|
tl;dr What is the currently available evidence on employee productivity when working from home versus returning to the office for programming jobs specifically? I am fortunate enough to be able to influence our team's decision on WFH vs RTO. We have been remote since the pandemic, but with commercial real estate at all time lows and pandemic fears subsiding, we feel like it's time to make an intentional decision on what to do. Our team is split right down the middle in terms of preferences: a weak majority prefer full time in-person, everybody is okay with some hybrid arrangement, and a handful prefer full time remote. I doubt it will all come down to this one decision, but for the purpose of this discussion, let's say that the only objective is to maximize overall employee output in whatever appropriate sense. And to preempt some Hacker News criticisms of in-office work: I have zero stake in commercial real estate, there are no tax incentives to speak of, the mayor isn't calling me to consider going back to in-person work, the cost is honestly insignificant compared to payroll and (distant second) cloud spend, and no, I'm not receding into a private office sipping whiskey while everybody else is grinding away on an open floor. The evidence on productivity seems mixed at best, I'm guessing partly because it's hard to define and measure productivity. If we're talking purely anecdotal evidence, I feel like my own productivity comes in bursts when I'm at home. Sometimes I'll be in the zone working harder than I've ever worked before, and sometimes I'll slack off for a few days at a time. In the office, I felt like it was a more consistent 60% of my peak performance. I feel very connected to people I knew from in-person work and relatively disconnected from newer hires who I only know remotely; I'm not sure how much this matters in terms of the actual software being created; maybe some of the effects will only be visible in a few years when we have better data on employee retention, happiness, etc. Comparing gut checks around the web, Hacker News is extremely vocal about the benefits of remote work, while CEOs publicly claim they have evidence supporting a return to the office due to better productivity and engagement. I couldn't find much evidence related to remote work for programming jobs specifically. There's this Microsoft study: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-effects-of-remote-work-on-collaboration-among-information-workers/ quote:Overall, we found that the shift to remote work caused the formal business groups and informal communities within Microsoft to become less interconnected and more siloed. Remote work caused the share of collaboration time employees spent with cross-group connections to drop by about 25% of the pre-pandemic level. Furthermore, firm-wide remote work caused separate groups to become more intraconnected by adding more connections within themselves. The shift to remote work also caused the organizational structure at Microsoft to become less dynamic; Microsoft employees added fewer new collaborators and shed fewer existing ones. This part catches my eye: quote:Furthermore, the effects of these policies on company culture and innovation could take years to measure. The above neutral-negative contrasts with GitLab's gushing positive findings for remote work: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/benefits/ They claim or cite some hard numbers for sales, support, and communication, but none of the KPIs aren't directly related to engineering (again, probably because it's very hard to come up with the correct measures). Zapier also has this summary: https://zapier.com/blog/remote-work-report-by-zapier/ But many of the results are survey-driven. They cite findings like: quote:Home is where productivity lives. 42 percent of knowledge workers believe they are most productive working from home, compared to just under a third (32 percent) who feel they get more done in an office. My conclusion from everything I've seen so far is that nobody seems to really know the answer. I suspect that there are many benefits and relatively few drawbacks of remote work for more experienced engineers (high confidence opinion). I also suspect there are some benefits and some drawbacks to remote work for junior engineers (medium confidence opinion). I worry that compounding the drawbacks to remote work for junior engineers will eventually decay the organization as those junior engineers grow more senior (low confidence opinion). I'm very open to changing my mind on any and all of these opinions, but I just can't find the data. So I'm soliciting some help. Is anybody aware of other studies that have been conducted related to working from home versus from office for programming and programming-adjacent work more specifically? Has your employer claimed any internal data justifying their decision one way or the other? What's your own opinion on how to best assess "how well are people doing stuff" if we decide to test out both strategies for a period of time and measure the results?
