So you have to be in the same room to collaborate? Most of my kids work in companies that are so big, people they work with aren’t even in the same building. One of my sons in KC has an office that’s two miles from the building his boss is in. Makes no difference for talking to the boss whether he’s in plant or at home. Fortunately they both know how to use a phone.
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I probably have my biggest breakthroughs/ideas when I go out on walks. So the whole sort of side eyeing at "taking advantage" of wfh......being at your desk and in meetings all days just destroys creativity and thought work. Taking breaks and stepping away is actually how you do those things.
You and just fundamentally disagree on premise here. You're looking at everything as an If/Then situation.
I work for a large manufacturer, and guess what, they are going to try and automate any process possible because that's always going to be cheaper than paying a human to do it. Most of the jobs for Deere are welding right now. Because it's extremely difficult to weld. It takes some artistry, I should know, I suck at welding.
No white collar job is immune to AI. I've often said that a pretty narrow AI could do most of my job. It's about 10% of the other random stuff that makes me valuable to the people I work with, all of which can be done remotely. I know this because I've been doing it for over 3 years.
You and I have very different opinions on what we think the outcomes of an AI workplace look like, thats all.
You see the future of business as AI eliminating the need of "simpler" tasks that can be done WFH leaving only those who do the more "complicated" tasks that require collaboration in the office. I see the future of AI as a bunch of people working from home (or offshore as you point out) prompting an AI program to do a task in a fraction of the time it use to take a team of people collaborating in an office to do.
Fair enough. I should have never mentioned AI. That’s far from my point and is a long ways off for most things. Who knows what it looks like.
My point is that cutting cost and boosting share price is always the goal. I’m only predicting jobs that have proven successful at WFH will be scrutinized.
Yes! Taking a walk let's the mind open up. I take a walk through the skywalk system daily.
I am not a WRHer by choice, as I get too distracted...my dog, vacuuming, tv show I missed the other night, etc. But I love that most of my staff have embraced it and chose to WFH 3 days a week. If it makes them happier and makes it easier on them, my job becomes easier as a result. There's nothing we can't do while they are remote. I've actually found they become more independent thinkers on their WFH days and problem solve better.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
I'll go one weirder. I often have them slicing bread or taking out the trash.
But busywork and all the stuff that goes on in meetings? No, that's not creativity time at all.
I will forever be thankful for the tremendous increase in time at home and being around my kids when they are young that has come as a result from WFH.
I work for a large corporation that only leases and doesn’t own a single property. Our cost cutting is coming from building lease negotiations globally. WFH employees are simply cheaper than a bunch of office space. We have hybrid options but there is zero plans of requiring a return to office. We are actually making people go hybrid that work in office full time just due to a massive square footage reduction.
The premise WFH is first target of cost cutting and at risk is flat not true, at least in our company. In fact you are more at risk if you demand a full time office.
The premise WFH is first target of cost cutting and at risk is flat not true, at least in our company. In fact you are more at risk if you demand a full time office.
This is where everything is headed IMO, it's just going to be a slow painful transition. Everything from old school mentality to prior investment in commercial real-estate is going to require some people be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
I'm hybrid, but I get little benefit collaboration wise from going into the office. Remote meetings is so much the norm now that even when I'm in the office almost all of my meetings are remote. I've literally been in the office in a remote meeting where everyone else was also in the office. It's just easier to make all meetings remote now rather than reserve meeting rooms and make sure everyone is in the office. We do try and do hybrid meetings every now and then, but that's a dynamic I like less than everyone being either on line or in person.
The real benefit I get from being in the office is more relationship building and having face to face conversation with your coworkers. It basically becomes catchup time on whats going on in their lives. I think that's really valuable and one of the reasons I don’t mind going into the office, but eventually is that enough to make office space worth the cost to the employer? Likely not. It was just announced we are moving locations and the work space is smaller, so I suspect we will either be sharing work stations or more people will be asked to WFH full time.
Typically the guy pounding the table on these items is some jerk who works from home in Jersey or Florida
My company had two floors of space and only 5 people in the office on Fridays. It was nuts. One floor was always empty. 100% vacant on a good day.
They cut the space and started the shared desk deal. That is a hot mess. Absolutely awful. First we had to reserve a desk and then disagreements bubbled up. One day I went down and there wasn't a desk at all.
Open concept. Shared workspace. No wonder people want to work from home
If those studies showing WFH lowers worker productivity are accurate, how can the record revenues and profits corporations across sectors have reported the past couple of years be explained?
On one hand, "worker productivity" is kind of a hard thing to define and measure across various industries while accounting for differences in corporate culture and investments in technology that might make workers more productive wherever they're working from. On the other hand, revenues and profits are a pretty objective metric to measure overall success of a company.
I just have a hard time understanding how companies are overcoming decreased productivity while also showing drastically increased profits. It seems either one could be true, but claiming both seems like a challenge to explain.
IMO, companies that are seeing decreased productivity should focus on finding out how they can mirror the companies and are having success with WFH. Of course, micromanaging employees is an easier "solution" than overhauling corporate culture. IMO, it's going to make less happy employees, who are then less productive, more likely to leave, which increases turnover and hurts productivity. So of course struggling corporations are going to choose the option that exacerbates the problem they're trying to solve.
Yeah, I know people who have had similar experiences with shared work space. If they propose that I may push pretty hard to just WFH full time.
It's walking or taking a shower for me but I left that off the first time lol
My last place started moving toward open concept which is my nightmare. Covid sort of killed it, thankfully.
The people who invented Open Concept offices should be killed by paper cuts. Everything in my peripheral vision distracts me. It just does. So working with movement around me is an absolute show stopper.
Common sense should have told them that constant noise and no room to concentrate would not go over well with most people. Leave the open concept designs to marketing companies where it belongs.
My leave with my 2nd was so much better with spouse wfh and able to have baby in carrier for naps + me go back to work slower and with baby at home for longer. So much better for mental health, bonding - all of it.
It's a cost cutting measure, pure and simple. They just thought they could give it enough paint to get people to swallow the turd.