I'd prefer remote work, too, over sitting in an open floorplan office, but I'd much prefer an actual office to either one. The easy "why" is: despite all the drawbacks, a lot of us will do pretty much anything to get out of an open floorplan.
But, there are big advantages of remote work over private offices:
1. Lower cost to the company. Private offices are expensive to build and maintain.
2. Less commute time to the employee. Private offices still require commuting which impacts the environment and the employees personal time.
3. Job flexibility. Home workers have (or will have) more options for employment.
4. No relocation expenses. Relocating an employee costs a few thousand dollars, hiring them and letting them stay put is cheaper.
5. Maintain ties to community.
6. Distribute income geographically. Offices concentrate incomes into a small geographic area. The effect is compounded by global companies as the worlds revenue streams feed into a single area. Think about how inflation and costs are out of hand in Silicon Valley.
- Accountants/lawyers are also expensive to employ, and remote workers that live in N different states will require accountants/lawyers that are experts in tax/employment laws of said N states.
- Requires much higher quality of team communication and coordination (of requirements, workload, work scope, expectations, etc), which can be hard to achieve.
You're just pushing that cost to the employee. Are you paying them the amount saved, to furnish their own private offices? Or are you just penalizing the worker to save a buck?
> 3. Job flexibility. Home workers have (or will have) more options for employment.
I have not seen this. Most companies still don't offer remote work.
> 4. No relocation expenses. Relocating an employee costs a few thousand dollars, hiring them and letting them stay put is cheaper.
Again, maybe it's different now, but I've worked at several tech companies, and never been offered "relocation expenses".
> 5. Maintain ties to community.
What does this mean? The company? The worker? It seems like the company not employing local workers, and the worker not leaving their house, would be worse for community all around.
No, like an actual community. Like people who live near each other and don't necessarily share a corporate brand but take care of each other and share memories and build traditions. People naturally have communities based on place, so getting hired and forced to move for that job disrupts communities. It's better for the everyone's social and psychological well-being to stay put.
This one does seem to be a relatively common thing, at least in recent job posts I've seen. I can imagine it's not all that common if you take a step back, but quite a few companies have given what I consider very generous monthly stipends for use in personal offices or (co-)workspace expenses.
I agree with the rest.
I mostly work from home and incremental work-related expenses are pretty small. Maybe I buy some computer gear I wouldn't have if I worked at home less. But the expenses are pretty much trivial relative to commuting.
I have gotten to know my neighbours from nearby houses much better after starting to work remotely, because I spend much more time on the nearby park.
The problem people have with remote work is when they don't change their lives to embrace its flexibility. When they try to emulate their office life, just in their home. Not only does that not help them reach their peak efficiency, it completely misses out on the opportunities of remote work.
I guess you're blurring the line between "full-time from a stable remote (home/coworking/etc.) office" and full on "digital nomad".
I work full-time remote and I think there's a huge difference between working from a stable office and wandering around working from a camper van or ducking out for personal travel while on the clock? It's hard to imagine that the latter type of employee would be ready to quickly respond to incidents, to sync with their team on short notice, etc.
Sure, if you take business days off to fly across the country, that could go badly. But I tend to travel on weekends. And my family understands that I might get a message and go hop onto work for an hour or two.
Most of the remote workers I know would turn down a job that expected 8 hour shifts of "butt-in-seat"-style working environments. The whole concept of "on the clock" is alien to how my teams work.
Where I work, we have core hours (12-4 Eastern) that everyone is supposed to be online, but otherwise your schedule is up to you, so it allows considerable flexibility. In practice though, it's even more flexible. Part of remote work is that you're no longer glued to your desk. Your output is what matters, not where your butt is.
So as long as your commute is 10 seconds home office beats real any time. At least until we get the whole teleportation thing nailed down.
I dislike commute in general, but as long as I can read a book or use a laptop over it, it can be even more productive time than spending it at home.
But that same commute in a car sucks ass, so your point stands.
I'm not saying I couldn't do both of those things when working from home, merely that as an added bonus of working out of an office I end up doing those things more often.
This year, however, I've started working from home a lot. I like it much more than any of the above and generally get so much more done. I can relax and breathe in my own home. Make some tea and sit in the garden when I need to think. My focus, productivity and well being have been through the roof. It also helps that connecting from home saves me an hour's commute each way.
Some things can't be done effectively over VPN (mainly working on Xbox or PS4 specific bugs), but for most tasks it's great.