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2023 16:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 23:58 |
|
|
quote:We have been remote since the pandemic, but with commercial real estate at all time lows and pandemic fears subsiding, we feel like it's time to make an intentional decision on what to do. Why? quote:I doubt it will all come down to this one decision, but for the purpose of this discussion, let's say that the only objective is to maximize overall employee output in whatever appropriate sense. Is this objective a priority, and if so, who prioritized it? quote:Comparing gut checks around the web, Hacker News is extremely vocal about the benefits of remote work, while CEOs publicly claim they have evidence supporting a return to the office due to better productivity and engagement. If employees are overwhelmingly on the side of X and employers are overwhelmingly on the side of Y, the reasons for that should be pretty clear. quote:And to preempt some Hacker News criticisms of in-office work: I have zero stake in commercial real estate, there are no tax incentives to speak of, the mayor isn't calling me to consider going back to in-person work, the cost is honestly insignificant compared to payroll and (distant second) cloud spend, and no, I'm not receding into a private office sipping whiskey while everybody else is grinding away on an open floor. Well obviously, I know you don’t. But you’re not the only stakeholder involved, right? Otherwise, why would even this come up? quote:My conclusion from everything I've seen so far is that nobody seems to really know the answer. Nobody has a clear numerical answer because this isn’t about numbers. It’s about humans. It’s about organizations and how they work. This can’t be boiled down to numbers. IMO, WFH vs. RTO is political, not statistical. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jun 27, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2023 16:41
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:Why? To be clear, "proceeding with status quo" is a valid decision, but we want that to be based on looking at the future versus looking at a decision driven by the pandemic. I think it's reasonable to make decisions based on something other than "this is how we've always done it" and this is no different. Pollyanna posted:Is this objective a priority, and if so, who prioritized it? It's not the only priority but I think getting things done is a reasonable priority. The question I posed is intentionally focused on employee output only because I think the tradeoffs in some other dimensions are pretty well understood. I haven't seen much evidence on productivity itself, one way or the other. Pollyanna posted:If employees are overwhelmingly on the side of X and employers are overwhelmingly on the side of Y, the reasons for that should be pretty clear. As I mentioned above, for my particular group, it's a slight majority in favor of full-time in-person. I have no idea how representative Hacker News is versus simply loud. I also don't think employer studies are overwhelming on one side or another. The Microsoft study I linked seems neutral-negative while GitLab and Zapier are positive on remote work. I couldn't find other studies specifically around software-focused orgs. Pollyanna posted:Well obviously, I know you don’t. But you’re not the only stakeholder involved, right? Otherwise, why would even this come up? This came up in a standup today. Somebody posed the question, "hey we've been remote for awhile, is this going to continue indefinitely?" and it became a bit of a discussions and a followup poll. But it got me thinking - it's right that we've been operating this way for awhile now without re-evaluating whether it was the best way for us to operate. Pollyanna posted:Nobody has a clear numerical answer because this isn’t about numbers. It’s about humans. It’s about organizations and how they work. This can’t be boiled down to numbers. I agree that there's ultimately an important human element as well, but I think distilling the entire question down to "this can't be boiled down to numbers, it's political, not statistical" is a bit unfair. Surely there are better and worse ways of running a team and it must be possible to answer that question in a data-driven way? mondomole fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jun 27, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2023 16:52
|
|
|
Let your team work from home if they want
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2023 19:02
|
|
|
RC Cola posted:Let your team work from home if they want In this case it’s really just me and one other person who want to be full time remote. If the rest of the team feels like we will be more productive in person then I definitely don’t mind also going in. But the reason I posed this question to begin with is that I would rather have this decision align with data on what is the most productive arrangement rather than being some random gut feeling. Granted, there may not be that data so it may end up being random anyways.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2023 19:23
|
|
|
for reasons Pollyanna stated, the most productive arrangement comes down to the individual and the organization. you're not going to get a concrete dataset because it's not hard data. talk to your team, feel out what they want to do and try to accommodate everyone's preferences as best you can. weigh the pros and cons of a split team in your environment, like if you have a meeting and 3 people are in a conference room and 3 are in their homes but everyone is contributing and attentive, does it even matter? personally I'd find another remote job before ever stepping foot into an office again (doubly so if there was a mandate or ultimatum), but I'm sure there's my opposite out there who'd rather do their thing in an office/cubicle because that works best for them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2023 22:37
|
|
|
I actually enjoy going into the office once a week. I think it does help with team cohesion and stuff like that. I enjoying grabbing lunch with the team or practicing my chitchat skills. It's like socializing my dog at the dogpark once a week, its good for them. The main reason that I prefer full wfh though is commuting. I absolutely loathe commuting 30 mins before and after work through rush hour traffic and then not getting paid for it is the turd icing on the cake. So unless I can teleport into the office, I would prefer wfh. Also, In my last job I was a top performer. Then they brought us in mandatory 3 days a week and I essentially stopped trying. Especially since others on my team were dirtbags and there was zero repercussions for it. davey4283 fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jun 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2023 20:03
