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Comment by Aerroon | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of people are less productive when they work from home. It's easier to switch into "work mode" when there's a specific physical location where you only work.

A separate room as a home office probably has the same benefit though.

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That's a fair hypothesis and intuition... that has not been apparent for the majority of people. Some folks really do benefit from an office setting and I think we should support those people by having such a setting still available... but I'm going to keep dancing to thumping techno in my bathrobe as it makes me far more productive

The very fact that companies are doing everything they can to bring people back into the office refutes your comment. Do you really think if people were as/more productive at home that companies would throw that increase in productivity away? It's so funny that half the comments on the topic are about how evil and money hungry companies are, but at the same time they're supposedly choosing to throw away free money? It's nonsensical. Just another political echo chamber social war.

>t. Do you really think if people were as/more productive at home that companies would throw that increase in productivity away?

Yes, I do.

Also, I don't think the vast majority of office-based companies have any idea what their actual productivity levels are.

Basically yes - I think that a fair number of companies would throw away that increase in productivity purely for a sense of control. Companies do dumb stuff all the time and I've personally worked under an "asses-in-chairs" style owner who assumed that if you went for a walk to get a coffee with a coworker while having a technical discussion your productivity was 0. A lot of people are dumb and there are no secret smart people at the tops of companies making smart decisions - companies are ruled by majority and the majority is usually quite easily influenced by marketing campaigns (i.e. the ones launched by commercial real estate holders who are currently losing money hand over fist). And, just for reference, companies are also evil primarily because they're dumb and petty and there is a constant struggle for fiefdoms within the budget.

I think a fair number of people struggle with imposter's syndrome because they imagine that somewhere above them there's someone that is really really smart and has a plan - no such person exists, we're all just trying our best... and that "all" is all-inclusive - the person you remember who got D's in middle school is probably a middle manager somewhere.

> I think that a fair number of companies would throw away that increase in productivity purely for a sense of control.

Citation needed. This seems like a really bogus claim which assumes decision makers don't know what's best for themselves.

The asses-in-chairs owner I mentioned briefly had us discount time we spent on coffee breaks or on walks from our daily hours... exercise tends to encourage brain activity and for me specifically (I have ADHD) it has an extremely strong effect. Things slowed down for a while before senior management stepped in and said "Enjoy your coffee breaks and walks on the company time - be healthy!"

This is absolutely an anecdote - but I'm not certain how else to source data around this.

You have to remember that companies are run by people and people have incentives that are not always aligned with the company.

For example if you are a very wealthy person who runs a large company you need to put that money somewhere and that somewhere may be real estate. In fact it may be real estate in a city such as San Francisco. Prior to covid and work from home that was a very good place to keep your money, but today it’s a lot less good. Companies themselves may have significant real estate investments as well. There are more inputs to this than productivity (and real estate for that matter but it was the first example that came to mind)

I guess you've been lucky to never have a bad manager? I can think of plenty of times in my career that corporate leadership was short-sighted. From terrible managers who think their job is to ensure butts are in seats, to turf battles that make the company worse off, and so much more. Awful behavior, but nothing that provides being money-hungry and sociopathic at the same time.

> Do you really think if people were as/more productive at home that companies would throw that increase in productivity away?

I think the main reason is all those expensive office towers are now sitting empty and no one wants to buy them. I bet 75% of RTO is sunk cost fallacy trying to make use of all that leased empty space.

I personally think yes, upper management will prioritize nonsensical behaviors that incentivize their own self aggregation over the betterment of the company. This is sort of mindset is also behind shit like “don’t hire women, I might be tempted to sexually assault them” rhetoric.

We don't need to guess at this, companies like Amazon already admitted there's no data to support RTO:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-re...

https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/amazon-svp-mike-hopkins-offic...

Don't know about Amazon, for all I know about their disfunction they could be actually running the company without any performance statistics. But, say, Goldman definitely has these statistic since they pay bonuses based on them and it is pretty aggressive in RTO. I imagine Amazon has statistics too but they just don't want to publish them, afraid (rightfully so, IMHO) of what that will do to their stock price.

