How will Reality Adapt to Work From Home Culture?

[Fluffernutter]

Convert retail/office building into indoor farming.

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

I dislike working from home all of the time. But I would be happy to do a 3-day/2-day split. Alternating 3 days at work/2 days at home and then 3 days home/2 days at work.

I think we'll see a lot of thia and more offices will go to "hoteling" where you don't have a dedicated workspace everyday

 

[reveler]

this will accelerate outsourcing for white collar employees everywhere. if you dont need to be on site to do work, then YOU dont need to be the worker. someone in india will do it.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

How do you make mojitos from home though? You ofering free delivery or something?

Lol You’re a broke loser tho aren’t you? Isn’t that the gimmick you portray online?

 

[BForrester]

I dislike working from home all of the time. But I would be happy to do a 3-day/2-day split. Alternating 3 days at work/2 days at home and then 3 days home/2 days at work.

i'm torn. I like aspects of Wfm and aspects of being in the office. I will say that life is even more "Groundhog Day" when you spend your weekends at the same place as your work week. I've got weights at home, but I miss going to the gym during lunch.

i don't miss dealing with office BS, like politics, and meetings have been much shorter and more productive from home.

 

[Overtures]

I think I am about equal productivity wise.


But I'm happier.

Just driving to work, buying coffee on the way, and sitting in a random office all seems wasteful. Like the building itself in hindsight just seems without purpose. It accomplishes nothing except being there.

I'm all for the nomadic worker. The business world is changing rapidly. In addition to WFH, people are changing jobs like crazy these days. It's not uncommon to stay at a job for a year and then move on to a different position.

 

[Raptac]

Working from home is nice, but I don't want it to be permanent. I miss the social aspect of work. Also, I have a heard time seperating work/life right now. I keep opening my lab top and working deep in the evenings, but maybe that will be better once the gyms open back up.

I may have a kid coming soon though, so I'd be happy to work from home for the next few years to save on childcare.

lol work and take care of a kid, dude you crazy. best luck.

 

[Hadron90]

lol work and take care of a kid, dude you crazy. best luck.

I literally spend 90% of my time at work posting on internet forums. My job is a joke. It shouldn't even exist, but I'm the only one at my company who does it so no one knows that.

 

[all caps]

I literally spend 90% of my time at work posting on internet forums. My job is a joke. It shouldn't even exist, but I'm the only one at my company who does it so no one knows that.

Showing up at work is my only redeeming quality

 

[Shoemaker]

I really think productivity will hurt in the long run. It might be working fine for a month or so but eventually people aren’t looped in as they would be at an office. I could see in office days being reduced and less space rented out but that already was happening before this. It’s just accelerated now like a few other things were.

It can work. However it’s hard to implement if it wasn’t set up that way from inception because it requires more diligent hiring. It’s probably not for all industries. But companies like Basecamp have been fully remote for years and have figured out how to tackle communication. They’ve even written books about it.

Ive been on a fully remote team for about 3 years now and after a lot of work our communication is probably around 95% as efficient as it is in office. That’s fuzzy but essentially I don’t have any issues with my reports and communication at this job that I didn’t also have in an office setting in the past. I’m fortunate though, I don’t really have to make sure asses are in seats - I hold people accountable to overall productivity to begin with. I don’t care how people spend their days, but I expect two weeks worth of output every two weeks.

One thing I’ve found that’s helpful: pick a program, we’ll use Slack as an example, and treat it not like a chat application, but like it’s your office. No direct messages unless it’s actually sensitive. No “hey, where’s this file at?” in a direct message - instead everything goes in public channels. I’ve found during this time that people have a mental model for how they use these programs, and you have to turn that on it’s head. Everyone wants to DM questions to each other, but that’s not what you’d do in an office. You wouldn’t call colleagues into a private room every time you needed something or had information to share that wasn’t sensitive in nature.

 

[jrams]

It can work. However it’s hard to implement if it wasn’t set up that way from inception because it requires more diligent hiring. It’s probably not for all industries. But companies like Basecamp have been fully remote for years and have figured out how to tackle communication. They’ve even written books about it.

