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Comment by 8n4vidtmkvmk | Hacker News Reader

Are we sure more time butt in office equates to more productivity?

> Are we sure more time butt in office equates to more productivity?

Typically more output, but less productivity (= output/time).

Yes, specifically when it comes to open-ended research or development, collocation is non-negotiable. There are greater than linear benefits in creativity of approach, agility in adapting to new intermediate discoveries, etc that you get by putting a number of talented people who get along in the same space who form a community of practice.

Remote work and flattening communication down to what digital media (Slack, Zoom, etc) afford strangle the beneficial network effects.

I think they were talking about total time spent working rather than remote vs. in-person. I've seen more than a few studies over the years showing that going from 40 to 35 or 30 hours/wk has minimal or positive impacts on productivity. Idk if that would apply to all work environments though, and I don't recall any of the studies being about research productivity specifically.

> I think they were talking about total time spent working rather than remote vs. in-person.

I was, yes. I should have omitted the "in office" part but I was referencing the "work more hours in America than France"

You’re being downvoted but you’re right. The number of people who act like a web cam reproduces the in person experience perfectly, for good and bad, is hilarious to me.

I think the mistake people make is believing that one approach is best for all. Diffferent people work most effectively in different ways.

Well said. If you make me commute to an office I’m far far far less productive, simple as that.

Yes, especially in cutting edge research areas where other high functioning people with high energy isarelso there.

You can write your in-house CRUD app in your basement or your office and it doesn't matter.

The vast majority of HN crowd and general social/mainstream media don't make the difference between these two scenarios

$89,000 GDP per capita vs $46,000 rather proves the point about productivity per butt. US office workers are extraordinarily productive in terms of what their work generates (thanks to numerous well understood things like the outsized US scaling abilities). Measuring beyond that is very difficult due to the variance of every business.

A part of that figure is an artifact of how strong the dollar is though.

> $89,000 GDP per capita vs $46,000 rather proves the point about productivity per butt.

So if I work 24h/day in a farm in Afghanistan, I should earn more than software developers in the Silicon Valley (because I'm pretty sure that they sleep)? Is that how you say GDP works?

Weird take. Norway has about the same gdp per capita as the USA with stricter regulations than France. Ireland’s GDP per capita is higher than that of the USA, with less bureaucracy than France but more than the US. Not to mention that all of these are before adjusting for PPP. Almost as if GDP per capita is not a good measurement of productivity.

Many wrinkles here.

First, one should probably look at GNP (or even GNI) rather than GDP to reduce the distortionary impact of foreign direct investment, company headquarters for tax reasons, etc.

Next, need to distinguish between market rate and PPP, as you highlight.

Lastly, these are all measures of output (per capita), while productivity is output per input, in this context output per hour worked. There the differences are less pronounced.

Monaco is the most productive country in the world in nominal GDP per capita. A very industrious place, it seems!

Yes, and Louisiana has a GDP per capita on par of higher than France and is a shithole compared to the worst areas of Europe, let alone France.

But I wouldn't expect someone like you to know, understand or even acknowledge it.

I think maybe we should completely switch to admitting this. Every extra second you sit in the (home)office adds to productivity, just not necessarily converting into market values, that can be inflated with hype. Also longer hours is not necessarily safe or sustainable.

We only wish more time != more productivity because it's inconvenient in multiple ways if it were. We imagine a multiplier in there to balance the equation, such factor that can completely negate production, using mere anecdotal experiences as proofs.

Maybe that's not scientific, maybe time spent very closely match productivity, and maybe production as well as productivity need external, artificial regulations.

> Every extra second you sit in the (home)office adds to productivity

I'm not sure I believe that. I think at some point the additional hours worked will ultimately decrease the output/unit of time and at some point that you'll reach a peak whereafter every hour worked extra will lead to an overall productivity loss.

Its also something that I think is extremely hard to consistently measure, especially for your typical office worker.

Here you go https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/crunc...

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