Slashdot Mirror
Work From Home People Earn More, Quit Less, and Are Happier Than Their Office-bound Counterparts (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Working from home gets a bad rap. Google the phrase and examine the results -- you'll see scams or low-level jobs, followed by links calling out "legitimate" virtual jobs. But Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Nicholas Bloom says requiring employees to be in the office is an outdated work tradition, set up during the Industrial Revolution. Such inflexibility ignores today's sophisticated communications methods and long commutes, and actually hurts firms and employees. "Working from home is a future-looking technology," Bloom told an audience during a conference, which took place in April. "I think it has enormous potential." To test his claim, Bloom studied China's largest travel agency, Ctrip. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company has 20,000 employees and a market capitalization of about $20 billion. The company's leaders -- conscious of how expensive real estate is in Shanghai -- were interested in the impact of working from home. Could they continue to grow while avoiding exorbitant office space costs? They solicited worker volunteers for a study in which half worked from home for nine months, coming into the office one day a week, and half worked only from the office. Bloom tracked these two groups for about two years. The results? "We found massive, massive improvement in performance -- a 13% improvement in performance from people working at home," Bloom says.
At my job, I can work from home whenever I want, and several other co-workers do, but I choose to go into the office because the atmosphere is more conducive to getting work done. I can bounce ideas off the people around me, I'm not distracted by household events or pets and there's more of a sense of urgency for completing tasks, which helps me focus better.
It wouldn't also work if you need dev kits or another pieces of special equipment. Just imagine having to buy more dev kits as you wouldn't be able to share them and the logistics of sending it to your employees back and forth...
Having kids or a nagging wife means you'd want to waste that 1h30m commuting, sit in a cubicle then waste another 1h30m coming back. For the rest of us, though, extra three hours of productivity or leisure makes such a massive difference that it's hard to find enough downsides.
Some of us go way over the edge -- especially if you can train your boss that's it ok to call you at 4am rather than at the crack of noon; those of us do work hard to maintain the public opinion on programmers :).
But if you require being on the clock, the employeer can get the best of both worlds for any child-less employee.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Not to mention, working from home as a introvert, fantastic, working from home as an extrovert, sure way to go nuts. I worked from home and enjoyed roasting a chicken for lunch, only takes a few minutes to set up at morning smoko and then set the timer and work. You check every time you stop work for your always favourite coffee and snack, always there. Then at lunch out comes the fresh roast chicken and you enjoy a great repast as you have an extended relaxing lunch whilst watching a movie and than back to work. All done in your shorts because you started work as soon as you woke up, no time lost doing anything else, except for a morning cuppa and relieving yourself as necessary. You can get a huge amount of work done by more than enough by 3 oclock even with a long lunch, stop there or work into the early evening and take the whole afternoon off tomorrow.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
It's almost like they're mainly interested in exploiting workers into replacement as fast as possible. Weird.
This has got to be very culturally sensitive. There's lots of social pressures in china that take time and energy away from just plain working. These go away somewhat when you can relax in your own home. Other countries with a more lax work ethic won't fare so well. I'm sure many people will try to game their employers in places with higher rates of corruption in general.
I also doubt this will work as well in places like Brazil, where work is very much a social experience. Being socially active with your co-workers is more than just prevalent; it's the norm. Many people won't give up that interaction. Not to mention an air-conditioned office beats an uncooled home.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
I think you'll find that a lot of people here have tried it in a collaborative job (programming). It works very well. I mean, have you completely missed how successful open-source projects distributed all over the world have been?
I have actually found that in management positions you need to be in the office a majority of the time. However the low level people doing the work, have been more productive when they can work from home more often. Especially when you have fewer people in offices, and more people in bullpen areas.
The viability of working from home depends a lot on the job, and on the particular phase of that job.
Taking my situation as an example: This week, I attended two physical meetings, but otherwise worked from home all week, because (aside from those two meetings), my current work is preparation that I am doing alone. This is great while it lasts, but it will stop in September, it will stop, because I'll be working with other people.
Some maybe general observations:
- Complex coordination - working out new ideas, or meeting with several people - just does not work well remotely. Face-to-face is a lot more efficient. In work-at-home phases, I still have 2-3 meetings a week.
- Even as a total introvert, I recognize that face-time with people is important. I sometimes go into the office for an afternoon "just because".
