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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 But Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Nicholas Bloom says requiring employees to be in the office is an outdated work tradition, set up during the Industrial Revolution.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.
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
A lot of companies go through a cycle of allowing or prohibiting work at home. I think that the only real reason they do it is so they can get people to quit so they don't need to fire them and pay any severance. If you eventually need to downsize a division, institute a work from home and then retract it in two years and you'll probably get at least a third to leave since they've built their life around working from home and don't want to change.
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.
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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.
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.........
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.)
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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?
Right now I'm in a room we didn't get around to refurbishing yet. My desk is a mess, the wallpaper is horrible, and it's generally a bit of a dumping ground in here. I'm fine with it though - when I'm facing the computer, all that stuff behind me doesn't phase me at all.
However, when we were renovating other bits of the house this room wasn't available, so I used to work in a shared work space in town (maybe 15-20 minutes walk from here). That had all the features you mention - clear, empty, quiet, etc. It also had a kitchenette to go to if you wanted a cuppa (so a handy mental break from your desk). That place cost £25/day for an ad-hoc 'turn up when you like' sort of arrangement. I could have negotiated a lower rate if I committed time. Contrast to £32 return train ticket (which then also consumes another 2 additional hours of travel time, on top of the 20 to get to town), and it's actually a pretty good deal.
The thing I most appreciate about home working is the lack of commute. Not having to do that saves me time which means I get time to have breakfast and some playtime before bed with the kids. It also saves me a good deal of stress. Not walking to and fro does mean I need to get exercise in other ways though, which can be one of those things you never get around to without some self-discipline.
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?