Ive been on a fully remote team for about 3 years now and after a lot of work our communication is probably around 95% as efficient as it is in office. That’s fuzzy but essentially I don’t have any issues with my reports and communication at this job that I didn’t also have in an office setting in the past. I’m fortunate though, I don’t really have to make sure asses are in seats - I hold people accountable to overall productivity to begin with. I don’t care how people spend their days, but I expect two weeks worth of output every two weeks.

One thing I’ve found that’s helpful: pick a program, we’ll use Slack as an example, and treat it not like a chat application, but like it’s your office. No direct messages unless it’s actually sensitive. No “hey, where’s this file at?” in a direct message - instead everything goes in public channels. I’ve found during this time that people have a mental model for how they use these programs, and you have to turn that on it’s head. Everyone wants to DM questions to each other, but that’s not what you’d do in an office. You wouldn’t call colleagues into a private room every time you needed something or had information to share that wasn’t sensitive in nature.

Basecamp isn't hyper-focused on profits though. They are more outlier than anything in the tech world.


I don't like working from home and it is my opinion that my business should provide me with the suitable space and equipment to get my job done. We have the issue right now where you are expected to be available whenever. As everyone is stuck inside, there are no valid excuses for shutting down for the night and not responding. No real separation between work and home. Just because you can work from anywhere doesn't mean you should.

Right now I have the problem of one of my employees with nothing to do, putting in 14+hrs 6 days a week and 8 the other, and feeling and growing resentment towards others because the workload has been so asymmetrical. It's also compensation time and my boss doesn't get why I'm discounting this guy because he's putting in too many hours, it's not part of the job, and builds a toxic work environment if rewarded.

 

[Shoemaker]

Basecamp isn't hyper-focused on profits though. They are more outlier than anything in the tech world.


I don't like working from home and it is my opinion that my business should provide me with the suitable space and equipment to get my job done. We have the issue right now where you are expected to be available whenever. As everyone is stuck inside, there are no valid excuses for shutting down for the night and not responding. No real separation between work and home. Just because you can work from anywhere doesn't mean you should.

Right now I have the problem of one of my employees with nothing to do, putting in 14+hrs 6 days a week and 8 the other, and feeling and growing resentment towards others because the workload has been so asymmetrical. It's also compensation time and my boss doesn't get why I'm discounting this guy because he's putting in too many hours, it's not part of the job, and builds a toxic work environment if rewarded.

You hit all the nails on the head. Transitioning from an office to remote is very difficult. The one gripe I’m seeing the most here is the separation of work and life, and this is an area where a lot of companies fail. You’ll even see this in office environments where Slack is mandatory on your phone. The company really needs to have a culture that’s understanding that WFH doesn’t mean always on call. You shouldn’t *need* a reason for not answering at 7PM just like you don’t need a reason to be out of the office at that time.

And I agree that companies shouldn’t force remote on people who were hired on as office workers. I don’t think it’s an inherent right to have an office, but I do think you’re entitled to it if that was the deal when you were hired.


Regarding your employees: it’s definitely not for everyone, which is why I said the bit about diligent hiring. I didn’t mean to make it sound like transitioning to remote from office was easy or that remote was easy to begin with. That’s certainly not the case, and I’ve had people that are great remote employees who went back to office work just because they missed the experience. I can understand that even if I enjoy working remotely more.

 

[Lead]

It can work. However it’s hard to implement if it wasn’t set up that way from inception because it requires more diligent hiring. It’s probably not for all industries. But companies like Basecamp have been fully remote for years and have figured out how to tackle communication. They’ve even written books about it.

Ive been on a fully remote team for about 3 years now and after a lot of work our communication is probably around 95% as efficient as it is in office. That’s fuzzy but essentially I don’t have any issues with my reports and communication at this job that I didn’t also have in an office setting in the past. I’m fortunate though, I don’t really have to make sure asses are in seats - I hold people accountable to overall productivity to begin with. I don’t care how people spend their days, but I expect two weeks worth of output every two weeks.

