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WSJ: There's An 'Inexorable' Trend Towards Working Remotely (foxbusiness.com)
The Wall Street Journal reports that the trend towards remote working "is inexorable" in America's labor force, with 43% of workers now doing at least some of their work from home (up from 39% in 2012), and 20% now working entirely from home (up from 15%). An anonymous reader writes:
Besides lowering an employer's rent, telecommuting also makes employees happier, which helps with both recruiting and retention according to the Journal. Automattic, maker of WordPress, is able to have an almost entirely remote workforce of 558 employees spread across more than 50 countries. But it depends on getting the right set of tools. Automattic uses Slack for conversations, Zoom for videoconferences, "and its own internal system of threaded conversations for documenting everyone's work and for major decisions." One of the company's "happiness engineers" even says online communicaton has created "radical transparency," since it's possible to read and search through internal communcations. Just remember that not every job can work remotely, according to Dell's chief human resources officer. "Engineering, leadership, R&D, sales and customer support -- those are roles that don't lend themselves very well to remote work."
It'd be interesting to hear the experiences of Slashdot's readers. Anyone want to share their own experiences with working remotely -- or of working with remote co-workers?
It'd be interesting to hear the experiences of Slashdot's readers. Anyone want to share their own experiences with working remotely -- or of working with remote co-workers?
Then you go into the office just to be distracted all the time (to different degrees, depending on how badly designed the office is - the open-plan office is the worst).
The "collaborative flexible e-space open communication monkey house cage" is what killed working in the "office" for me. I cannot analyze kernel dumps while a salesman is blabbing on the phone next to me about the values of an SAP system integration package. Plus, in the flex model, your desk isn't even your own . . . no personal pictures, awards on the walls or useless toy gadgets on your desk. Every morning it's a game of musical chairs to find a desk.
Now some management up in the stratosphere somewhere thinks it will be better to rein in everyone again. Fine. I'll do it. Just give me back my private office that I used to have. Oh, you won't do that because it would cost too much? Then you'll just just have to find another perk to offer me. Remember, when you switched to the office-less system, you changed my contract to include the perk of the work at home option, to balance off the loss of the office. Forcing me back into the office will require you to change my contract again . . . which I will accept and sign . . . in exchange for something of worth. Please try to be creative.
In another few years, working at home will be "fashionable" again anyway, and we'll all be booted from the office yet another time.
Oh, and TFS mentions the role of "happiness engineer" . . . I'll take that job! I'll spend the entire day forcing folks to swallow Ecstasy pills and spraying Oxytocin up their noses. Note, Oxytocin is not to be confused with Oxycontin. Dr. House was such a grouch because he was taking the wrong stuff. Oh, and for a hoot and a half, try to watch Dr. House dubbed in German. I watch the original English on French TV (go figure), and he sounds like a bit of a dork. In German, his voice sounds like gargles in the morning with a cocktail of cheap whiskey, rusty razor blades and cigarette stubs.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Tell that to my six figure salary while I work out of my home office and produce copious amounts of work when I'm not travelling around for meetings with clients. Ass. You'll figure things out a bit more once you grow up and move out of your Mother's basement.
After spending an hour in traffic doing nothing useful besides listening to the radio and polluting the environment, I'm currently sitting at my desk in my "collaborative" open office at 8:45 AM on a Monday morning listening to two coworkers shout a conversation at each other, fumbling for my headphones so I can drown them out with loud enough music that I can focus on what I'm actually paid to do. But thankfully, I'm not being lazy or unproductive.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
I go in to the office because I know my wife and kids won't follow me there.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.