Disregarding data from one of the most profitable companies in the world just to ply an argument that makes no sense in the context and disqualifies based on an entirely fabricated and unmeasurable dimension — that’s called:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Sorry, I don't follow. The GP said that Amazon has no data and I argued that they probably have but don't want to publish it. But even if you are arguing against the GP your bringing up "No true Scotsman" makes no sense in this context.

Amazon has no data to prove that rto is effective and have admitted it was a gut feeling — thats a data point to the point further up the thread about “companies willing sacrifice productivity for control” So yes that is a data point: Amazon can’t find data saying their workforce was more effective in the office. You employ no true Scotsman by discarding g this data point and saying “they don’t matter because I suspect they are in productivity trouble” Which has no basis in reality as the CEO just admitted they could not find data to support that point — otherwise they would say “people are more productive in the office based on our studies.” Your refutation is a no true Scotsman under the sense of invalidly discarding the counter example given based on your suspicion which is actually disproved by the comments of the CEO himself. Also Goldman Sachs has maintained a buy position on Amazon for this entire time — so your suspiscion about Amazon being unstable and Goldman being stable doesn’t really hold water.

Also their own studies find wfh increases productivity by 3%: https://www.gsam.com/content/gsam/us/en/advisors/market-insi...

So yes just another indicating that companies will sacrifice productivity for control.

There is no evidence that Amazon has no data showing decreased productivity during WFH period. The statement from the management is carefully worded so Amazon won't get smacked by SEC for misrepresentation: the stated "gut feeling" is about the RTO mandate, not about the productivity metrics. Amazon having or lacking performance statistics is a speculation, the CEO hasn't proved or disproved anything. But even if we agreed that, indeed, Amazon not having performance data is a fact, how is it "True Scotsman" again? Bringing up a counterexample against a claim "All companies have no data and do RTO out of spite!" only appears as a fallacy to you because you might be emotionally invested in this. A counterexample is is the proper way to refute a false assertion like that. "True Scotsman" is, in fact, a fallacy of trying to invalidate a counterexample, interesting that you brought it up.

Your misrepresentations of my argument and assumptions about my feelings aside the no true Scotsman is this in quotes: “Don't know about Amazon, for all I know about their disfunction they could be actually running the company without any performance statistics.” The counter example you are discarding is the fact that the Amazon ceo said that it was simply a gut feeling and not based on any data and they are a successful company who is willing to do rto based on control with no consideration for productivity (all of your speculation aside those are the facts we have to work with). You are trying to disqualify this data point based on your assumption that something is wrong with the company and no “non dysfunctional” (or no true company) would allow wfh. You then point to Goldman Sachs as a “true” company that did rto and should therefore be considered in place of Amazon. This assumption is not supported by your example (Goldman sachs) which actually has research supporting the opposite but that’s beside the point of you attempting to protect the assertion (companies will not do rto for purely aesthetic/control purposes while it may decrease productivity) by discarding the example of Amazon which is just that: a company pursuing rto without (as far as we know) knowledge as to how it affects productivity whether negatively or positively; it was done based on a gut feeling of management. Nice set of assumptions about someone you don’t know though, I’ll be disengaging now.

I see, you believe that the statement "Amazon goes RTO even though it has no data about productivity impact from WFH" is a counterexample to the assertion "No company does RTO despite the data showing increased productivity from WFH", this makes your arguments more rational for somebody who accepts that, indeed, Amazon having no data proves that it acted against the data (which it did not have but, I imagine, in some philosophical sense it's also "data", and if you really, really want it, that "data" also shows WFH increased productivity by the virtue of not showing the decreased productivity, even though it also does not show that e.g. not putting employees in front of a firing squad for missing some KPI bar would decreased productivity too).

You failed to capture both the meaning and actual words of my argument and the way you have re-worded it doesn’t make semantic sense so I can’t really understand what you are trying to communicate. The continued misrepresentation of my argument does not actually prove your point.

