The real problem with work from home is a manager’s ability to track performance. It’s generally pretty easy to track things like output. But what if the goals are not just productivity. Sometimes, for the long term health of an organization, you need to have water cooler conversations, and other horizontal knowledge transfer opportunities that arise organically due to proximity. Friday beers often lead to longer term net positives.
We definitely underestimate the unseen value of real relationships with the people we work with. Of course, some employers aren’t interested in nurturing internal culture beyond mandating office time, which just amounts to a front row seat to the same old toxicity. So it can be a healthy thing…with a healthy company.
Back in my working days, I had the WFH option and after some experimentation I determined that I was most happy and productive if I was in the office on Monday and Tuesday (most weeks) and home the rest of the time, in spite of having a long commute. Socializing at work is often undervalued.
My company is doing just fine having most communication online. In fact we save time not having to walk 15 mins across campus to get to a conference room. Sounds like you want to micromanage? Metrics measure only output anyway and higher ups only see that.
I’m in manufacturing, it really helps to have the physical parts to put them together, I couldn’t work from home unless they shipped me parts and I ship back completes.
Doesn’t mean every job is like mine, some of the ladies in our office 100% could work from home.
I’m also in manufacturing, but all our logistics and planning meetings are online. Doesn’t make sense to meet in person. Those 15 mins of walking could be spent doing something else and not waiting for people to arrive. Only necessary meetings are on the floor.
I was gonna say, much as I wanna do work from home myself, I’d say the whole gestures broadly at everything economic during COVID definitely has a bit more of an impact on company profits during that time period.
Except that there’s a lot of evidence that productivity increases with work from home. Less wasted time on commutes, fewer interruptions, easier to manage work-life balance, etc.
Certain kinds of productivity, sure. And definitely on the scale of a civilization, reducing total commuters is fantastic both from and environmental and time-stuck-in-traffic perspectives.
Correlation is not causation.
Playing devil’s avocado 🥑
The real problem with work from home is a manager’s ability to track performance. It’s generally pretty easy to track things like output. But what if the goals are not just productivity. Sometimes, for the long term health of an organization, you need to have water cooler conversations, and other horizontal knowledge transfer opportunities that arise organically due to proximity. Friday beers often lead to longer term net positives.
We definitely underestimate the unseen value of real relationships with the people we work with. Of course, some employers aren’t interested in nurturing internal culture beyond mandating office time, which just amounts to a front row seat to the same old toxicity. So it can be a healthy thing…with a healthy company.
Back in my working days, I had the WFH option and after some experimentation I determined that I was most happy and productive if I was in the office on Monday and Tuesday (most weeks) and home the rest of the time, in spite of having a long commute. Socializing at work is often undervalued.
My company is doing just fine having most communication online. In fact we save time not having to walk 15 mins across campus to get to a conference room. Sounds like you want to micromanage? Metrics measure only output anyway and higher ups only see that.
I’m in a hardware rich business. It really helps to have the hardware in hand to physically try something before telling a customer it can be done.
I’m in manufacturing, it really helps to have the physical parts to put them together, I couldn’t work from home unless they shipped me parts and I ship back completes.
Doesn’t mean every job is like mine, some of the ladies in our office 100% could work from home.
I’m also in manufacturing, but all our logistics and planning meetings are online. Doesn’t make sense to meet in person. Those 15 mins of walking could be spent doing something else and not waiting for people to arrive. Only necessary meetings are on the floor.
I was gonna say, much as I wanna do work from home myself, I’d say the whole gestures broadly at everything economic during COVID definitely has a bit more of an impact on company profits during that time period.
Except that there’s a lot of evidence that productivity increases with work from home. Less wasted time on commutes, fewer interruptions, easier to manage work-life balance, etc.
Certain kinds of productivity, sure. And definitely on the scale of a civilization, reducing total commuters is fantastic both from and environmental and time-stuck-in-traffic perspectives.