- If you are working remotely, it is essential to have appropriate messaging technology. The phone should only be used for urgent stuff, since it interrupts. I get maybe one or two calls per month. Email is king for anything non-urgent. Some sort of simple messaging fits comfortably in the middle: IRC or even SMS.
- Working from home takes a certain amount of discipline, and sometimes it still doesn't work. Yesterday morning was a disaster: I was interrupted for non-work things a zillion times, and basically lost the entire morning. The flexibility to mix in private things is nice, but sometimes it also sucks - I'll be working on the weekend to make up the lost time.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Well communications issues are easily solved, but the company needs to put a solution in place. They're far more efficient than wandering around looking for the person you want.
As regards productivity, you don't do it enough for it to become second nature. Two or three times a week and you will find you get more done.
The main downside is the hot desking on the days you go into work, especially if everybody decides to come in that day.
Obviously WfH works best for people who in the main work individually. Programmers, brilliant.
I'm less productive at home.
Yes, I have the wife and kids- but also at work I have a nice large office that I can keep clean and clutter free- and that really helps me focus and concentrate.
At home I don't have a proper room set up as an office- we don't have any room spare. So the desk is just in a corner. It's a dumping ground for all sorts of junk. It's cluttered- and because my wife passes through it's not clean (I swear that woman just goes around dropping trash everywhere all day long- I do love her though lol).
So whereas I'm welcome to work from home occasionally, my house is too small and there's no comfortable spot for me to set up. Also, remote desktop to the office is slow as crap (yes I know other places have better solutions than remote desktop). The office for me is simply more comfortable. When I win the lottery (or the wife finishes college and starts working) and we can get a bigger house I may be able to claim a room that is just for me- and then I may work from home.
Right now- I hate working from home.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Work from home jobs are top tier. That's because you have to be self managed. It's not surprising the do better. They're already in a better position.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Work from the local pub instead then.
Some jobs are necessarily collaborative, but a lot of jobs are collaborative because people are lazy. I find this is true in a lot of hardware and software jobs that are being labelled as 'inherently collaborative' in companies I have worked for that are on the long fail-boat to nowhere.
The best places I have worked have done exactly the same jobs without collaboration and there really wasn't any need: you go to the docs (in the old days on a disk somewhere, today on a webserver). Everyone implements according to the docs, if it is suspected they are wrong, or if the implementation they beget is not optimum, or does not meet spec for the product then you call a meeting where no one actually has to physically co-exist (often we could not anyway). Issue is debated, if the conclusion isn't obvious then someone makes a judgement call and we move on.
It doesn't work everywhere, I have no idea what the "brocoder" lifestyle at places like facebook and whatever are, or whether they are like they are by necessity, choice or insanity. But occasionally this tries to leak on to the kinds of work I'm involved in, and insanity ensues until someone can amputate the infection.
Been working entirely from home for the past 3ish years, and I absolutely love it. No daily commute, so I don't start the work day already in a bad mood, not to mention the amount of money I save not having to buy gas all the time. Then there's the savings from eating lunch at home every day. It'd take a lot to convince me to go back into the office.
Everyone on the teams, work remotely, all across the US, and there is NO problem in getting things done.
This is all IT work. Servers are in data centers we hit remotely, we have teleconferences for meetings...IM for screen shares if needed.
It works great. No problems her, and yet...most of the folks I work with, I have no idea what they look like, or anything about them other than their voices.
Frankly, I LOVE this work mode. I do my job, I'm home for package deliveries (no more getting stolen off porch)...you can be doing things around the house even while on conference calls (yay for headsets)....
And my commute is a blistering walk across the hall from my bedroom to my office.
Frankly, I get MUCH more done at home these days, than I did in the office....and doing it as a contractor is great as that I get to bill for all hours worked.
Sure, I'm available more often...but I always get paid for it too.
Reminds, me, I need to check with my CPA to see if I can write off boxer shorts and t-shirts as work attire.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Maybe that is true for jobs that require daily face-to-face interactions. But in a lot of jobs there is plenty of work that requires concentration and no direct interaction. Dealing with email. Producing documents and reports. Reviews and analysis. Research. And in most cases you don't want to be interrupted by others when you're dealing with that. If it's necessary, in many cases phone calls or IMs are good enough.
