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We've measured productivity of remote work compared to in house work. I work in the public sector so it's mainly not programming, but caseworking and similar. We've found that productivity is way down when people work at home, we've however also found that allowing people to slack once in a while increases their overall performance.

The optimal results come from people working mainly at the office. Now this may be completely different for development houses, our coders are some of the most productive when working remote, IT in general is below average though.

Can you provide any studies on that?

It's very cool that you guys actually gathered some data on the topic.

I wonder how much your conclusions would hold for non-public-sector jobs.

AFAIK it's typically harder to fire a public-sector worker for under-performance, than in the private sector. Perhaps that either (a) adds to the temptation to goof around at home, or (b) attracts the kinds of workers who were always more apt to goof around, given the opportunity.

I do a lot of work with public-sector employees. I always thought they were lazy (which I think is a fairly common feeling throughout the private sector). Some are, of course. But unfortunately the problem is not one of drive but of competence. In technology specifically, the public-sector employees I've worked with simply do not have the skills of a private-sector employee with similar responsibilities/experience. I don't know if it's the lower salary or what but I can count on one hand the number of technical public-sector employees who would be able to have a similarly-titled position in any of the private sector companies I've worked for.

Main problem is that all the high-quality tech talent is vacuumed up by the private sector. For what it's worth, I once worked at the Munich government and since a couple years in the private sector. In Munich, BMW, Microsoft and the various suppliers for BMW are the most likely target for fresh university graduates, mainly due to the prestige and in the case of BMW the enormous pay.

Those who end up in public sector usually are those who value the job security or do it out of dedication. Which doesn't mean they're bad at their job, in my experience it was the exact opposite, but the government sector is waaaaay understaffed, and pay can't be risen to private-sector levels because of rigid union agreements.

Also, the competence problems are related more to regulations... why spend your time e.g. learning Docker when you're happy enough you can finally use Ubuntu instead of RHEL? So basically unless you lesrn it in your time off there's no motivation to learn new stuff because it will be outdated when regulation molasses finally catches up.

Note that working remotely takes some getting used to just as with working at an office. Yes, you can dump someone into unfamiliar conditions and draw conclusions from that, but that's just confirming your prior assumptions without actually trying.

Our only measure of data is what we've used for testing our velocity. We've found that velocity increases when 2 or more are working from home on any given day. When I know a particular feature is going to require a lot of concentration, I don't think twice about popping into our #standup channel around 6am and saying: "wfh today".

Now, when it comes to bugs, I'll admit, tossing it up on big screens and inviting a few co-workers is just awesome. It's like playing solitaire with someone watching... they always see things that you would not.

Some jobs aren't totally "remote - compatible" no doubt.

My take on this is people who actually "develop stuff" or to put it bluntly - get shit done - developers, architects, field consultants, release engineers, etc etc - are used to being judged by easily quantifiable metrics - repo commits, defects, system downtime etc etc - for these folks working from home is no different than going to the office with a couple of logistical adjustments.

Developer productivity is not easily quantifiable though...

If there's a baseline I don't see why it should be rocket science - person X's velocity when working from home is Y and when working from the office is Z. Compare Z and Y and there you have it. Sure, it's not apples-to-apples week-to-week/sprint-to-sprint but the averages are pretty consistent.

If you don't have the baseline there are other ways of getting this figured out, not as accurate but good enough typically - instead of comparing someone's office vs. home velocity you go by the average velocity you're after and see if they can hang with that while working from home (and again, I don't see why this would be difficult to figure out).

Good that you measured. What sort of training/support did you put in place for people (management, caseworkers, etc) before trialing "work from home"?

In my experience, it depends on the person. Some people are more productive at home, others are distracted, end up playing video games and are never available online. Good mgmt would recognize this and enable employees to maximize their output.

The problem is that a bad apple ruins it for everyone. Now managers have to deal with the constant complaints fo those who aren't as productive at home. "why is it ok for Bob to work from home twice a week, but not me?" Once that starts you either start aggressively firing (unlikely) or just take away work from home entirely.

I imagine this problem only grows with the size of the group/company.

This is precisely what top-level comment addressed by stating that 'a multi-billon dollar company' shouldn't be 'kindergarten'.

"shouldn't be", but is. Wishing something away doesn't actually make it go away. I'm a tech lead, not even a true manager, but I have to deal with kindergarten level emotional problems all of the time.

So what do I do? Fire everyone? Don't think that's a practical solution. Try to hire people who are easier to work with? Sure, but good luck. Hard to determine that during the interview process. I don't think telling people to 'grow up' is a real solution here.

No, ideally anyone with similar roles should be able to work from home.

