Most industries should do remote work as much as possible, specifically the ones that involves sitting in front of a computer all day: less traffic on the road, no commute time, more commercial office real estate that can be converted to housing/shops…

I don’t really see the downside to any of this except to micro-managers.

Breaking: Bosses’ number 1 problem with remote work is actually the best part

Oh poor poor managers, you don’t get to pick our noses all day long and time our pee breaks? How unfortunate.

I don’t want to be monitored.

I’ve been working remotely for almost a decade now and have been a manager for 6 of those years and I do the following:

Is [EMPLOYEE]’s work getting done? If yes then do nothing aside from thanking them. If no then talk to employee and/or start the corrective action process.

I have neither the need nor the desire to hover over them. They’re grown ass adults.

I am going to the movies.

They are too stupid to actually review your work. No, they need to SEE you doing your work.

Simple solution. Is the work getting done? Then your minions, sorry employees, are doing their jobs.

I know it won’t be popular, but I don’t possibly see how remote work is better for work itself.

I was WFH for about 10 years. I had my first child, needed to parental leave (from a very small company), and they gave it to me. But I offered to “WFH” when the baby was napping and stuff so if they needed me for things I could make it work. Even after the time was up, things were still going well, and my commute was long, so they agreed to allowing me to WFH a few days a week. Eventually we moved because of my wife’s job and then the pandemic, and I told them they either had to fire me or allow me to WFH 100%. They agreed to the latter.

It was a god send, without a doubt. The flexibility I had while my wife was busying with medical school/residency/fellowship was amazing. Being able to run out the door in the middle of the day for stuff was fantastic. And not having to commute is a thing of beauty.

However, after a couple of years, I realized how damaging it was to my productivity. No more ad hoc meetings where we grabbed a couple of engineers and sat down and quickly brainstormed something. It’s much harder to reach out to someone over the internet than it is to just turn around and ask something. My career also started to stagnate.

When we finally settled down, I decided that I would focus on my career and pursue a new job. The new job is hybrid and, also amazingly, is only about a 15 minutes bike from my house. I don’t know how I would have been able to start a new job without being in person. It’s so much easier to just ask someone a question than it is. The collaboration we have is also much better than the previous 8 or so years I was fully WFH.

And as this article points out, it’s the flexibility that I think is the best thing. No one bats an eye if you say you need an extra day at home that week. Or you need to go home because the plumber is coming. Or you’re stepping out for a couple of hours for the doctor. This seems to be a permanent fixture at my new job.

Now, as I said, this is purely from a work perspective. Individually speaking, staying home is way better, especially if you have a shitty commute. I get that and would never say anyone should go back into the office. But I think the number of people who are actually way more productive at home are few and far between, the rest just really like the set up so they’ll pretend it is way better for work, or even convince themselves it is way better. But the more and more the numbers come in, the more and more it’s clear that generally speaking people are less productive with remote work.

It’s going to end for most, and it’s probably best to think about what best suits the needs to the individual and the business rather than clinging to the idea that it is superior in all ways.

But the biggest disadvantage of remote work that employers cite is how difficult it is to observe and monitor employees

I’m sure these employers hire external contractors. Do they insist on observing and monitoring those contractors? Are they going to insist their contracotr’s employees be active on Teams at all times?

I hate the idea that if working from home for an employer is somehow different from working as a freelancer from home.

Pre-pandemic, bosses relied on desk visits and peer monitoring, which occurs when co-workers notice and comment on each other’s work, to keep employees on track in the office, and there is no clear replacement for them in a remote setting, Pollak explains.

Again: If they hired a contractor, would they want to “drop by their desk” to comment on their work? Why do they insist on treating employees like Clients from Hell?

“It’s hard to know which measure these software programs track even matters,” Pollak adds. “A lot of knowledge work is done in video meetings, or offline in phone calls, research and brainstorming, and it’s impossible to quantify all of that.”

Yes, exactly. So stop trying to quantify it. Quantify the results of that knowledge work. A results-focused management style works best for remote work, not hovering over your peons waiting for them to make a mistake.

“If the pandemic and ‘great resignation’ taught us anything, it’s that managers need to be intentional and engaged with employees to be truly effective,”

Holy cow, managers need to talk to their workers! Thank The Invisible Hand this priestly Economist has brought this nugget of wisdom from the Ivory Tower.

Also, I love that the image for this article is a bleak and soulless office. I don’t know how people see this and still wonder why nobody wants to be there.