Interesting timing of your post. I was talking about this topic with someone yesterday. In most cases, there are benefits to doing something or not doing something, and the same is true here. We are in a transition period, and the next 3-5 years will define where we end up, but for now, here are my observations:
1. Individual productivity is high for many people due to fewer distractions. Still, quite a few people, especially independent IT contractors (my work requires working with them), are doing multiple jobs and billing their time to two entities without doing 16 hours of work.
2. If people come to the office for a day or two per week, at least one of those days is used primarily for meet and greet, and productivity is limited during work-from-office days. So, the hybrid world makes the teams less productive if it is less than three days.
3. The new employees take much longer to get going in the remote/hybrid world.
4. The new college graduates suffer the most since the lack of interaction or mentoring is hard in the remote world.
5. More meetings happen in remote world than in-office scenarios. In the work-from-office scenario, people spend more time on non-work things like water cooler chat, coffee and lunch trips.
6. Work usually ends when you leave the office, but most people work longer in the remote world as there is no activity called “leave office.”
7. I love the time in the car as it gives me time to think and listen to a book, which I cannot do when I work from home.
8. Most big cities are suffering because of a lack of tax revenue as fewer people are coming, and commercial properties are losing value fast. The crime has gone up. DC is an example of more crime.
9. The large IT enterprise projects have become difficult to execute as walking into a room and whiteboard a solution/problem is far more than using any available technology. Also, training users has become more complicated, especially instructor-led training, since it is hard to keep people focused for more than 15 minutes in an MS Teams/Slack session.
10. The meetings using MS Teams/Slack need to be short and focused; otherwise, it is challenging to keep people focused and stop them from multi-tasking.
We will overcome most of these technology challenges over time, whichever route we take eventually. Still, I think no one method is the best for an organization and each job category. The organizations will have to consider how to be fair and also ensure that work gets done.
These are all important reasons. There's even one more: tax incentive. A bigger company often gets paid to have a bunch of businesses they're supporting with an office building (think: food courts, janitorial services, etc) in the form of local tax breaks. These tax savings can be in the tens (or even hundreds) of millions... I think a lot of folks are missing this, too.
Interesting timing of your post. I was talking about this topic with someone yesterday. In most cases, there are benefits to doing something or not doing something, and the same is true here. We are in a transition period, and the next 3-5 years will define where we end up, but for now, here are my observations:
1. Individual productivity is high for many people due to fewer distractions. Still, quite a few people, especially independent IT contractors (my work requires working with them), are doing multiple jobs and billing their time to two entities without doing 16 hours of work.
2. If people come to the office for a day or two per week, at least one of those days is used primarily for meet and greet, and productivity is limited during work-from-office days. So, the hybrid world makes the teams less productive if it is less than three days.
3. The new employees take much longer to get going in the remote/hybrid world.
4. The new college graduates suffer the most since the lack of interaction or mentoring is hard in the remote world.
5. More meetings happen in remote world than in-office scenarios. In the work-from-office scenario, people spend more time on non-work things like water cooler chat, coffee and lunch trips.
6. Work usually ends when you leave the office, but most people work longer in the remote world as there is no activity called “leave office.”
7. I love the time in the car as it gives me time to think and listen to a book, which I cannot do when I work from home.
8. Most big cities are suffering because of a lack of tax revenue as fewer people are coming, and commercial properties are losing value fast. The crime has gone up. DC is an example of more crime.
9. The large IT enterprise projects have become difficult to execute as walking into a room and whiteboard a solution/problem is far more than using any available technology. Also, training users has become more complicated, especially instructor-led training, since it is hard to keep people focused for more than 15 minutes in an MS Teams/Slack session.
10. The meetings using MS Teams/Slack need to be short and focused; otherwise, it is challenging to keep people focused and stop them from multi-tasking.
We will overcome most of these technology challenges over time, whichever route we take eventually. Still, I think no one method is the best for an organization and each job category. The organizations will have to consider how to be fair and also ensure that work gets done.
These are all important reasons. There's even one more: tax incentive. A bigger company often gets paid to have a bunch of businesses they're supporting with an office building (think: food courts, janitorial services, etc) in the form of local tax breaks. These tax savings can be in the tens (or even hundreds) of millions... I think a lot of folks are missing this, too.