You also say to the complaining employee that you monitor all of your employees and ensure that they are being productive (any good manager should be doing this.) and that their productivity is none of their concern. Then you ask them if they are holding up the project, and how, and then you go from there.

It's just poor management. Managers are mostly incompetent, or if they are, they are afraid of backlash and unable to lead.

I still don't see how you're solving the problem if people who aren't productive working from home, but will also feel that a selective policy is unfair. It's going to happen.

It's simple, if they are not productive, then you tell them they need to be more productive. If they continue to be, you put them on probation as per the standards, and they will have to come into the office.

This isn't nuclear fusion. If this is difficult for a manager they shouldn't be a manager.

Have you ever been a manager? Do you really think dealing with people, all of whom have different strengths and weaknesses, is this simple? Do you appreciate that putting someone on a PIP may very well lead to them quitting? Maybe they don't work well from home, but you still need them. Hiring has overhead, causes some amount of friction and (hopefully) short term loss of productivity as you ramp them up (bigger problem for small teams).

>This isn't nuclear fusion. If this is difficult for a manager they shouldn't be a manager.

That's what makes me think you don't actually have any experience here. That... or you've just been blessed with more luck in your management endeavours than I have (or maybe I am just bad, certainly a possibility.)

Don't put them on probation. Just simply ask them to work in the office because they are not meeting deliverables.

Ahh, so I must never have done it, if I offer a different experience. I've managed teams before-with a mix of remote and onsite. And trust me-it is not that difficult, for competent managers. Managers are too often afraid to lead. The peter principle is very true.

The fact is not offering WFH causes many people to move on as well. I've lost many team members to it. Just as low pay does. People leave. This is the new reality. Businesses want to disrupt but don't want to be disrupted. They want to commoditize workers-not be commoditized themselves.

My problem is to ensure my team's success, and my team knows what their deliverable are by their deadlines. If you don't do anything for 20 days and finish it on 21 because it's easy? Fine by me. Just get it done.

From the few people I know in the public sector, "working from home" is code for "working as little as possible". I suspect organizational culture plays a large role.

What is caseworking?

Remote working kills team work IMO. I would never want to work fully remotely, and I can't collaborate as well with fully remote teammate. How do you get a whiteboard brainstorming sessions? 2 days remote / week is a good balance that fits me quite well.

Now if you don't work on hard-to-solve problem, or projects that don't require high collaboration, why not.

Edit: I should add that I've been working fully remote (500km away of the office) for almost 3 years, and then with a team split on two different continents for one year. I so much enjoy being in the office since then, even just for having lunch and coffee with anyone, and being able to stop by anyone's desk/office to unblock an issue.

Here is great article why brainstorming is a waste of time https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-group-brainstorming-is-a-waste-o...

I took the parent to use "brainstorming" in the sense of get everyone together in a room to solve some problem, consider design alternatives, etc.

The article you linked to is about a very specific style of brainstorming that was once very popular. (Basically throw out a bunch of ideas with no filter/criticism.) It's that type of brainstorming that research has largely discredited. I don't think anyone seriously suggests that people working together on a problem in a room never works.

Agreed that the HBR article attacks a strawman - or, at least, a style of "brainstorming" I have never participated in. To me, "brainstorming" is a small number of people (often just two!) sitting together and thinking through a problem. Personally, this has helped me much more than if I had just continued spinning on the problem myself.

>Agreed that the HBR article attacks a strawman - or, at least, a style of "brainstorming" I have never participated in.

I have. It has (mercifully) largely fallen out of fashion but it was a very popular "ideating" approach at one time.

Well, I work full remotely at a good size company (Elastic) and it works great for us.Our entire company is fully remote.

The secret is that you need to be fully committed to remote. If you do this you force yourself to actually find workflows that work remotely. If you just work two days a week remote you wind up isolated for two days and don't collaborate during that time.

A lot of companies that fail at remote work also fail because they have a mix of office and remote workers. This only works if you force every conversation to happen online. Otherwise you have the inner circle in the office and the outer circle that is remote.

The point is that a lot of remote work failures are simply companies that had remote workers but didn't have a workflow that was amenable to remote work.

I also find that 2 days is a pretty good balance. I'm a very social person so more than that can start me down the path to depression. What I'm arguing for is the _option_ to work from home when I want/need. As far as how we brain storm, my team's developers are mostly introverts. So all this "synergy" that managers believe will happen, never really does. We do mob code from time to time, and I love the interaction. We're quite adept at communicating via Slack/Email/appear.in. Those tools have been sufficient in fostering our brainstorming.

I work remotely as DBA, the company doesn't even have an office in my State, i've met my boss face-to-face one time last year when they flew me out for a meeting. We have folks in a few Asian countries, as well as all over Europe and the US, and it works great. I can have a call at 5am with the guys in London and Asia some days, and adjust my schedule as needed.