|
|
|
I would recommend RTO for anybody that is interested in getting rapidly promoted and WFH for people who are interested in being able to walk their dog or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2023 08:20
|
|
|
i would definitely take walking a dog over the 0-3% raise from getting a promotion
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
You cannot buy lost time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2023 19:46
|
|
|
Junkiebev posted:I would recommend RTO for anybody that is interested in getting rapidly promoted and WFH for people who are interested in being able to walk their dog or whatever. being with my pet is a far better use of my time
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2023 22:44
|
|
|
Junkiebev posted:I would recommend RTO for anybody that is interested in getting rapidly promoted and WFH for people who are interested in being able to walk their dog or whatever. I've been promoted 3 times in in 2 years all while WFH. And I get to walk my dog and not spend 3 hours a day in traffic and not sit next to a bunch of people in meetings all day screaming around me so I can't think
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2023 22:55
|
|
|
My commute is a pleasant 20-30 minute walk, so all you need to bribe me to come in to the office (most of the time) is the promise of a good lunch. If it was an hour each way you wouldn't see me around there at all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2023 23:45
|
|
|
mondomole posted:Zapier also has this summary: https://zapier.com/blog/remote-work-report-by-zapier/ I think the living situation is the reason for this discrepancy. Of the people I work with, those with roommates are less likely to be in favor of WFH/Hybrid. One complained that during COVID he spent nearly 20 hours a day in his bedroom between work and sleep. The people who champion WFH usually live alone, or have a home with a dedicated space for work, whether it was a folding table in the living room or a bona fide home office. Every time I talk to another engineer, regardless of level, this has been the case. I'm often on a hybrid schedule, and I find it to be the best. I go into the office once or twice a week for work and meetings. And honestly, when I'm in the building I end up spending 1/3 of my day bullshitting or talking shop with the others on my time. It's a good chance to catch up on office/company news. But the thing is, that'd be about how much I would talk face-to-face with others in my group when I was in-office 5 days a week. And to boot, I think I've had 1 official in-person meeting in the last year. Everything else was through Teams, regardless if I was in the office that day or not.
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2023 03:53
|
|
|
Hybrid is best with no mandatory in office days. WFH > RTO in pretty much every circumstance. Forced office presence is just management flexing over the peons. If individuals/teams are reasonably productive at home, then what’s the issue? In all my years at the office I can’t think of a single thing accomplished in the office that couldn’t have been accomplished remotely besides socializing. Personally I would quit any org forcing RTO that didn’t also include a huge salary bump, and I already make decent money.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 13:01
|
|
|
Jabor posted:My commute is a pleasant 20-30 minute walk, so all you need to bribe me to come in to the office (most of the time) is the promise of a good lunch. What if it's 3:30 each way. And my boss wonders why he never sees me much (contract is fully WFH but with travel as required).
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 22:05
|
|
|
Personally I hate WFH. I find WFH to be distracting and isolating, and a lot of information flow and conversation that kind of passively happened from open-air talk just doesn't happen any more without people actively making it happen (which, in practice, means it happens a lot less). I also really don't trust the "workers report better productivity at home" stat at all, because people who prefer the WFH arrangement are probably going to say that whether it's true or not (and probably believe it whether it's true or not too), and people dishonestly slacking off are probably the most likely to lie about it too. We really need some objective comparisons to find the real answer.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 04:38
|
|
|
mondomole posted:Surely there are better and worse ways of running a team and it must be possible to answer that question in a data-driven way? I'm a statistician and I don't believe that it is. The evidence you're looking for is a measurement of how productive WHF teams are vs. in-office teams on average, but that tells you nothing about how those choices will affect your team. You need to make a decision based on your own judgment and your knowledge of your own team.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2023 16:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 23:58 |
|
|
a team will probably be most effective if they are happy and comfortable with the work paradigm they have what that means is going to vary wildly from team to team I'm WFH on a geographically dispersed WFH team, and that has been the case basically since late 2016 even though I have changed jobs three times since then. I would not be unhappy to have a gig where I could do 2-4 days in the office as needed, but that's less important to me than living in the middle of the woods in Vermont, personally. ultrafilter posted:I'm a statistician and I don't believe that it is. The evidence you're looking for is a measurement of how productive WHF teams are vs. in-office teams on average, but that tells you nothing about how those choices will affect your team. You need to make a decision based on your own judgment and your knowledge of your own team. Thanks. If we get rid of the dumb polarizing capitalists-vs-labor dialog around this issue and cut it to the thinnest slices, then I think it becomes super obvious that while you can certainly find data-driven trends through polling etc, which may in some way inform what your team is likely to find palatable -- this becomes the same as "I need to pick the absolute best meal for a group of tech employees, and it must be possible to answer that question in a data-driven way". The data you need is the specific desires, feelings and working habits of the team in question. It doesn't matter what CEOs overall thing, it doesn't matter what workers overall think, it matters what the specific people in the specific situation think.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2023 17:03
|
|