Why would I even try to capture your actual words? It's all there already, you can re-read this thread. And I definitely did not try to reword anything you say, unless now you are saying you did not claim that the Amazon is a counterexample to the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37614850 ? Well it's either that or your "True Scotsman" accusations make no sense, pick either, I don't care.

I say this out here whenever this comes up…but if we are truly being honest there really is no hard data out there to support that WFH benefits the organization. All of the arguments and anecdotes I hear are specific to the individual. If you can’t support your argument with data against the people who get to make the decisions where you work, you can’t really blame them for going back to a historical work environment that made them successful in the first place.

I always caveat this idea with the fact that I love WFH and do not want to RTO, but I can’t make an argument why it’s better for my organization.

There was recently some research showing that people working for only 4 days a week instead of 5 were equally/more productive, and yet you don’t see companies rushing to implement a 4 day work week.

Your assumption is flawed on a number of levels, first and foremost due to the fact that it is based on the faulty premise that companies will always make optimal decisions based on perfect data, when the reality is:

- in most cases the data on whether remote work is more or less productive is murky at best, non-existent at worst. For ever study showing and increase/decease in productivity there is a study showing the opposite. Most companies struggle to even define and measure productivity in the first place, outside the context of remote work. - productivity isn’t the sole axis of decision making. Some companies prioritize excellent benefits to retain talent in the belief the benefits of a happy talented workforce will outweigh the costs of providing it. Other companies are much less generous, happy to churn through less competitive employees to keep costs down. Similar disagreements on remote work exist, which is why there are many companies with no plans to mandate in office work - what company leadership prioritizes is not necessarily what is best for the business. I’m not sure how anyone, after 40 years of Jack Welch-style executives destroying long-term business value for short-term profits, would fail to recognize this. Company leadership will do what is in company leadership’s best interest, whether that’s cutting long-term profits for short term share price increases that are tied to personal compensation, exorbitant spending for unnecessary company amenities like private transportation, or dictating the workforce comes back into the office because they prefer to work that way. Note when outspoken critics of remote work like Elon Musk, personally, almost exclusively work remote.

Productive in the Office? You are surely joking?

What is political about the topic?

Do you think most companies can reliability measure productivity? As an SWE I haven't seen it.

I do the exact same amount of work now that I did in an office, except now I can just watch a video on YouTube or an old episode of Veep or something if I want to take a break, rather than looking at my phone for a few minutes wondering if someone is going to tap me on the shoulder.

I literally saw a coworker sleeping in his cubicle, and had I not woken him up he probably would have gotten fired that day when our boss walked in maybe 90 seconds later. Offices are not the meccas of productivity the RTO crowd would like us to believe.

> Offices are not the meccas of productivity the RTO crowd would like us to believe.

Indeed - just today I joked with my manager that being forced on-site has perks; aimlessly wandering/engaging people looks like productive work.

You can run a gambit with this; nobody expects you to be able to really prove Useful Conversations happened.

>aimlessly wandering/engaging people looks like productive work.

Indeed, even though it might actually be _negative_ work, if one of those people would have otherwise been productive. Which was one of my major gripes with being in the office.

That negative work is so true. Like you, that's my main complaint.

I'm a local celebrity due to putting out all the Big Fires - so now, whenever people see me on-site as a trapped/captive audience, I hear about every hint of smoke.

Thankfully our mandates are currently more... suggestions, giving credit to the "layoffs but not really" story IMO.

It's annoying to even re-negotiate. I've been remote for years, pre-pandemic, only appearing when required.

You have a separate room at home and that's where you switch to work mode. Some people don't even need that, just an environment free of interruptions. No need to overthink it, both home and office are a "physical location"

> You have a separate room at home and that's where you switch to work mode.

Ironic to see this comment in a discussion about carbon footprints of remote work. Separate rooms do not come from free - they also have a high carbon cost in terms of bigger house, more heating/cooling, most likely suburban setting which has its own carbon costs etc.

