Ask HN: Do you think 'normal' working will ever return?
Interested to hear everyone's predictions for 2021 and beyond. Do you think we will actually return to offices? Or will WFH become the new norm?
Also — would you WFH if you had to take a pay cut of 10% or greater? Let's address the elephant in the room: Working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office. It's harder to debug things or pair program when needed, it's harder to grab someone's attention, it's easier to miscommunicate, and communication is a lot slower. You also don't get the same camaraderie as you would face to face, but the upside is that you also don't get distracted by attractive coworkers. However, few offices are ideal. Traffic and commuting is one of the worst little things of daily life. It's dangerous. It ruins the environment. Parking sucks. Good offices are wide open spaces, with good air, good climate, and cheerful environments. Many offices are bad environments and overcrowded. There's a balance that COVID has tilted. Some will learn that they don't need offices anymore, especially when people have decked out their home offices. It's likely we'll see employers double down on home offices where they can. Some, like Airbnb or Apple might find that morale is better in their offices. Some smaller companies might set up theirs out of major cities, where lifestyle is cheaper and less crowded. > Traffic and commuting is one of the worst little things of daily life. It's dangerous. It ruins the environment. Parking sucks. I agree, but commuting has significant mental-health benefits. It provides a clear mental separation between "work" and "home". I and several of my coworkers have noticed that we never feel "off work" anymore. Work just bleeds into everything because there isn't that 30 minute period (enforced by the need to arrive home in time to make and eat dinner) to clear your head at the end of the day and mentally switch contexts. > commuting has significant mental-health benefits. My experience has been the exact opposite. I've been fortunate to have very reasonable commutes in all my jobs, but WFH is much better than my 25-30 minute commutes. I no longer get the "it's 5:50PM but can you take a quick look at this because you're the only one still here" issues that had me commuting home at 7 or 8 pm every few weeks. And then there's the 20 hours a week of time I get to play with my kid, do chores, or relax. Sure I still get the occasional slack message mid evening, but that was happening before WFH as well. There are downsides around ease of communication and sense of camaraderie, but work life balance/separation has been pretty much 100% win. I have noticed a tendency among people to rationalise things that suck in life to actually be good for you. Phrases such as "It builds character" or "It is necessary for the society/people/..." are not too uncommon. It seems to be a universal characteristic of people to co-opt largely harmful activities such as smoking for useful things such as social interaction or relaxation. You can just... Make one. You can just make the division. You can turn off the work computer and walk away at five. Not the same thing. You're still in the same physical space. Again, that time on the bike/train/car provides head space to mentally context switch away from work time and into home time. Plus, it's very easy to do "just one more" commit while you're boiling pasta for dinner. This is not a need that all of of us have. Nor is a commute an effective way for all of us to disconnect from work. It very much depends on both the person and workplace in question. Where it apparently is a serious need for you, I'd second some of the other suggestions on finding your own replacement, maybe something along the lines of set an alarm for end of day, turn everything off, and get out of the house and walk/bike. I don't feel that way at all. Yesterday I dismissed one person who wanted me to "take a quick look" by saying that my work day ends in 10 minutes so I won't be able to help much, then after these 10 minutes I closed down my work laptop and enjoyed the rest of my evening without thinking about work once. The problem exists solely in your head. Have you tried going for a 20 min walk or something like that after work? I have a dog so I find that taking him out after helps with this. That's just what my wife has started doing. It's an easy division when you stop looking at emails after 5. > commuting has significant mental-health benefits This seems like a stretch for anyone who has ever dealt with rush-hour traffic in a major city. That's true, which is why I think there's a middle ground. A total 10-30 minutes daily commuting is nice and better than 0. I saw statistics once that said the average one way is 40 minutes, which is dangerous and tiring. I agree, exacyly.
