Welcome Back to the Office. You Won't Get Anything Done

One of my frustrations with a lot of writing is a misuse of resources. For example, this article cites 3 resources to show remote work doesn’t hurt productivity.

Of the 3, the oldest, which is the only one that shows some correlation between industries with more remote work having higher productivity, only covers the period until 2022. We now know that much of the rise in productivity was a mirage that was a result of eliminating jobs that couldn’t be done remotely in the pandemic (think coffee shop barista) which while important, tends to be lower on average on measures of productivity.

The 2nd article that says there was no increase or decrease in productivity supports this idea and adds to it.

> the study finds a slight increase in output per worker in the economy. This growth did not result from employees in more remote-intensive jobs working more productively. Instead, people were better able to sort into roles that were better suited for them, and employment shifted toward sectors with higher output per worker.

So the gains that offset the losses in productivity were not due to improved productivity per worker, but because workers were sorting into jobs better.

Finally, the 3rd article, explicitly says that the research shows WFH hurts productivity and provides several citations to research indicating this. What the 3rd article does highlight is that hybrid work is potentially as productive as full time office, and by implication more productive than fully WFH, therefore justifying RTO from a purely productivity perspective, and not requiring explanations such as upper management desire for control.

Your job wont be outsourced to mumbai as easily though.

Read David Graeber's BULLSHIT JOBS. You will understand what it's all about.