An hour commute is just nuts. According to statistics I found, that's more than double the average. I've worked at places with a 5 minute commute, and they're great. I realize not everyone has infinite flexibility in where they live, but a workplace would have to be pretty amazing in every other way to make me spend an hour every day getting there.
I've worked at places that had a garden or park right outside, and it's terrific to go out there and think. Why don't all knowledge worker offices have this? When I look at what the big tech companies are building, it's certainly not that they can't afford a garden.
We used to know this. Do an image search for "university campus" (those other places where people sit around and think) and you'll see buildings in a sea of grass and trees. Yet do an image search for "company campus" and it's all steel and glass, with greenery only to fill in the small useless spaces between the parking lot and the building.
What good is a workplace for thinkers, if it doesn't include good places for thinking?
You say an hour is terrible and talk about an average. Average for whom and where? I live in Sweden, 30km outside of Gothenburg. It's a nice 15 minute walk through a wooded area and along a stream, then a 25 minute ride with the commuter train. On the train I read the latest articles while listening to music or play on the Switch. Once in Gothenburg it's a ten minute walk from the station to the office.
The office isn't terrible and has a lot of good things going for it, including a beautiful rooftop terrace. It's also quite social, filled with people who very passionately share my interests and with whom I play magic over lunch.
The main issue is that it's very busy and I often need peace and quiet. Even when I had my own office and could think uninterrupted it still wasn't as good as being home. It's the comfort of being home, with all my things and a beautiful house in a peaceful neighbourhood with a large garden at the edge of the forest. It would be unreasonable to expect an office in the busy downtown area to be able to compete with that. Also, when I need to think at home I often do household chores, and then they're done and i can spend my whole evening playing with my kids or spending time with my wife.
My home workspace is an airy attic office with a view of trees and houses. My downtown office is an open-plan wreck with exposed pipes and broken chairs. I am pretty certain which one is more conducive to productivity, let alone which one means a higher quality of life.
I come in to the office every day because my wife stays home with our 3 kids. Work from home when home is four people that want your attention doesn't work out very well. The few times I tried it, everyone just got frustrated that I was present but not available.
Maybe in a couple years when the kids are in school working from home will seem appealing. Honestly a ten minute commute and the entire office to myself twice a week isn't half bad.
The trick to making family understand when you're on the clock is training them to treat the closed office door as though it was locked. If you come out of the room, your attention is free game at that point, but once that door is closed, you're not home. Takes awhile of effective communication and discipline, but once enforced makes remote work incredibly enjoyable, even with family at home.
Having worked from home when only a partner OR 2 kids were present, I can only imagine the additional pressure faced by that situation.
But speaking as a single parent of school-aged kids, summer vacation is... a challenge.
Of course, I've arranged my home space around this. I have an "office" at home, with a door and everything, where I can work. I still do a hefty amount of my working in coffee shops, though, which is somewhat akin to the open office experience. I also preferred remote working back when I first started it, and was just occupying my kitchen table or couch.
If I was in SF and thus able to access our office, I might well go in sometimes. But I suspect we'd top out at once a week, or when I really wanted to catch up on that hot nonprofit gossip. Commutes really are horrible things.
Why would you prefer an office to home? The only situation I could imagine where I'd like to occasionally go into an private office would be if I were single and living alone, so I could see people occasionally.
I've worked in private offices, home office, open floor plans and small shared rooms. The worst are large open floor plans. My favorite have been offices with rooms for 2 - 4 people. That's the sweet spot, I think.
My favorite of all is mixing that with WFH. e.g., Office M/W/F and WFH Tues/Thurs.
That being said, you have to invest in it. Have a separate room with a door. Spend some money on good ergonomics. Have a good, stable internet connection.
I think I was probably very blessed to have such an understanding and flexible company to work with, because thinking back, that was pretty crazy.
I suspect you mean private office at HQ, or alike. To which I'd say... that'd be a hell of a lot better than tradition or open office layout. But you'd still lose most of the remote benefits for what I suspect is little gain.
I rather not use my time to commute, and prefer working at home, some cafe, or even nearby park or restaurant terrace on sunny days.
Haven't seen this as an issue for awhile. I'm old enough that when I started programming I had to wear a tie to work (it wasn't a 'tech' company). Over time and different jobs it changed to golf shirts and khakis to now where if anyone wears more than shorts/jeans and a t-shirt we think they are going on an interview.