But does that room come at a higher carbon cost than commuting to the office (45mins each way(!) afair on average in the US) and having an office building that's entirely empty at night. That building needs maintenance, gardening, cleaning, ...

The gas engine in a car surely comes with a stellar carbon cost compared to heating another room in the house.

Then maybe work from home but in your car is the answer

So having a small room at home dedicated for work is bad? I don't really get it. How is office different, cooling/heating isn't needed there?

Per capita sqft of office space is much lower than everyone having their own room (even a small 9x9 one). In other words, office heating/cooling is amortized across a large population.

I'm pretty sure there are lower hanging fruits than trying to pack as many people as you can in one space to optimize carbon footprint. I find this argument to be a far fetched way to guilt someone who works remotely at best. What's the next step, why have homes or apartments that generate excess carbon emissions when you can pitch a tent in the open space inside office buildings?

There is a big spectrum of possibilities between "everyone having a typical American suburban home with an extra room for their office" and "pitch a tent in the open space". Walkable dense cities is one such example. It is no surprise that NYC's carbon footprint is 11 MTCO2 per person while the number for the overall US is ~14.5 MTCO2. Or, NYC gives you almost one-fourth reduction in the carbon footprint per capita.

Yeah but I already have the room and it is being cooled/heated whether I’m there or not. Driving 25 miles each way to the office on the other hand is something that I stopped doing completely once my work started letting me WFH full time.

> I think a lot of people are less productive when they work from home. It's easier to switch into "work mode" when there's a specific physical location where you only work.

I switched from a clearly defined (imposed) lunch break with multiple intra day whole floor coffee breaks to working straight 10 hours with a break when I can slip into the kitchen and I feel I am both more productive and happy when working from home.

The point is not on the clock hourly days of work but rather being treated like an adult and trusted.

I'm really, really curious about this data, because I can only extrapolate from personal anecdata.

I've personally measured this for myself and WFH is overwhelmingly more productive for me, measured via sheer output. I think part of this is because I'm naturally just working... longer? It's a mind shift, but this was generally my stance when I was in office too, which is:

1. When I'm in office, those are my working hours. Unless there was a very critical crunch period, I did not work at home at all. It was a very strong boundary.

2. I was very diligent about keeping my office hours - partially because of traffic. So I'd put in my 8 hours, often skipping lunch, and go straight home. 7am-3pm every day.

3. When you're in the office, people really love impromptu meetings. So a good chunk of the day is used talking to people. Sometimes this is productive, but often it just means the project you are working on gets 1-2 less hours that day than it would otherwise.

Contrast this with WFH:

1. My commute was 1 hour both ways (Bay Area), which is now gone. I usually work in the range of 7am - 5pm now. I take a break for lunch and to go for a run. Ultimately, I end up working 8.5-9 hours now (a .5-1 hour increase in duration), but I'm actively healthier because I can take a break + exercise.

2. Because my desk is always setup, I end up doing more sporadic tasks - especially when it comes to long, async build processes, I'm more inclined to quickly debug something and run a pipeline again. Before I just left my laptop in my bag, and couldn't (wouldn't) be bothered to pick it up.

3. Sporadic meetings are non-existent. Slack is async, so I just check it a few times a day. I can control my time much better meaning actual focus on a task is possible - which is nearly impossible in an office environment.

Not to mention just the overall quality of life improvements from being able to eat lunch with my wife and daughter, be able to take appointments and slightly shift my calendar, be flexible in where I am (we can actually visit family not on weekends now!). Also I save about $5k/year by not driving all the damn time. Also, my company could save money by just not leasing their office anymore...

I'm happier, healthier, more energetic, and thus ultimately more productive remote. In office work sets stronger barriers, sure, but returning to the office will mean that's where I leave my work too. To satiate someone's requirement for social interaction through coworkers is bizarre to me.

Anyway - that's my personal view. I'm curious what actual macro data shows. Perhaps I'm one in a million - but I doubt it.

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