Unfortunately, having such an ideal commute is basically impossible for most people, who are left with the other two options, both of them worse. Alternate between commute and wfh is better but just not as good. I really feel like an ideal commute is one of the ultimate luxuries, given how much impact it has on daily life. Even better than 20 mins by car is 20 mins by bike/ on foot. This is a truly, truly terrible take. I work 100% remote and I've never been happier. Our culture is fantastic and we are encouraged to log out at our EOD working hours. I take direct issue with "good offices are wide open spaces," a statement that is strictly opinion in its most charitable interpretation, and actively goes against scientific research on productivity. Are you saying that it's scientifically proven that good offices are cramped rooms and cubicles? A few seconds of googling yield, among other nuggets of wisdom: January 2019: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325959 January 2019: https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/01/jobs-workplace-priv... February 2019: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/327142 November 2019: https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices August 2020: https://www.businessinsider.com/open-offices-over-due-to-cor... I don't mean open offices. They're even more crowded than cubicles. I mean the classic ones where you have walls, a door, your own desk, a few feet from your desk to your door, a bunch of bookshelves, a few monitors, a window, and nobody enters your office unless it's important. I also thought your original post was advocating for open offices. Still, I'm more productive in a cramped room with a door that closes than in an open offices, and I'm sure many others are too. “working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office” — Goes on to highlight the distractions of the office and all the efficiency/time gains of WFH. I think the point is that managers/executives view their office as ideal, and therefore (rightly and justifiably) want people to come in. The people actually working in said office see the flaws, understand it's less than ideal, and know they can be more productive from home. I mean to say that offices are wonderful things when done right, but cities are broken. A lot of great startups start out in garages, but frankly most of us can't afford a garage, and some even sleep in less space than that. If we could afford homes that have garages, that would likely beat working in some big city skyscraper. > Working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office. Only if you try to reimplement the traditional office and its processes in a WFH setting. That's an endeavour that's bound to fail. In remote-first settings communication works differently, especially in that ideally it should happen mostly asynchronously, i.e. as written communication, which has the huge additional benefit of avoiding information silos through readily available documentation and decision records. > Working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office. It's harder to debug things or pair program when needed, it's harder to grab someone's attention, it's easier to miscommunicate, and communication is a lot slower. You also don't get the same camaraderie as you would face to face, but the upside is that you also don't get distracted by attractive coworkers. YMMV. Your home can be your ideal office, and is for many of us working remote (myself included). There are technology companies with hundreds of employees with billion dollar+ valuations who are fully remote. There is no proof they would be more efficient if you colocated all of those folks in person. I’ve been WFH for 10 of the past 15 years. It is much harder to create a new billion dollar company if everyone is WFH, especially if there is a physical product as opposed to something that only manifests on screens. It is much harder to on board and mentor new co-workers. It is much harder to make a transition to the next position in your career, like a promotion or move within the company. It is much harder to develop and maintain relationships that result in respect and trust for coworkers. All of the above especially if most people are in the office. I’ve become a bit like a contractor grinding through a series of similar projects, my career growth has stalled, and my only interactions with my coworkers who used to be friends now always boil down to ‘when will X be done?’ I would avoid WFH for anyone not in the sunset years of their career. Well, those might be dismissed as anecdotal examples but Automattic, Zapier, Basecamp and GitLab clearly show that remote-first or remote-only companies can be highly successful and efficient businesses with friendly, conducive work environments. I worked from home for 15 years and found it to be much more efficient than going into my office. The slower communication is a great benefit because people are forced to think before replying rather than just reacting. Tutoring students worked much better because they have your thoughts in writing rather than having to quickly takes notes or remember what you said. You now have a timestamped record of activities that you can refer back to. You can record a Zoom conference for those who were not able to attend or to create a video for disseminating new information. I think that one of the main reasons some people, and some professions (like