Office work was broken. It took a pandemic for some of us to realize this.
When I started working, personal offices were still a norm. A distraction free environment is critical for occupations that require deep work like programming. Somewhere along the way, open plan offices started becoming more popular. Facebook was one of the proponents of this model with a large shared desk to increase “collaboration”. However I suspect that savings in real estate costs were the primary driver towards this model. Joel Spolsky nailed the lie about open office plans long ago. However pre-covid most of us had no option in this. After covid, many of us have been able to rediscover how effective you can be in a personal office. My productivity has definitely increased after working from home.
Not having to commute daily also means that there are massive savings in terms of time and energy. My commute would take almost an hour one way. Now I can invest that time and energy in other areas of my life. The companies which are still forcing employees to come to work are going to face the brunt of the great resignation.
But it’s not all sunshine and roses.
This month I went back to work for some meetings that involved discussions around architecture. It was a small group, and we had worked closely together before. The discussions were fluid. We were interrupting each other, asking questions, using the whiteboard and a lot more. After all the idea wrangling we shared a meal and some bad jokes. Remote work means that I do have meetings over video calls. But the real physical experience is truly something else. Immersive I’d say. Being in a room, I was able to pace around when I felt like thinking or take random notes on the whiteboard, scratch notes. The tactile experience with no lag was immersive. Reality has so much detail that just cannot be captured even in the current consumer technology. Maybe facebook (oh meta) is actually going to be our savior.
Working from home makes the distinction between home and work rituals harder, but I’m hoping that individuals have been able to set limits around work by now.
I’m not sure if working from home is environmentally better, though I suspect it is. Thousands of homes running heaters or coolers might be worse than newer offices doing the same. Over time as people spend more time at home, they will make repairs to improve insulation or go solar.
As jobs become remote, people will start working in different but close time zones. Once proper mechanisms are set up for success as a remote employee, the same processes will help shift jobs to a lower cost center around the world. Engaging with a wider talent pool is a great benefit to a company. However expect many executives to take short term decisions in the guise of remote work to just reduce costs.
I believe that flexibility is going to be a must and a hybrid model is going to win. The shared office model aka wework (my second infamous callout in a single blog) along with more regular offsites for work and team building events might actually be how a majority of companies operate in the future.
Hey Rahul - Another great article !
I can't agree more with what you have described. I faced a similar inner resistence when it was announced that offices will be opened soon. Not sure how many people I would have reached out to discuss pros and cons and how WHF is helping in making a truly global environment where everyone is working in the same situation (e.g. distraction due to kids etc.) and a special type of connect was getting formed where we started understanding each other more. It didn't mattered whether one is in EU, Aus, US or anywhere else. And I was satisfied that I was able to communicate more using mail/chat etc.
But office still opened (in Hybrid model) and reluctantly everyone strated coming in. Intial few days went by catching up with everyone who were not connected work wise or had limited connection. Most of the conversation happened during lunch or at coffee vending machine or just on the way to desk. And slowly I realized that there are lot of conversations that happen (informally) for which you can't really set a meeting invite. I normally call them side conversations. And these side conversations do open up quite new perspectives whether is knowing about new initiatives/ideas people are working upon or new shift in strategy or new team structure or just a casual discussion over some new technology etc. which you don't discuss over the online meetings which are driven based on agendas. So unless one is hard core Individual Contributor who just needs to keep is head down and keep doing what he is supposed to (e.g. writing the code) with little discussion here and there, connect and side conversations definitely help.
So I completely agree that Hybrid model is way to go forward.
For me, the biggest gain with being full remote, is being able to structure more things into my day. I can workout in the time I would have commuted. I can fix an issue with a side project at 2:30 if I need to.
That sort of flexibility is why I am not a fan of a hybrid model for myself. To each their own!