WeWork CEO Says Least Engaged Employees Enjoy Working from Home
wsj.com
wsj.com
I won't comment on whether or not that means they're good at their jobs because some people can just get their job done in a couple hours every day. But I WILL say that claiming people "least engaged" enjoy working from home is rather silly. Our most successful folks prefer working from home because there are fewer distractions and they get more accomplished in a work day.
That being said, I think most people enjoy a balance because at some point you can't really build a team spirit without some face-to-face time every now and again. Whether that's in an office or just doing a team dinner.
Of course and he knows it as well. But you are not the target of this piece, it's the CEOs of companies that he's renting his space to.
Do you make a living from people having to go to an office?
Also remember, that somebody new to a tech might already be multitasking in the sense they are learning and doing at the same time, but somebody who has been doing the same type of work for 10+ years might not need the extra cycles for the learning part, and those could be used elsewhere.
Think about typing a comment on the internet. This entire comment took seconds to write. I am multi tasking. I am instructing my fingers to press buttons, while forming the words I wish to type, and then on top of that spelling them out. Take me when I was 8 and do the same thing and a post like this could have taken 15 minutes. While I know that there are probably 8 year olds today that could have done the same thing in less time than I can now, when I am in in my 30s.
The point being, folks can do more than one thing at once, and different folks can do more things at once as well or even better than other folks doing a single task.
We see it real well in the athletic world. Its clear some folks have bodies that allow them to run faster, or further, or jump higher, or even better eye hand coronation. To think that mental task and traits don't work the same way on a individual bases would be willfully dishonest. Some folks simply have a pertinently to spell well (I am not one of those), Some can so math with ease, and others ponder the vast theoretical realms of quantum mechanics.
People like Richard Feynman and Neil deGrasse Tyson exist, they are like top athletes in the brain game. Its clear that they have more capacity than myself, and others. So it stands to reason that some folks, and maybe many folks, can multi task better than others, and maybe that trait is what made them successful.
From my experience the talks at the water cooler are the ones that result in real change and progress. Its where the exchange of ideas happen. To think you know enough that you can sit in your box all day long and skip over hearing other peoples ideas is just elitist attitude. You won't know if you are right or wrong until its too late, and you won't be exposed to new fresh or challenging ideas without the social interactions. Hiding a way in a a box won't expose you to uncomfortable situations that will help you grow.
My guess is that even at companies that officially support partial remote time employees will start to feel some pressure for taking advantage of it.
Adam Neumann once asked his executive assistant if she 'enjoyed her vacation' after coming back from maternity leave. Now they have a different CEO, obviously, but I can see the parallel -- any kind of situation that deviates from butts in seats at the office will be frowned upon.
> My guess is that even at companies that officially support partial remote time employees will start to feel some pressure for taking advantage of it.
I'm sure it's not the same in all sectors, but in the govt realm I was feeling this before the pandemic, with the pandemic flipping it completely (for now, at least). We have a long approval chain to get authorization to work remotely, with an explicit time code to go with it. I felt almost guilty requesting up to 2 days a week remotely and almost never took more than 1.
Then the pandemic hit and management discovered that a lot of people didn't need to sit in a cubicle 5 days a week to get their jobs done. There's even rumblings from higher up the chain to emphasize getting work done where it's most efficient; hopefully that translates to a better attitude towards working remotely.
Unfortunately, a company where any significant proportion of staff actually works from an office will implicitely have remote workers at a disadvantage — pass-by discussions with actual decisions might never reach them, so they'd be missing a lot of context (at best, they'd get decisions without the reasoning).
Basically, remote work requires full team to switch to remote-friendly practices, like relying on written forms of discussion. Basically, the office should only be a place for chit-chat and building the team spirit. Some people need more of that, and others need less.
My performance on code related work has shot up, you need an escape to increase your productivity. Sitting at a desk all day will not make you productive.
The ability to walk away when you aren't being productive and soft reset is one of the most valuable aspects of working from home, IMO.
Why can't you do that in the office?
Etc...
This, right here, is proof that clever spin and intelligent marketing is always going to be more effective than just pumping cash into advertising.
Where in all of this is a central office necessary? I stay engaged by the quality and quantity of work, not by useless office politics (which happen regardless) and seeing people whose only connection is that we work for the same company.
Those people are there to solve specific issues and if one arises that needs their attention, well, I can reach them.
This way "disengaged" employees like me would rather produce results remotely instead of buying into, motivation, engagement, or workplace well-being bullshit while suffering claustrophobic workplaces.
Why not use a title that actually represents the primary argument in the article?
That is, the WeWork CEO is saying that some time in the office is paramount for collaboration and efficiency. The question is just how much time is optimal. 3-days a week or 5-days a week.
OP literally took the headline from the WSJ article, consistent with the "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." guidance. Your ire is more properly directed at the WSJ headline author.
You'll see evidence of the original WSJ article title in the slug of the URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-ceo-says-workers-who-wan...
For me, at least, the WSJ article title update came after the HN post.
In any case, it seems unlikely that the OP would conjure up a title that happened to match what the WSJ later changed their title to match character-for-character, so I'd wager that OP copied from WSJ rather than vice-versa or for them to be entirely independently derived.
WSJ article title was the epitome of clickbait.
WFH means that you are able to get tasks done by yourself with lots of autonomy. IMHO
With hybrid I refer to some people never being in the office https://www.wired.com/story/hybrid-remote-work-offers-the-wo...
I guess issue is most companies where daily work is same thing getting repeated endlessly or minor variation of it vs places developing new things. Now stories about second kind of places are so amplified that it tends to ignore the fact that most places are in fact doing repetitive and/or heavily tracked tasks which can be done remotely. And precisely for this type of work it wouldn't matter if everyone is remote / some are remote or permanently remote / partially remote.
Yet WeWork major competition is work from home.