One thing I’ve found that’s helpful: pick a program, we’ll use Slack as an example, and treat it not like a chat application, but like it’s your office. No direct messages unless it’s actually sensitive. No “hey, where’s this file at?” in a direct message - instead everything goes in public channels. I’ve found during this time that people have a mental model for how they use these programs, and you have to turn that on it’s head. Everyone wants to DM questions to each other, but that’s not what you’d do in an office. You wouldn’t call colleagues into a private room every time you needed something or had information to share that wasn’t sensitive in nature.

I could see some places being efficient with it. The place I’m at and even the place before I don’t think it could work. Some of the team just isn’t tech savvy (and that’s not even the word, something simpler) so to even get everyone using slack is a battle. We also had maybe three or so different messenger applications at one point and it was a pain in the ass because I’d have to keep them all open to have access to everyone. Some didn’t use any of the three at all and you have to go up and talk to them if you needed something.

I could see that working with a public channel. The few times someone did that, it did start a conversation going that felt similar to an open office scenario. I’ll keep that in mind if we ever get close to one application.

 

[Shoemaker]

I could see some places being efficient with it. The place I’m at and even the place before I don’t think it could work. Some of the team just isn’t tech savvy (and that’s not even the word, something simpler) so to even get everyone using slack is a battle. We also had maybe three or so different messenger applications at one point and it was a pain in the ass because I’d have to keep them all open to have access to everyone. Some didn’t use any of the three at all and you have to go up and talk to them if you needed something.

I could see that working with a public channel. The few times someone did that, it did start a conversation going that felt similar to an open office scenario. I’ll keep that in mind if we ever get close to one application.

Slack in particular has threads, which is great for breaking things out into topics of discussion (otherwise shit will get out of hand quick with 5 different conversations going on at once). There’s lots of ways to organize it - the key is just to have a way for everyone to “overhear” the conversations people are having. It’s passive and saves on a ton of future active (or not existent) conversations.

 

[Lead]

Slack in particular has threads, which is great for breaking things out into topics of discussion (otherwise shit will get out of hand quick with 5 different conversations going on at once). There’s lots of ways to organize it - the key is just to have a way for everyone to “overhear” the conversations people are having. It’s passive and saves on a ton of future active (or not existent) conversations.

Maybe I know less than I thought. This is the first place I’ve used slack. Would threads be like drop downs from a channel? That has a lot of potential but like I said, I would have to get people out of the DM stage you mentioned.

 

[Shoemaker]

Maybe I know less than I thought. This is the first place I’ve used slack. Would threads be like drop downs from a channel? That has a lot of potential but like I said, I would have to get people out of the DM stage you mentioned.

Yeah if you hover over a message and click on the button next to edit that brings up more options, one is “Start Thread” or something like that and it opens another pane for that thread. On mobile you just hold down the message that you want to use to start the thread.

 

[surrealworlds]

this will accelerate outsourcing for white collar employees everywhere. if you dont need to be on site to do work, then YOU dont need to be the worker. someone in india will do it.

This. So much this. WFH will tank salaries of jobs that were previously secure. Now instead of competing with your area for a job you are competing with the globe. Most of the world will work for far less.

 

[Stoic1]

Our distributed work model is terrible. The slackers get to slack even more with less oversight. It makes things more difficult for the guys who actually have to produce something - because no matter how efficient you are with Teams or Zoom or whatever it will never be the same as having that group right there together. Everything takes longer to get approved. Now there are more "meetings". A lot of chat channels to monitor. I don't have access to the same tools that I once did. Im making even more power point presentations than I did before!

I fucking hate this.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

REIT (real estate investment trusts) are down about 25% which is not as bad as gfc lows.

WFH typically synced nicely with hot desking, but not during a pandemic.


I think WFH is pretty good with its only draw backs being training new staff and lack of comradery (sp).

 

[Low Test With da Best]

Convert retail/office building into indoor farming.

I'm a big supporter of your victory garden factory proposal