banking), prefer working in person is because it is less accountable without the written/recorded history. Many of the issues stated about the bad points of offices are mostly to do with city-based offices. Companies like Google were smart to move even slightly outside of a packed metro. Parking and the commute are easy for companies that choose less expensive and less horrendous settings than metro centers. My ideal situation would be to share a small office space (or room) in my neighborhood, with 3-5 colleagues that also live around here. I can't really work from cafeteria types of places. GitLab has always been remote and working well so far. You attend meeting for every 30 min. I think this is teaching a lot of people how much of work is BS. Now that a lot of the distractions and meetings are gone lots of people are realizing they really only work a couple hours a day and spend the rest dicking around or stuck in pointless meetings. I second this ! The one thing I can appreciate about working from home for so long is I haven't been sick this entire time. Open floor plans spread colds, flus, and stomach bugs around like wildfire, and it's nice to be out of the petri dish. This has been my experience as well. I used to get about 3 colds per year, maybe 4 if I was unlucky. I've been at home since March and haven't had symptoms of anything which is so great. Also this is magnified with many kids out of school. With reduced child to parent transfer those that do need to go in to the office may have less background infectivity. When my kids were in elementary school I had more sick days in a year than the ten years prior combined. I miss taking sick days for no reason. My CTO has been researching this (large 30K emp. software company) and the current consensus seems to indicate that ~60% of the workforce is expected to continue to work remote. Offices will be redesigned as collaboration spaces, where (when it becomes safe) people will converge from time to time for specific activities, but the follow-up and rest of the work will be remote. I fully support this, and I to a degree, I've been doing it for 6 years already, and I find it extremely effective. And no, I would not take a pay cut. Companies pay for what I bring to the table. As long as they get what they want from me, it should be irrelevant where am I. I actually make the argument that you should pay me more if I work from home. If you aren't going to be paying for a workspace, a lab environment, electricity, etc. for me to do my job, I'll be the one paying for those things, so give me more money to pay for it. If you're not going to pay for an office for me to use, pay me enough to afford a larger home with a dedicated office space. I get tax credits for using my home as a work environment, so I can expense a portion of my Internet bill and some other stuff. I'm still working in the office, so yes. Even though remote work has been a possibility for IT for a long time, various factors have prevented it from being taken up as the norm. I don't believe those factors have changed in any permanent way. I would happily take a pay cut to work from home, and I'd even happily take a 50% pay cut to cut my hours by 50%, and I'd like a pony... I wish so much I could work less days even if I was getting paid less, but nobody wants someone not doing 5 days it seems like. I would not work for a company that would have me work from home for 10% less than what I make now. Why would I do that? I am paying more by working from home since I need to supply my own utilities and resources just to do my job. You don't have to supply (i.e. buy) your own hardware, but you might have to pay for the power supply. On the contrary, you likely have lower commuting costs. However, the more important aspect might be that you end up needing more space at home and the employer needs less space in the office. Working from your kitchen table is probably not the best idea in terms of ergonomics. In my opinion this aspect gets few attention in the discussion. Many people (prior to Covid) did not have a desk and chair suitable for WFH (I did, but many of my coworkers didn't). Chairs and desks are hardware. Many couples do not have two spare bedrooms (especially in the Bay Area) to work in. That means potentially renting/buying a larger living space, or converting living space into working space. N=1, but my lower commuting costs are more than offset by the lack of company-provided lunches, snacks, and coffee. I work from home and my computer is paid by the company and I get a little compensation which covers internet and power etc. So no spending there! But I save a lot by not commuting and eating at home. In my situation, my computer is paid by the company, but that's it. I drive my kids to and from school which is on the way to the office, so my commute has been extended. My employer also gave us a lunch credit which we lost now that we don't go to the office anymore. The location from which I am working is irrelevant with respect to the value I'm providing to the company. If anything I should earn more working from home, because I'm paying more for utilities and my employer isn't paying utilities for me at the office. But you're also no longer paying for your commute. The salient point for ops argument is that the company isn’t providing utilities, isn’t providing parking, cleaning etc etc. Working from home saves the company money. A company that is good to