The power of proximity to coworkers [pdf]
pallais.scholars.harvard.edu
pallais.scholars.harvard.edu
Interesting questions raised by this, for myself at least,
* how do hybrid schemes work out: some home, some office, less commute overall?
A HN submission yesterday on Australian studies showed remote work being mostly loved in AU, having little productivity impact either way for many, having significant benefits for for people with spectrum / social issues.
* has any tried junior coder meetups with experienced coders "out of office"?
Co working at one home or another, at public libraries, etc.
There's certainly people I know that live several hundred km away from a capital city, work remote, and come in for two or three days to catch up with everbody once a fortnight, once a month, etc.
It helps to have a wider PoV perhaps.
2) FIFO is rarely 2 days in office 3 at home, it's 2 weeks on site and 1 week off -- or similar. Many day stretches. "once a month, etc." is far more common.
3) FIFO to major cities like Perth is more workable simply because the airport and infrastructure are there. It's a shorter flight to somewhere like Carnarvon, West Australia, but they literally don't have the aiport size or housing capacity.
I think it depends on the type of work. I work as a support engineer for business stakeholders. Business stakeholders don't work in "Sprints", and always want to get anything ASAP. In that sense, if I want to maximize my value to the company, in-office is the best.
But frankly, I don't like that, so working remote is the best for me, IN THAT PERSPECTIVE. However, I do love the snacks in office, and I want to keep my job, so hybrid works the best for me. The stakeholders get to bug me from time to time in 3 days per week, and I book as many meetings as I can in those 3 days, and bring a non-fiction just to breath a little better.
I just wish Toronto has cheaper housing though, so I can live closer to the office.
The problem here is that most companies and workers lack the IT skills to operate as a virtual company or a learning organisation, so onboarding is complicated and gaining experience is difficult. Skilled workers are frustrated by the inefficiency of less competent colleagues and the organisation itself, while all the friction points are highly visible rather than hidden within in-person collaboration.
This can't be studied without comparing virtual companies/learning organisations to companies from the time of Taylor/Weber/Fayol.
Using KLOC as a KPI falls into the trap Goodhart's law and of PHB mentality.