Tag: work from home

To work from home or not to work from home?

The Economist says not to work from home because “it is not more productive than being in an office, after all”.

A gradual reverse migration is under way, from Zoom to the conference room. Wall Street firms have been among the most forceful in summoning workers to their offices, but in recent months even many tech titans—Apple, Google, Meta and more—have demanded staff show up to the office at least three days a week. For work-from-home believers, it looks like the revenge of corporate curmudgeons.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/06/28/the-working-from-home-delusion-fades

They cite the case of the paper that went from showing an eight percent increase in productivity due to working from home when it was a working paper, to showing that there was a four percent reduction instead. There was no problem with the paper or its methodology, to be clear. The difference was simply because of better quality of data. There is a world of other research worth going through in The Economist article, and I would urge you to read it.

What reasons come through for the decline in productivity? Well, it’s just hard to work from a dining table! The ability to go to a co-worker’s desk to chat about work, to get some help, to resolve an issue – that is harder to do online. Why is it harder? Because “teleconferencing is a pale imitation of in-the-flesh meetings”. That’s a fancy way of saying online sucks. To use Coasean terminology, as the article in The Economist does, coordination costs matter.

Most important of all, networking becomes harder. We are, at heart, a social species, and we need proximity to other people. Not only for the psychological benefits, but also because we learn best in person. That might seem like a contradiction given yesterday’s post, but it is not. Learning in person doesn’t necessarily mean listening to someone like me drone on in a classroom!

But to me, the article came alive towards the end. As with all well written articles, this one too segues into an implicit “on-the-other-hand” section.

Perhaps the greatest virtue of remote work is that it leads to happier employees. People spend less time commuting, which from their vantage-point might feel like an increase in productivity, even if conventional measures fail to detect it. They can more easily fit in school pickups and doctor appointments, not to mention the occasional lie-in or midmorning jog. And some tasks—notably, those requiring unbroken concentration for long periods—can often be done more smoothly from home than in open-plan offices. All this explains why so many workers have become so office-shy.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/06/28/the-working-from-home-delusion-fades

“What are you optimizing for?” remains an underrated question! If you’ll allow me to cite an example from my own life: I’ve been working from home for the last year and a half, approximately. I stay on Baner Road in Pune, and not having to battle University signal everyday is something that saves me time, gives me more energy and enthusiasm to work, and frees up time to do other stuff (work/exercise/napping/whatever). I have the pleasure of picking up my daughter from her bus-stop every day. I get to go for morning and evening walks with my dog. Sure I miss the conversations with some of my colleagues, and god knows I miss being able to interact with my students on campus. But hey, opportunity costs are everywhere, no?

As the article goes on to say in its concluding paragraph, hybrid weeks are here to stay. Sure it is not as productive as working in an office, but woking from home is more soul satisfying. And so the answer to the question “work from home or not” is, well, both.

The truth, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, lies somewhere in the middle.

When is Work from Office Better?

Shreevar Chhotaria asked a great question on Twitter recently:

As an aside, and before we begin, he’s got a podcast with a very cool name. I haven’t listened to it, I should be clear, but can’t help but grin at the name. Now, back to business:

If I was in the corporate world, my vote would have been for working from home, 95% of the time. If my choice is to be between sitting at home in shorts and a t-shirt and working, or battling traffic in whichever city I happen to be in to reach work and attend offline meetings – well, it’s not a choice.

But if I were to talk as a professor about I and students being in the same place – well, this is also not a choice, but the answer is the opposite.

Maybe ten percent of your learning as a student takes place in a classroom while you’re in college. And if that estimate is to be wrong, it is because I’m being a little too optimistic. Learning happens in arguments, discussions, debates over endless cups of chai on kattas outside classrooms. It happens by walking into a professor’s office for a chat. It happens by working with your batchmates on projects, not all of which need be academic. It happens by working together on plays, annual events, quizzes and sports fests. It happens through the inevitable arguments, scuffles and fights that ensue.

Learning how to get along with other people in a semi-professional context is a great way to learn how to pretend to get along with people in a professional context. And that learning can never come by “logging on” to a classroom. The shared ennui that you experience in a classroom is no substitute for keeping a Google Meet tab open in the background.

Peer networking in all of its myriad forms is an indispensable part of the student’s experience, and the pandemic has taken at least two years of these experiences away from students. For all the students who still have time left in their degrees, it is imperative that we in academia encourage as much of on campus activity as possible.

Not doing so, in my opinion, is a moral crime.

And on that note, a warm welcome to the FYMSc students from GIPE! I’m in Delhi right now, but will be back in office on Monday. I’ll reiterate my offer: please, drop in to my office to say hello, and have a cup of (black, no sugar) coffee if you like!