employees would recognise this and return at least some of the savings via payroll or reimbursements. The company is still paying you the same although you are no longer commuting though. Before you wasted between 1/2 hour and 2 hours every day just moving back and forth from the office (formally unpaid time). Now you can get out of your bed ten minutes before the first meeting in the day or be grocery shopping in your neighborhood five minutes after your work day ended. That is irrelevant. Should a person who literally lived next door to the office then be paid the same because they saved less on commuting? What if I “work from home” but actually choose to commute to work from a storage facility on the other side of town? No. Commuting is irrelevant to the cost because it’s unrelated to the work or the cost of doing business. The cost of utilities not required on site is a literal and measurable saving for the business. That cost is directly transferred to the employee. It's not that you're not paying for your commute. It's that the company is no longer not paying you for those 1 or 2 hours you spend every day to go to your workplace and back. That’s true for some jobs. But some jobs consist of talking to people. You might want to look into this invention, it’s called the telephone. It lets you talk to people over great distances. They even have ones now that have no cord and even let you see the person you’re talking to. What a time to be alive. Just adding another opinion to the poll. I think this is an extreme scenario, but it also is a shift towards a new "normal". The inefficiency of commute, and the ease of not traveling to work everyday is a thing many people would love to reduce. Pushing buttons on a television screen has been largely eliminated by remotes because it simply requires less mental energy and I think the workforce will fight for it simply because people are lazy. Also, I would WFH for the paycut, and that's because technically I'm not home at the moment - and that is potentially more valuable than what the extra money would have bought. The trend to home work has already started before Corona. I think we'll see a return to normal as there is too much vested interest in commercial property esp in the UK. 1. Individual Contributors are more effective at home without distractions. 2. Managers are more effective at the office where they can talk to people and discover information: "manage by walking around". 3. Why are managers / executives necessary and often paid more? Because their contribution affects the work of many other people. Managers' work operates with leverage (for good or ill). 4. If offices make managers more effective, and managers leverage their effectiveness over a large number of people, then the greatest good for the company is likely to be a return to in-person working environments. It may take a while, but most of us will be going back. 1. Yes, we will largely return to offices. Digital tools remain sub-par as replacements for direct human contact / communication, and that isn't likely to change soon. (Mayyyyyybe mixed reality will finally make a dent here, but meaningful computer-supported collaboration is still a very active area of academic research. Haven't found any tool that comes close to the fluency and reliability of a quick huddle around a whiteboard.) As others have noted, there's also a lot of investment in commercial space - so there will be economic / political pressure to return to office work. Will this happen in 2021? No idea. Some workplaces have announced full-remote until mid-2021 at the very least, and any cure / vaccine will take time to fully study, productionize, and distribute. It might take a few years to fully return, and there may be a slightly higher proportion of WFH even after that. For a historical perspective: consider that humanity has weathered catastrophic pandemics before, and look to what happened there in the longer term. This time around, we have the further advantage of much better medicine / logistics than, say, during the 1918 flu. (We also, of course, have both the advantages and disadvantages that come with much faster communications channels.) 2. Absolutely not! By working from home, I'm taking on additional office-related expenses that would normally be paid for, plus expenses related specifically to remote work (e.g. webcams). If anything, I'd expect the company to help cover those expenses, and/or bump my salary up to compensate for added setup and logistics on my end (or even just to reflect the reduced overhead on their end - if they save money having me work at home, why shouldn't I see some of that?) Some annoyances I have found from working from home: 1. Lots of people have horrible internet connections making communication a frustrating experience.
2. Hard to get attention of colleagues when they don't respond on Slack. It was already hard enough in the office but at least you could physically walk into somebody's cube before.
3. Not everyone has the amenities of air conditioning or heating. It depends on the will of the companies employing people. I've been back in the office for 4 months, and everything feels extremely normal up until I try to go to most businesses outside. I would prefer working from an office just because of the benefits of collaboration. For generic cookie cutter projects WFH works well, but IMO complex large projects can be executed much faster by a co-located team of people.