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Comment by thegrim33 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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)

>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.

> 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.

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.

What is political about the topic?

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

Productive in the Office? You are surely joking?

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