The one thing that may be a bit hard to do remotely is direct and constant supervision of others. But if the team requires that, you seriously need to review your work practices.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There's a lot of legitimacy ITFA. I agree WFH get's slandered in quite a few workplaces, but it's definitely NOT future looking technology. I really think a lot of the arguments of working-from-home-again topic revolves around that workplace's culture where it just hasn't caught up and views production, productivity and being productive can only happen behind the 4-walls of the brick-and-mortar.
Doing 100% WFH I think can be disastrous over time; there are not a plethora of people who are that motivated, self-starters and can prioritize and maintain their own tasks. I have seen a lot of folks just completely abuse WFH and it becomes untouchable privilege, and I think that's partly why the culture reverts back to being seen == getting work done. I hate to say it, but I will say a lot of people who want to WFH aren't viewing that as 'working-from-home' but as part of this entitled errand day or a 'relaxing day off' by doing just enough not to get fired. That's where it goes wrong IMHO. And WFH shouldn't be assumed, it should be earned because it is a privilege; you're not working for you, you're working for your company.
At the end of the day, I wouldn't go do 100% WFH anymore because I still believe that out of sight == out of mind. And you can have all the tech in the world (e.g. Skype, video/phone conference, yada yada) but it doesn't beat face-to-face relationships over time in the workforce. Let's not forget that there is a human element to all of this; I don't want to be devalued to a e-mail bit bucket who replies "done" back to requests and is nothing more than a chat alias name in a window.
Well, as someone who works form home 4 days a week, I've found a couple of easy solutions to this:
* Corporate IM. Require all remote employees to keep it running. You find that you're able to reach employees *more* this way, since strolling up to a desk often ends with the employee out to lunch, in a meeting room, off to get coffee, taking a dump, etc. With IM, if they're at the desk (or in many cases such as HipChat, have their phone on them), you can reach 'em. As a bonus, many of these applications (most, really) allow for impromptu 3-way or n-way conversations as well.
* Collaboration software (e.g. webex, GoToMeeting, etc): regular mandatory standups using this software means everyone is in one virtual spot, you can interact just like you can if everyone was in one room, etc. As a bonus, you don;t have to dork around with a cranky projector (instead you just share your screen.)
--
Now as a manager, you need to get your ass into the office - daily. Politics and all that BS requires face-to-face. On my part (technical/architectural lead, non-management), I use the one day a week on-site to stack my meetings. Everyone (that I care about) knows I'm onsite that day as well, which actually makes scheduling things with me much, much easier.
Now managing remote workers is a bit different, but if you're having a hard time moving the needle on projects remotely? Well, I hate to say it, but one of these factors is the problem:
* you're not using the right tools
* your reports are slacking off and lean towards the unprofessional
* you need help running and structuring meetings
* the projects are poorly planned/executed
* you're one of those dreaded micromanagement types.
Seriously - those are the only reasons I can think of that require you to keep your reports right there where you can bug them whenever you (or circumstance) require.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Working from home 1 or 2 days a week was the norm at a previous job, and even most of the extroverts took advantage of that policy. For a lot of tasks, not being interrupted helps a lot, plus working from home regularly is a great way to manage your work-life balance, as you can easily slip some personal errands into the day while still getting all of your work done.
But working from home all the time? I did that for a while, and even being an introvert, that drove me nuts. After a while you do miss the interaction at the office.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
"Exactly! We had a new policy put in place around 1 year ago that allows employees to work from home 2 days per month."
And that exactly what the problem is. There are times when something that is good, when going below a threshold is even worse than nothing.
You don't have the culture, nor the tools, to support working out from office, so those two days are a nuisance. You should try more or less the other way around: about a day a week in the office, all the others from home. That *is* where the advantages come from.
Been telecommuting since about 2008.
Started out one day a week.
About 2010, went to full-time telecommute.
I'm the admin for the company's network and have everything set up so that I can do almost everything remotely.
And, if it comes to the worst, I can drive in for an emergency.
It's frickin' great!
The only thing is, you NEED to be able to self-start. Because being at home, there are lots of distractions.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I see this as not so much as a collaboration issue but a management issue. There should be no reason why they could not contact you with technology that is currently available today to discuss an issue. There are people who must have that face to face interaction in order for them to participate in a project. I never understood that, but they do exist. I have worked on projects that have done both, remote and local, and saw no difference in the outcome. Some people just NEED to physically be there to be happy about the outcome. Me not so much. I find most human interaction distracting when performing my primary job function. I usually ignore them anyway when in the office.
