. The strong bond developed over those 2 months is important because that "cohort" is then more likely to stay in contact even after splitting up to work remotely.
I went through such a training program at the beginning of my career and it was the best company onboarding experience I've been through, not only in terms of personally enjoying it, but also just from the perspective of setting me up for success at the company and in my career.
edit: based on responses I didn't communicate clearly. What I mean is that there are way more potential distractions at home. Some people are still able to be productive in spite of that, but a lot of people (including myself!) are less productive. For some people it may even be the case that working from home there are fewer distractions, although I imagine that's pretty rare.
I haven't taken a vacation all year. (What's the point?) I haven't seen friends or family since March/April. I'm at my computer 24/7. (I've actually fallen asleep using it.)
I think I've actually started aging faster.
Because there are vast differences between specific circumstances. For example, people who are working at home but also suddenly become substitute teachers to keep their kids on task who are also there, are in a totally different situation than people who have a nice quiet home office and no kids.
Also, the specific software setup and operating rules will have a massive difference. For example, people who need to collaborate daily and don't have a good rule for a meeting or a solid whiteboard tool or whatever they need, if they don't make that connection adequately, they are going to lag.
Or if you are just talking about basic motivation, the interaction rules and software setup will also make a huge difference. If there were somewhat ad-hoc assignments and check-ins that kept people somewhat more motivated before and then all of that is just dropped, the motivation will go down. Now ideally what you have instead is just good management, intrinsic motivation and properly chunked-out results-oriented sprints, strong async and written communication, etc.
Or in the opposite direction, if the boss realizes that now he doesn't need to go stand over your shoulder to check in with you or add a task since he can just message you on Slack at any time, that could also turn into a drag on programmer productivity.
So it's really dependant on a lot of specific factors and not just whether they are in an office or not. And I feel like discussions will need to break down some of those details to be useful.
For heads down coding, WFH is much better. I hate open offices and find cross-talk distracting.
For certain types of collaborative work, it is less great and, socially, I miss face to face contact with coworkers. But, I long term, I would prefer to work in an environment where at least several days a week are remote.
Seriously tough, the problem for me is the lack of focus. Being constantly alone (I live on my own) is messing up with my brain. I spend the same amount of time working (perhaps even longer than when at the office), but I cannot stay focused more than 30 minutes / 1h which make things slow.
Additionally, the number of meetings increased and so did the number of one-pagers I have to write to articulate my ideas (before 10 min with a whiteboard would have been even more effective).
On the plus side I dropped ~14kg since the pandemic WFH started due to not having always stocked MicroKitchens with tons of sweets.
Recently the office opened up, just for me. I'm alone in the office but massively more productive
I find it frustrating that so many comments discount that some people just don't work well from home. I have no logical reason, but I just need to get ready, walk to work to get stuff done
WFH may work for some, but it does not work for me no matter what I do and I'm sure it's true for others
Trait concienciousness as per the Big Five model is inherently a social thing. Being more diligent is connected to being more in tune with others around you.
Extroverts are also much more receptive to reward than introverts. This is partially relevant but frames the differences.
Going into the office and cnfronting your "duty" within the social environment of work has a psychological impact. How much depends on how polarised your traits are
I think we should embrace WFH but not wholly adopt it as the one and only way people are effective at their job.
But as someone who's been working remotely since before the pandemic, the key for me is to not work from home, ie. either work out of coffee shops or coworking spaces.
Of course the problem with COVID is that coffee shops are takeout only and coworking spaces are closed, so that's not an option at the moment (at least in the U.S.).
Working from home is awesome one or two days out of a week, but depressing after weeks and weeks. But then again I feel the same about offices as well, and hell just living in the same city year after year. The beauty of remote work is that you can go wherever you want, wake up whenever you want, and aren't tethered to a location. Once you taste that freedom, it's hard to give it up.
Don't take the article seriusly.
And what is this going to achieve? This is a stupid idea.
The idea that may make sense is to provide some sort of WFH allowance, so that people can either enhance their own workplace, or seek individual offices in some co-working space. But I guess all the co-working space providers have committed to open floor plan.
How much is that productivity hit because people are dealing with the fact that this pandemic is lasting longer than expected, more people are getting sick, more people are dying...
You know, the amount of brain cycles spent worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic may also account for some of those feelings. I know I feel it. I feel less focused, there's a constant process using up CPU in my head.
Not only has it affected my work ethic, but also:
- Sleep patterns
- How much I eat
- Joy I get from things that used to bring me joy
- Lack of physical contact/touch, especially since I am single
These are all things that weigh heavy.
If you are a manager evaluating the effect of WFH during Covid without the ability to compare it with WFH before Covid, just stop.
Yes, kids needing to do school from home requires a lot of time and effort, my co-workers are struggling to get their work completed because of it. I've taken over some of their tasks to help them out.
Also if you are permanent WFH (which I am since I switched jobs in May), you set up your work environment differently. I rented a 2 bed room apartment so that I would have an "office" that I could close at the end of the day. If you live in the Bay Area generally you rent a shoe box of a place because you spend most of the time at work, that is not longer the case.
And not all work environments have nice people. Some people can be toxic and not having them around is fantastic.
Remote work disarms toxic people because any toxic interaction can be either recorded or left in writing.
And if some loud person wants to dominate every meeting, now you have a mute button... that's great.
"only 31% of the company’s engineers polled felt they had been highly productive, down 8 percentage points from a record high in the March quarter."
So 8 points down from a record. What is the usual variance on that statistics? Doesn't say much.
And like ... are employees really honest when asked 'anonymously' by a surveilence company how much they work?
* You have kids at home
* You live in a tiny apartment and don't have room to set up a proper home office
* Your work is very collaborative and Zoom meetings are just not the same
* You live by yourself and the loneliness is brutal
* You find it hard to stay motivated without the daily camaraderie you had in the office
* You're in a pandemic that adds a ton of stress to your life
And that's just off the top of my head. It's great that you can successfully work from home, but please realize that your life experiences are not the same as everyone else's, and what is a positive experience for you may be dreadful for others. And also remember that we're in a pandemic and the current WFH conditions are far from optimal for most people who were forced into it.
What skill level is that? For the most part we are talking about a bunch of people ages 22-30 that function by responding to specific feature requests or JIRA tickets from their team leads. There are of course exceptions, but by and large this population of engineers do not do well with unstructured environments, such as the type created by a sudden shift to WFH. I am wholly unsurprised that productivity at Goog has dropped. At my large tech company (where we work with consultants from FAANG) there's also a similar drop in productivity due to aforementioned lack of structure.
>10 years remote and I couldn't get in at Googs.
FAANG interviewing has very little to do with skill level and a lot more to do with mastering the very specific interview process of that particular FAANG. It's a lot like taking the LSAT. You could be a genius but still not ace the LSAT because you don't know the very specific strategies needed for the test. On the flip side, just because you ace the LSAT doesn't mean you are a savant, it just means you studied the specific things necessary to ace the test.
