Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

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The interesting question is, why now? I mean on the surface sure - because we have a pandemic and state ordered quarantine. But the more interesting question is - why is this finally provoking companies and why do we think they will continue the trend in the future post-quarantine? I've been a remote worker since 2006. It's been obvious to me for a long time that companies could go all remote or some version of remote, and it would have all the positive effects we all know about:

-- Reduction of commute, which is good for the environment and good for people's stress levels.

-- Reduction/elimination of the cost of office space

-- Ability to recruit across a wider geographic area

-- Greater employee satisfaction as people can live where they choose

And so on and so on. And yet in the face of this information, plus studies that show higher rates of productivity when employees / workers control their work environment (and schedule), companies have been resistant. I can speculate on the reasons for this (read: control, stuck in industrial era management practices, etc), but the question remains: why do we think companies will suddenly become enlightened and embrace this long-term?

Under normal circumstances, no one wants to be the first mover on something major like this because it's extremely disruptive to the way most people work without a clear example of the benefits. You're mentioning all of the upsides but there's a lot of execution risk in shifting a large organization to a remote setup. There's also a lot of management layers that are largely redundant with remote working and they've likely fought tooth and nail to prevent it.

Companies have touted open desk workspaces as some grand collaborative masterpiece for years now. It's a very big difference to advocate working from home because you also have to acknowledge that was a total farce.

I don't think all of them will -- it's probably significant that Twitter was already thinking about this. However, I know my CEO never would have run this experiment without the pandemic. Now, he has data he didn't have before, and he's publicly said that this changed his mind.

The trigger event was the forced experiment. Studies convinced me, but I don't have to take responsibility for the health of a whole company so it's easier for me to advocate for risks. Seeing how your company actually behaves in a 100% WFH world is better evidence than a study.

counterpoint - everyone's company is competing against every other competitor who is also doing WFH. they're all on the same playing field. if folks think F2F helps productivity, they'll force that, especially if they know that some competition will stay with WFH.

I don't think that's a counterpoint. It depends on executives continuing to believe F2F is superior.

The evidence already existed that WFH is, generally, better. See Stanford's Bloom 2013.

But executives are afraid to take big risks like that. They doubt studies. They overindex on personal experience. Which this gave them.

Now that they see what WFH actually produces, their worldview shifts to what was already true. You get talent that's more productive. Lower costs so you can afford more talent, or, alternatively, more expensive talent. Fewer geographic restrictions so you can recruit a bigger pool of talent.

Once you're convinced WFH works, these advantages can give competition an edge. An executive doesn't want to be on the wrong side of that edge.

But they have to see it first.

There's no reason they go back to thinking F2F is better, unless it actually is, and currently no evidence suggests that is true.

possibly shouldn't have used the word 'counterpoint'.

c19 has given people an experience of "almost everyone WFH and the company didn't end".

"There's no reason they go back to thinking F2F is better, unless it actually is". It IS better for some people individually - we see it here on HN in comments from people who prefer to be able to go to an office. There isn't a "one size fits all" approach.

To the extent that we see more WFH across the board, I think it'll be driven far more by "get rid of the office expense" - hard $ savings - vs "everyone's more productive!". They'll be "productive enough", relative to the cost savings of less (or no) office space.

Just my 2c, obviously.

Oh I agree with you. I work for a company making software for utilities. Our company policy doesn't allow working remotely at all! Engineers (not developers) need to work on systems that are isolated and staged in our campus. There's no chance that they can work remotely. Rules for other teams are slightly relaxed, it depends on the managers to let their teams work remotely for some time. Since the pandemic started, the company has had to adapt and make a mechanism for these engineers to work remotely. The engineers aren't as productive (from what some colleagues told me), but they can manage. On the other hand, our VP has been reporting that there's been 0 effect on software development teams and are happy to consider bringing us back to office much later.

Crises tend to accelerate existing trends. Makes sense to me that a forced quarantine would be the giant straw that breaks the camel’s back.

There was some kind of artificial barrier to remote-only that COVID forced the industry to break through. Maybe there was some stigma associated with it. Maybe there was natural resistance to a workplace model which was somewhat untested at scale. I think the current mentality held by most executives who make these kinds of decisions is that face-to-face meetings are better than video-chat.

But now that the industry is on the other side of that barrier, it seems to have no reason to go back.

I ve had the same question. I think it's because over the years, companies and employees have gone virtual

-- Companies have gone virtual, they exist in slack, basecamp-type tools etc. In the 2000s it would sound unthinkable to put your corporate secrets in someone else's server. Today it's commonplace

-- Employees have gone virtual. Their CVs are in github, and the flaky silicon valley market has made them conscious of their personal image / website. They prefer a supermarket of opportunities rather than a long-term relationship

These things oiled up the gears for the transition, and covid gave it a big push.

Well, it's not happening now. It's been happening gradually for a long time. All my friends in tech including FAANG have been working remotely to a certain degree. Some only once a week, others twice or even fully remote. And even those in the office work mostly in "remote" mode since they need to collaborate with people in offices all over.

For big companies it's harder to work fully remote. There are too many people and teams and dependencies. Twitter is not small but also not big.

I have the same speculations re: why, so far, they have been so reluctant to do so.

As for why now? I believe it's simply because now that peons have had a taste of WFH and all its benefits (and realized everything you enumerated), it will become one of the most desired "benefit" in a job. It was a massive leap forward from WFH being a "nice to have" to a "must have" to even be considered by a lot of candidates.

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