Personally I love working from home and do it whenever I can. I find that I have less distractions, I don't have to "dress up", and I don't miss the commute one bit. But I know others that don't care for it. Trying to work from the kitchen table with kids running around is no picnic.
You've got to have, at a minimum, a dedicated office space where you can close the door if necessary. A spare bedroom works just fine. A good headset for conference calls is a must. There is nothing worse than trying to decipher someone on a conference call with a crappy cellphone where every other word cuts out. And the dog is barking and the kids are screaming. When you're on a call, close the door, put on the headset. You will hear others better and they will hear you better.
Where I work we use Skype for IM, WebEx for video conferencing, and SharePoint for document collaboration. I'm not a huge SharePoint fan but collectively it works. The biggest issue is trust. The way I explain it to my team is that working from home is a perk. You don't have to partake but if you do there are certain expectations. Log on to Skype during business hours and check your email regularly. If you need to step out that's fine, just let me know where you are. Above all - get your shit done.
If I see a big drop in productivity or get even the slightest inkling that they are goofing off I have a conversation with them and make it clear that it had better stop. If it happens again, work from home is over for that employee. I haven't had a single team member violate the ground rules and our turnover is very low. When you treat people right they are happy and productive. Simple as that.
You are more than likely an extrovert. You require that physical face to face to feel that you accomplished something. There is NOTHING that can not be done locally that can not also be done remotely (physical labor excluded). Everything you described in your comments CAN and ARE accomplished remotely just as well as when you are physically located in an office building.
Frustrating is not the word that you should be using for your 3 meeting pull ins. That is disruption from your primary task (also called chaos).
Yes, HP, Yahoo, IBM and the rest ARE WRONG. The management needs to find another method to justify spending multi-million dollar lease agreements for their corner offices.
But working from home all the time? I did that for a while, and even being an introvert, that drove me nuts. After a while you do miss the interaction at the office.
I work from home full time, have been doing it for years. I don't have the option of spending some days each week in the office, because the office is a thousand miles from me (I live in UT, the office is the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA).
I've tried a couple of solutions to the office interaction problem. I agree that you do miss it. The best one (not currently set up for issues of space and layout in the office) was an always-on video conference. We set up a VC station at an unused desk and just kept it logged in 24x7. I had another in my home office which I logged into when I started work in the morning and logged out of at the end of the day.
Most of the time I kept my side muted so they didn't have to hear the noises in my house, and I kept the volume low to reduce distraction, but I could still catch bits of interesting office conversations and join in, etc. I also waved hello to people when I noticed them walking by, etc. It worked quite well. I will get that set up again when conditions in the office permit. I still have the VC system in my office because that's how I do all of my meetings (all the conference rooms in the offices have VC setups).
My other method is occasional visits. I try to get to CA about every other month, usually for a week. My weeks there end up being wall to wall meetings, a fair number of them not with any specific agenda but just to hang out with various people for a while to see what's on their mind, and to share what I'm thinking about. Lots of lunch meetings, too. I also often socialize with my co-workers in the evenings. I've had dinner at several of their houses, with their families. One co-worker is interested in guns so we went shooting one afternoon. Another likes SCUBA, so we took a day and went down to Monterrey. And so on. All of this helps to build good personal relationships for when stuff gets stressful.
I find my on-site time draining because it's so much interaction. But I do it anyway because it does help.
One other thing I do is to carry on a lot of "water cooler" conversations via IM and, to a lesser extent, email, about both personal and professional topics. My first grandchild was born early this week, so I IM'd several of them and emailed the whole team. When I get frustrated or annoyed or unusually impressed by some bit of code or design work, I vent/celebrate via IM with one or two of them. Occasionally we rant about politics, etc.
I think this all works out great. I get to live where I want, have the flexibility that working from home provides (e.g. on Wednesday I skipped out for the afternoon to go see the new Spiderman movie with my sons), and I can use technology to satisfy my need for interaction with my colleagues. Not that I need that much interaction; I'm an introvert.