It just works, but then again, I'm not creative, nor coding, or really collaboratively building anything that needs to brainstorm or deeply integrate with others, I'm architecting and operating.

Clearly mileage varies. I've been more or less fully remote for a top tier financial institution about the last two years. (I show up every few months to meet up for some face time, sure we make time for some meetings and the likes but it's mostly a chance to socialise in real life.)

I can't imagine going back to an office. I'm generally much happier, I feel like I'm more focused and I feel a stronger commitment to my work.

My brother once told me that most people keep their jobs simply because they show up. I didn't much believe him but having working in this business for more than a decade now I tend to agree. Maybe it's not most people, but a significant number anyway. That's not trying to be mean spirited or anything – I totally understand those who choose to wear the minimum required amount of flair. They care just enough not to get fired, maybe a little bit more but not much, and that's ok.

For me, I'm not going to lie, I've had those days where I've felt that I've done enough just by showing up. It's not been most days, but I've sure had them. But now that I'm remote I never have those days. I like showing up, because the balance in my life is so much better – I think it's because now it's mostly on my terms. Sure, I more or less have to, or at least try to make sure there's as much time overlap as possible with my co-workers, but where I work or how I work is up to me.

It wasn't always enjoyable though. Initially it was a real struggle because most people were in the office, and I'd get left out because they'd do face-to-face meetings or discuss things offline and I'd get a pretty crappy tl;dr out of it. But this is something I pointed out early on, and coupled with a growing need in the business for people to work remotely we just kind of figured it out. They're getting rid of office space because it's expensive, and rather than making people redundant that they would probably have to re-hire anyway they just have people work from home either fully or most days, and employ a desk sharing solution. I think we're up to something like 3 or 4 people per desk now. Now everything happens in emails, chat, github, etc. It's all online, it has to be or it just doesn't work.

Anyway, this is turning into a rant, so I'll stop. I just came to say I can't imagine having to work in an office again. I don't mind it from time to time, it can be nice, but I'd like it to be my choice rather than something I have to do. Again, mileage clearly varies.

I worked at a satellite office with my whole team working 29@ miles away. I became close to my original team and we worked together well.

On the other hand, trying to gain any influence over the larger organization was almost impossible, especially after the manager who hired me left.

People only look at it from the employer's side. The employee, if they can manage themselves and not become anti-social, receives a huge increase in the quality of life.

Making appointments for the doctor, court, etc. don't require a sick day, you have more time in your life from a lack of commute (for a 30 minute commute, that's 5 hours/wk), you can schedule around your most productive hours, (later in the day for me), you can be tasked based such that if you finish all your work in 32 hours, you don't have to put in time just cause, you can exercise or go for a run during the day (many can't because of lack of shower facilities or a strict 1 hr lunch), you can eat home cooked meals without having to cook a huge serving that will last you the week and you can take a nap if you feel sleepy after lunch without worrying about optics, you don't have to be in at some specific time if you've had a hard time sleeping the night before,. I don't ever feel rushed in the morning and always eat breakfast followed by a meditation.

I find mind mapping software superior to whiteboarding when collaboration in my case because my own sketches and handwriting are nearly indecipherable to anyone but me. Also, for work I find tools like slack to be more useful because they are async, not ruining my flow and messages can be very information dense with links, images, etc.

I'm much, much more productive at home. I communicate well via slack/phone/Facetime. Also, junior devs will craft their questions in a coherent manner. In doing so, they've found that when they formally present their questions, they can often solve it on their own, making them better devs. I often only work 32-35 hrs/wk, yet I am more productive. This extra time allows me to do more self-learning. Before, the lat thing I'd want to do after driving home is deal with more code. Even if I have to work 10-15 hours more per week, it's less stressful than dealing with coming home from the office at 8pm, exhausted and not wanting to cook so I would eat unhealthy, expensive takeout food and watch some mind-numbing TV.

Most importantly I have more time and opportunities to see the people who really matter in my life...my significant other, my friends, my niece, etc. (this was the norm before the industrial revolution.)

Dude I couldn't have said it better myself.

All of what you said leads to a happier/healthier employee which more times than not leads to a more productive employee. Happier/healthier employees that are more productive make the company more $ at the end of the day.

"...We're all adults, if you are worried that you won't know what I've been up to, you can check my Pull Requests in our source control system..."

But that's not what it's about. Not even close. (Yes, to some micromanagers, that is what it means. But if your job sucks because your manager is an asshole, it's going to suck whether you're at home or at work)

I hate co-located teams. The problem is that they work. They are the best and only method I know about to have groups of people solve complex problems creatively. If your problem isn't complex or need a creative solution? Don't use them. But the more rote and simplistic the work you're doing, the more you're going to be replaced by robots. So there's that.

