Asklemmy

I just wanted to say that this is pretty much the most well thought out answer on WFH I've seen. It's nuanced and balanced.

Thank you.

To speak to your points, I started with about 1 year ago in a new career in IT. We initially were coming in one day a week and this has moved to two days.

First, when we moved to two days, I have it about 6 weeks, then started crunching numbers. By the sole metric of closing tickets... My team as a whole is more productive in the office. I didn't break down exactly who was more of less productive, but I have my ideas. I'm willing to bet that I work better at home, but it's a moot point as the team is better on site.

As far as learning new skills, even at one day a week, I've caught up to the rest of my team and have surpassed them technically. Again, it's IT and I've always had a strong interest, whereas I see some of the team probably view it as "just work" I'm actually enjoying the work. Again, it's a second career so maybe maturity is in play here too, but even the younger guys who were hired after me are growing very quickly.

You're absolutely right about networking. I felt so isolated when I started. It wasn't until I learned a few people a few steps above where I was that I learned who is a good resource, and who I can trust. Once I got my head around that, I think people actually see the work in doing and redirect me for it. If I were 100% wfh I don't think I would be having as good a time.

Just my experience

Thanks for helping bring this perspective to light. Most threads on work from home go all in on productivity being higher, but don't take into account the longer term consequences of working from home on knowledge sharing, education, training, and team building. Even if productivity is higher now, that doesn't mean it will remain that way in the long run.

Great summary, I wish all the WFH fanatics would read and understand this. I really hate how in most online spaces they make it seem like 100% WFH is the answer for everything.

Your comment reflects what my own experience has been over the past few years.

while generic work productivity is about the same level, teaching new skills isn't.

As someone who did his last year of college and first two years of career from home this is spot on. My senior simply refused to teach me anything, or even answering my chats and my manager didn't care. I had to learn doing inverse engineering on the excel files because I cannot even sit at his side and saw him work ans learn. I changed companies a month ago to a full-time in office position and I'm learning more in this month that what I did on the past two years (its also helps that my new manager is also a college professor and have like 40 years of industry experience).

Thanks for your answer, you bring some great points. I'm wondering how stable hybrid is; while it does alleviate the issue with training/knowledge sharing and networking, it also looks like a compromise choice that still requires companies to pay in full for a half-empty office.

Either over time "hybrid" companies plan to reduce their office footprint by half (but then have empty days and "overbooked" ones, making the "in-office" part of the experience potentially even worse) or they are just hoping to create some critical mass in the office that will eventually pull most of the other employees there.

WFH works better when most people are at home or otherwise distributed (eg small groups from different offices). If you're the only one calling into a meeting room where everyone else is sitting in person, it tends to suck.

Same for being in-office. It's productive if all the people you need to talk to are also in, on the day you go. Otherwise you just commuted 1 hour or more to have the same zoom calls in a noisier environment.

So I feel like there must be some sort of "gravitational" pull where it gets more convenient to be at home/in the office based on how many people are making the same choice.