I'm a big fan of working from home. I actually did it for most of a decade at my previous employer (IBM) as well. You have to figure out how to make it work, but it's awesome. Work/life balance can be tricky for some people. Personally, I just don't draw a sharp line between "working" and "not working" but instead go back and forth between work and personal stuff throughout the day. Others do need that sharp division and have to set strict schedules for themselves. It works if you work it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Ditto here. I work for a telecom company that has become quite remote-friendly the past few years. I do spend a lot of time on the phone / laptop, meeting virtually with others across multiple time zones. The difference I find is that the company has adopted it as an approved way of working (depending on role).
I sit on my little coastal island, manager's three TZs away, and things get done. What's not to like?
And I love it. My daily commute is 20 meters from bedroom to study. Well, on some mornings I go drop off my daughter to daycare before starting work, depending on whether it's wife's turn or not.
I work as a consultant, mostly doing network architecture design, UC and similar stuff. Anyway, the company that actually pays me doesn't care about visiting office - I go there every few months to drop off receipts of travel expenses, attend christmas party and that's that. All other travel is to customer premises.
There is a weird trend. I've noticed that in how much driving my car gets. When I started; I drove just a bit under 40000km a year. Now I can barely reach 10000km. Gotta love it - less time spent behind the wheel.
The single biggest reason for this? Skype for Business (Microsoft Lync). These days it's pretty much everywhere. It used to be that I worked a lot from customer sites. Then it changes so that I came to first few meetings with the customers. And these days we do entire projects and sometimes never see "face-to-face" except over videoconferencing. Sales guys still go for actual visits to make the case, but after that it seems that fewer and fewer people care about your physical presence. The only actual work that has been done one site for last few projects has been physical hardware installations.
One other thing caused by Skype: Meetings *always* start on time. It used to be that if you booked a meeting from 2 PM to 4 PM, what happened was that people arrived at the premises at 2 PM. Then you gathered coffee, then tried to usher everyone to the conference room, set up laptops etc. You get to the real stuff starting at 2:30. Now - even when you are on-site there's *always* someone attending the meeting remotely, and he's already gotten the coffee and is ready to start. This causes the folks to be in the conference room and starting the meeting at 2:05 the latest.
Heck, I once attended a lecture where a guy was trying to give a presentation on a big overhead projector but it was broken. So, end result was that he just shared his presentation on Skype and everyone in the room just watched it on the laptop. Kind of pointless to attend.
The only exception to this rule is customers that have strict security requirements and provide no Internet access, but that's more or less understandable.
I have worked from my home office for about 7 years there are a lot of advantages.
I get payed the same as those that work in the office although I don't have two 30-45 minute commutes so I save a lot on gas but even more because I only have one car. I would need second vehicle if I worked in an office. I'm probably saving at least $6,000/year in gas, wear and tear, insurance, and a payment on a second car.
I don't need to wear a tie and or dress business and I don't shave everyday either because you can't see me over the phone or voip. I don't buy a lot of new clothes like I did when I worked in the office I wear a lot of sweats or shorts and t-shirt.I don't eat out any where near as much because I can grab breakfast in the kitchen and eat it at my desk while going over my email first thing in the morning. I save probably 2.25 hours a day between time spent driving, and waiting to get breakfast from pick a place.
The spare bedroom I turned into my office is larger than most of the offices I've had in an actual office some where just cubicles, though it does mean I don't have a spare bedroom in the house.
I do have to pay for internet but honestly I would have it anyway... it used to be the largest account offered in my area 100mbps they offer 300mbps in my area now but I haven't felt the need to upgrade yet.
Why does any of that need to be face to face?
And 3 meetings a day? Generally a waste. I've never been in a meeting where everyone needed to be there, staring intently at the product manager or architect as he or she ummed and uhhed their way through a presentation of minimal importance to nearly everyone involved.
Plus, no easy way to recall that information, so it all gets sent out as an email after the meeting anyway.
Kraft Foods when it was still called that encouraged staff to work from home at least one day a week. After a few months someone in upper management decided that anyone working from home much not be contributing so they laid them all off.
I did it for 1.5 years as a contractor for Cisco. I have disabilities like impediments, unable to drive, etc. It was perfect for me. I would totally do it again!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Good for your marriage, too--I sometimes think the chief reason my wife hasn't divorced me yet is the fact that she has dinner waiting for her when she gets home from the office every night.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.