I get the fact that folks hate it. Like I said, I hate it also. But that doesn't change the fact that I've seen it work -- over and over again. I've also seen it horribly abused and misunderstood, but I can't help that. Under the appropriate circumstances, it's the best thing we have going right now.

I don't disagree that co-located teams can be very effective and, for some things, may be the only effective approach. However...

>They are the best and only method I know about to have groups of people solve complex problems creatively

A vast number of open source projects, including Linux, are created by very distributed groups of people. I would find it hard to argue that none of those projects involve solving complex problems creatively.

I would. Because at the end of the day, all of these projects have one or two creative elements with the rest of it being just grunt programming.

Note that by solving complex problems creatively, I mean business problems. Not technology. We don't need a co-located team to figure out that a bubble sort is the wrong tool for this job. We need a co-located team to figure out that we're headed down the wrong road and that 3 months of coding might be replaced with two system calls. That kind of conversation can be extremely uncomfortable or impossible to make happen with ten folks meeting over a IM link twice a day.

By corollary, have you seen non co-located groups of people solve complex problems creatively? I have, many times.

There's a quote from Founders at Work that relates to this. Basically the observation was that they'd never seen a startup actually take off with people who weren't working side-by-side.

I feel all of this no-remote-encouraged is due to ego trip. Nothing boosts your ego more than having 10 people under your management show up in standup meet and pretend to be listening to what you have to say, and than you dismiss them to go work.

It doesn't quite have that feel when you are doing that over Slack.

This can be alleviated by meeting once a week(if all members are in the same area) or once per couple of months(for more distributed teams).

I would be very wary of companies that can't perform because physical attendance is mandatory every single day!

And perhaps I'm wrong by measuring our performance by "number of features completed" or "number of bugs fixed". I just don't know what other metric matters to use.

If you emphasize metrics, you'll get folks who optimize for the metrics, to the detriment of the project. They will frustrate your best engineers, who will eventually leave.

I'm sorry, I don't work on site - some bad apples ruined it for the whole bunch.

Somehow that sounds more reasonable to me.

I'd like to work on-site, but I don't want to abuse it...

This one too, actually; you have so little control of being distracted in open office compared to working at home, and you wouldn't want to bankrupt your boss drinking the copious amounts of coffee you need to compensate, right?

>I find this very common with managers that are scared that they are irrelevant. (they may not understand what their employees actually do)

Some managers seem to think: "If there are some butts and those butts are in chairs and I can see those chairs and those butts all in a row in a big room outside my office then my team is kicking ass. I'm gonna buy me some more chairs."

From my experience as an engineering manager I am fine with that as long as I can easily reach "you" with a phone call during core hours.

So many people have phone phobia in this field. I feel that if you want to work from home you need to make voice calls work for you.

(It usually doesn't happen more than once a week. Being reasonably acccessible on Slack reduces the need for these calls somewhat.)

As a full-time remote person (at IBM, ironically), I personally hate using the phone - however, video/voice call via Slack or similar is totally fine. As far as I'm concerned, a decent headset is the #2 requirement after a good internet connection when it comes to working remotely effectively.

What's the difference?

(It would typically be initiated the same way, e.g. via a Slack question if they are ok talk on the phone. If there's no reply and it's blocking other stuff; yeah I am going to place an actual 20th century phone call.)

Picking up a phone is interrupting as hell for me.

Clicking the green button on Discord or a softphone is not.

Seriously? What is the difference? Telephone handset vs headphones?

Please don't startle the millennials. They are unique snowflakes.

;)

It's just ridiculously foreign and breaks my train of thought. No idea why, just a mental thing.

I have never used a physical 'telephone handset' (and don't have a desk phone)

People text instead of calling and especially instead of leaving voicemail. Just asking one question seems rude via phone so the conversation is buffered with "hi, what's going on, how's the weather, how about them lakers, while I have you, what do you think about this, etc."

Phone calls are less information dense to many developers to something like slack, especially if you need to send a link, a document, etc.

Slack is also async in that I don't have to immediately answer. I can get to a nice commit point in 5 or so minutes and not have to stop in the middle of a deep thought.

If it's a scheduled call once a week though, that shouldn't matter at all. Maybe they just don't like you :D j/k. A lot of devs think they communicate as well via voice

I am talking about architecture design discussions that actually, really do run at 2-3x speed when done via voice as opposed to text chat. And yes, having to schedule them to slow things down in an excessive way.

It's a little bit of both for me. I work for a large company with a small IT department where I'm the architect. My job involves about 50% development and 50% interacting with the business. I can't be as affective working from home when I'm wearing my "architect" hat, but I'm more effective as a developer working from home.