I am fortunate, that I can wing it (WFH or go to the office). I took a two hour nap the other day. But some people can't responsibly work from home
work-from-home boom will lift productivity in the U.S. economy by 5%
- Thread starter cycloneG
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I'm kind of split on the WFH thing. Sometimes its convenient, but for me more often than not its a distraction. I don't have a dedicated office space that I can close myself off, and a lot of times I need to be able to really focus on what I'm doing. I can handle the ambient background of an office, but the consistent interruptions - let the dogs out and back in, changing a diaper or rescuing a toy, a cat meowing loudly under my chair, etc - really ruins my train of thought. I can work, or I can manage the house. I have a hard time doing both simultaneously.
*I'm sure there are many ladies here who are just howling with laughter at me, but I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone to do both at once. Women shouldn't have to deal with it either.
*I'm sure there are many ladies here who are just howling with laughter at me, but I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone to do both at once. Women shouldn't have to deal with it either.
I'm also in a little bit of a weird spot as I'm essentially a captive consultant - I'm not directly responsible for much, but I spend a lot of time advising people and doing ad hoc analysis. So I really need to be available during normal business hours even if all of "my stuff" is done. I love my job and it's very rewarding, but the demands combined with how my brain works means I'm usually more effective in the office.
Our company had a stockholder meeting today and our CEO said on two separate occasions that "we're a work-from-work company." 
We're in the Pacific Northwest, and compete with Microsoft, Amazon and Google for talent. We will lose that battle I'm afraid.
We're in the Pacific Northwest, and compete with Microsoft, Amazon and Google for talent. We will lose that battle I'm afraid.
Our company had a stockholder meeting today and our CEO said on two separate occasions that "we're a work-from-work company."
We're in the Pacific Northwest, and compete with Microsoft, Amazon and Google for talent. We will lose that battle I'm afraid.
How much money would I get guessing he's an older white guy? Granted that's like 88% of ceos.
You're right, though I do think we do a pretty good job getting women and minorities into high ranking positions. We get a quarterly newsletter that includes a thumbnail portrait of everyone promoted to an executive position since the last newsletter and there is always broad representation.
Principal is a mixed bag on this. Most of the IT community is going to allow WFH full time, while other departments in the company are doing it on a case by case basis. I think Principal sees this as an opportunity to recruit IT talent nationwide and I've already seen more new hires come from outside the state. It will be interesting to see what happens with the real estate downtown when at least 25% of the workforce never comes back downtown.
I would think it would be a boom for apartments for the just out of college crowd or working adults that want to do lots of things with ease.
I would hate working from home for my job. I already talk to most people through a phone. Getting on site to verify work and improve efficiency is big part of my job. Glad I will never have that worry.
Based on your prior posts I think that you and I have similar positions. I'm a Q.A. Engineer and I need to be available and around if and when issues arise. I can definitely swing a day here and there saying I'm working from home, but I get more home stuff done than work stuff.
I actually find it really hard to believe that people are getting more work done at home, especially when they mention that they spend more time with their kids and pets. Maybe they just weren't that productive at work?
To me, the biggest takeaway from the whole WFH experiment is actually how much of our workdays are filled with dead space, but we have to work 40-50 hours because that's what you do. With the outsourcing of jobs and automation, things like UBI need to start being seriously looked at.
It was proven this past year that there are many non-student facing jobs at Iowa State which can be effectively done remotely. Nevertheless, President Wintersteen has informed the campus that ALL staff must return to their offices by August 2. Oh, except for some HR and finance positions who I imagine contributed to this decision.
Wintersteen said HR will provide guidelines in October that all departments who wish to implement flexible work arrangements must follow. That's 6 months from now. It took less time to find a cure for the disease.
Wintersteen said HR will provide guidelines in October that all departments who wish to implement flexible work arrangements must follow. That's 6 months from now. It took less time to find a cure for the disease.
Perhaps they're at their best working at different times than the typical work hours.
For whatever reason I'm far more productive working on something at night than say 1 PM.
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That's exactly why some people are finding that they get more work done at home. At the office, dead space is filled by going to grab coffee and chatting with your coworkers on the way, or running into your boss and casually conversing about something work related, or any number of other time fillers. Many of those time fillers have been eliminated, or dramatically reduced because in a remote situation, they take effort to reproduce. They're active tasks now, rather than just ones that occur organically. And as a result employees are finding they have more time to work. I know personally, I don't feel like I'm working harder than I did in the office. I just feel like I have more time to actually work, than I used to, which translates into more work getting done.
Not if you are an employee - the Trump tax cuts took away any employee home office deductions
but if you have your own business then yes
It just seems that cohort are resistant to change/recognition that not everyone has the same situation/works best in the traditional setup. Strikes me as short-sighted - as you noted - your competitors are going to have the advantage on talent recruitment/retention.
Yep - I'm a reliability engineer and Design for Six Sigma guy. One of two in North America, supporting over 1000 design engineers. I'm on the product development side rather than production/operations, so I don't have the time pressure of keeping product flowing out the door, but I bounce around a lot between design and validation work and everyone needs their questions answered yesterday.
We are an extremely conservative company for the times/location. Everyone that works at Corporate wears a suit to work every day. It was only a couple years ago that they dropped the requirement that all managers globally wear a tie. They had an unofficial policy against facial hair for a while. Fortunately they knew it couldn't really be enforced, and I work at an "outpost" location where we can get away with more (and our management is happy to let us).
WFH is one of those things that sounds great in recruitment. In practice our college hires that started during COVID are leaps and bounds behind developmentally than previous classes. Part of this may be due to trying to update training/onboarding courses to be entirely virtual, but the other side is you lose a lot not learning in person. Most people for full WFH in my field are people with families.
The vast majority of my younger co-workers are itching to get back to the office, travel, etc... as sitting in a one bedroom apartment by yourself all day is bad for their mental health.
I'm not arguing for 100% WFH. I would ideally be in the office 1-2 days a week. But the employers who are clinging to the idea that office jobs must be 100% butt in office are missing the boat. Having a mixture or full time WFH as an option greatly expands the recruitment pool and appeals to people with young families or other obligations where being home a higher % is beneficial.
