I hope the Covid self quarantining demonstrates that WFH works. We can do more WFH and cut down on traffic, time lost in traffic and our carbon footprint. We also might spread less of the flu around too.
Are you really, though?
And it’s still pretty terrible.
There are advantages, but at least for me my productivity is miles higher in an office environment.
This event is going to taint WFH for years to come.
From a pollution perspective though, the preferable choice is fairly obvious.
The good news is: everyone has learned a lot and if they want to do it again it might be easier.
Working from home when I can go to the gym at lunch, the doctors office at 9, pick up X and Y hour, etc, is a lot different than what we're dealing with now - which is: "you're WFH but can't do anything else."
I have a feeling, though, that after this, many people will be less willing to travel for meetings. Video conferences may be poor compared to walking to a conference room in the same building, but they may also compare favourably to travelling by airplane to a similar conference room in a similar faceless building in a different city. And many, many people are getting VC practice now.
You need to give this stuff time and probably re-establish a lot of your companies culture to fit remote work, or yeah, you will probably have a pretty crap experience.
Edit: Add link to a good and very recent podcast on this topic by Sam Harris and Matt Mullenweg: https://samharris.org/podcasts/194-new-future-work/
Not everyone should work from home. A lot of people don't like it. A lot of people need the in face connections. Working from home has lots of downsides that have been covered on here and everywhere many, many hundreds/thousands of times.
But a lot of people don't need to go into an office, at least not every working hour of every day. A lot of positions don't. A lot of people thrive fully working from home, some working part time from home and other times in the office, or a cafe, or whatever.
But how these discussions always go is the no-work-from-home crowd effectively saying that no one should work from home because they personally don't enjoy it.
For example, if you could do a 4 day home 1 day at the office schedule and were willing to do a 90 minute commute each way on your office day, that would be enough to let you work in downtown San Francisco and live in Modesto. There you can have a 3 bedroom 2 bath 1400 sq ft house on a 7000 sq ft lot with a two car garage for $300-500k. Many in that price range will even have a pool.
I can say my work schedule has gotten a lot busier without even taking on new projects or clients, my clients just seem to have a lot more time to work than they did before.
So, my question to them, "So, when do you work?"
Video Calls / Meetings should be the last resort. Working remotely (WFH) is not bringing the office work at home, it is an entirely different experience and should be approached thus.
Besides the many other advice floating around, some cores ones that works are;
- Communicate, communicate, over-communicate, mostly via email or other long-form writing).
- If you do the above (writing), it helps in the key element of working remotely - asynchronous. The day you can work asynchronous with your team, is the day you won in working remotely. If you write, then you can also share it anytime, to anyone.
This isn't just a technology problem; you also have to take the psychology into consideration.
I'm not a biologist, but I don't think primates are herd animals. We're more attuned to hierarchies than flat groups.
Even if you tell them "it's just as fine".
As you point out, the main difference I noticed was the regularity and frequency of video calls/meetings throughout the day, every day. And that's the expected norm with some (maybe the majority) of the people I've worked with, especially in corporate environments.
Often it's a struggle for me to adapt to the office culture, but I try to push back for a compromise, so that most of the communication is done in long-form writing. I find the asynchronous nature of email to be more suitable for in-depth discussions, allowing time to organize our thoughts - rather than the ad-hoc back-and-forth of chats. Sure, there's a time for that too, but it's highly distracting for my workflow.
People’s homes aren’t organized around work now, but prior to the industrial era, they were, and people complained about working in factories and offices.
If anything I'm afraid this taught companies wfh sucks and should be avoided.
Every bit helps, but if we want to have serious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions we’ll have to make significant infrastructure changes. Behavioral and policy changes alone will not sufficiently address climate change. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greenhouse_Gas_by_...
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
In California, it is something like 40% of emissions.
These percentages are going to increase quickly, as renewable generation is now cheaper than other types of electricity generation in most markets, and prices are plummeting like a rock.
The same can't be said for electric car prices, nor EV adoption rates.
I think land use changes that permit transit are by far the most important infrastructure changes to reduce emissions. However even in California efforts to change this over the past three years (SB827, SB50) have met a brick wall of resistance, despite widespread acceptance climate action and desire for better transit.
Transportation GHG emission rates are going to be far far harder to change than power generation emissions.
Regardless, individual action and decisions of minor institutions (such as businesses changing policies to allow work from home) are necessary, but are not sufficient to make significant reductions in GHG emissions. Land use changes are a good example of the types of changes needed.
It only works when you can do your job from home (aka not most jobs). It also only works if you don't have kids, a partner or have a big enough home to isolate, which isn't the case for most people. The current situation will make people hate wfh.
I don't think that really needs to be said.
> It also only works if you don't have kids, a partner or have a big enough home
I've been mostly working from home for several years now (maybe ~10), and I'm just as productive at home as in the office - definitely moreso during periods when there have been particularly loud and obnoxious employees working in the office.
I totally agree that you need to be able to isolate yourself from others in the home - you need a home office, where you can close the door and be in "work mode".
As long as you have a home office, it's actually a bonus if you have young kids and/or a spouse in the house, as you get to have lunch with them every day.
Not having to commute is a huge bonus, especially if you live far from the office. You save money, time, and even carbon emissions. You get extra time in bed, if you want it.
Even your employer potentially benefits, by not having to pay for office space (or at least reduced office space if they have hot desks).
But not everyone has space for even a small home office, and even then not everyone has the self-discipline to be in "work mode" while at home. And of course, some people are just really sociable, and enjoy that aspect of an office environment.
So it's definitely not for everyone, but it would be wonderful if more people were given the choice.
I worked remote for a very long time, at first it was lonely then I realized I needed to reach out to people locally who were interesting to chat with. I was able to grow friendships over lunches and coffees that ordinary office life would not have allowed.
Covid19 makes that impossible right now, but WFH doesn't mean lonely. It's just that your default is to get all your socialization from coworkers. Socializing with people in your community based on common interests is much more rewarding than by common employer
I'm actually having my first real WFH experience so far and I definitely appreciate getting an hour back from the commute. I'm eating a "weekend breakfast" every day of the week.
I'm mainly thinking of people who have kids and/or are accustomed to filling their post-work hours with sports, gym, or other activities. these people are viewing WFH as more of an imposition than a freedom.
I need fast and reliable internet access, a quiet working environment, a comfortable chair, a decent-sized desk at the right height for typing, and ideally multiple monitors.
I for one love switching between white noise and music in my headphones and most of the time I don't need fast Internet. In fact I try to optimize my process/pipeline so I don't need it. I reject external screens as I like focus on one window at a time and don't need to do a lot of scrolling.
I have worked in all kinds of places, once I've even deployed from a taxi in SF...
Right now all we have is a bunch of people thrown into an unfamiliar situation and being told to make the best of it.