[HN Gopher] The productivity of working from home: Evidence from...
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The productivity of working from home: Evidence from Japan
Author : elsewhen
Score : 110 points
Date : 2021-03-13 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (voxeu.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (voxeu.org)
| [deleted]
| max_hammer wrote:
| I did WFH remotely for 1 year from India. I had a separate room
| for office and productivity was high.
|
| Moved to Germany staying in 1 Room 36 square meter apartment and
| can't work from home.
|
| My meetings disturb wife. Her watching TV/Cooking disturbs me.
|
| Now I work from office and feeling more happy. Talking to real
| people instead of Zoom call and going out to grab some lunch
| uplifts my mood
| bluepizza wrote:
| A stubborn refusal to adapt the work practices to a completely
| new scenario and take advantage from such scenario would be the
| major factor here, not working from home itself.
|
| One has to ask the actual goal of anyone who refuses to adapt -
| do they want to perpetuate the current status quo at any cost, or
| do they actually want to achieve results for the company?
| mkl95 wrote:
| I have been WFH since early August. These have easily been the
| most productive months of my life. I am switching to 50% WFH soon
| and it's not going to be easy at all.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Comparing a parent's in-office productivity to WFH productivity
| while providing childcare strikes me as oblivious.
|
| Clearly parents aren't the entire workforce but we're not a minor
| portion either.
| ekianjo wrote:
| The ongoing need for consensus in Japan is a WFH productivity
| killer as well.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| The consensus culture is a productivity killer regardless of
| whether everyone's in office or not. Source: I work in a
| (Scandinavian) company with such culture, he've had the same
| glacial pace of progress before and after covid. It's basically
| the freaking UN over here. (In practice, the consensus culture
| means that people are free to avoid taking on any
| responsibility or risks regarding making tougher calls
| themselves - they can always "put it up for a debate" which
| predictably goes nowhere, as the issue has no real champion).
| [deleted]
| boulos wrote:
| It's too bad that neither this paper, nor the previous detailed
| survey one have a breakdown of "reasons for reduced productivity
| by industry". They report 80% productivity for IT, much less for
| retail, but it would be nice to see the "top reasons" tables by
| industry, to tease out "is the IT industry problem mostly bad
| internet and family distractions?" while Banking / Finance is
| mostly regulatory?
|
| I do appreciate that they allowed people to enter values above
| 100 for "more productive". I suspect very few did though. Some
| box plots would could be illuminating.
|
| [1]
| https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/20090004.htm...
| marm7 wrote:
| I have 5 teams, with 4-6 devs/SA, my data says we are actually
| getting 23% more done the last year, due to WFH, comparing with
| the previous 2 years.
|
| The 23% is the total, some teams have a higher increase due to
| the "best" teams have not increased with much. The "less better"
| have a higher increase.
|
| My case, WFH gave me the opportunity to hand out bonuses over the
| normal bonus and some team members feel less stressed and have
| time to exercise.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Factors affecting my WFH experience, using the factors from the
| article:
|
| - Telecommunication environment: a quiet dedicated room.
|
| - Requirements by rules and regulations that some tasks must be
| conducted in the office: N/A
|
| - Types of work that cannot be completed at home: None
|
| - Distractions from family: Not more than the distractions from
| people at the office (coffee walks, casual talk, loud
| conversations outside meeting rooms). I much rather be distracted
| by my family than some random dude asking about my weekend.
|
| - Private room for work: check
|
| - Loss of face to face communication: Yes, please.
|
| - Lack of pressure from boss, colleagues and subordinates: N/A. I
| still have the same goals and the same deadlines.
|
| - Interaction with customers: Over zoom.
|
| - Other reasons: N/A
| wreath wrote:
| > I much rather be distracted by my family than some random
| dude asking about my weekend.
|
| I never understood this actually. What is so bad/annoying about
| a colleague asking how was your weekend? When I hear similar
| things like "Football talk at the water cooler" etc I wonder
| what makes an individual hate their colleague this much that
| simple interactions like this become an annoyance.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I never said anything about it being bad or annoying. They
| are just less relevant than spending more time with my
| family.
|
| I prefer taking a coffee break at home and talk to my kids
| rather than some random colleague at work that I will likely
| never see again in less than 3 years.
| f430 wrote:
| This country is slowly moving into the digital age but still
| there is a strong cultural attachment to traditions and "if it
| isn't broken don't fix it" mentality.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Given that in any highly evolved system, the vast majority of
| mutations are harmful, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" is a
| wise principle to follow.
| f430 wrote:
| hmmm I don't think you've lived in Japan.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a
| pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a
| productive state of mind (although I don't know if the social
| media situation is as bad in Japan as in the U.S. where I live).
| So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-
| pandemic times.
|
| Nonetheless, and I say this as someone who is by no means opposed
| to WFH (I have often done it, depending on the contract), the
| results are not surprising. More work gets done in a dedicated
| space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related
| work, and this is especially true if some of the team members are
| young and inexperienced. It's the same reason we have gyms for
| exercise, yoga studios for yoga, art studios for painting, and so
| on. I'm glad that these researchers tried to measure it, but the
| results are not at all surprising.
| ineedasername wrote:
| That's not a universally accurate assessment. It all depends on
| the nature of the work, the nature of the on-site work
| environment, and the nature of the at-home work environment.
| (among other factors).
|
| I have significantly less wasted time working from home. At
| work, if I have 2 or 3 meetings in a day, that day is
| practically wasted for other work between walking to the
| meeting (I work on a large multi-building site), waiting for
| everyone to arrive, etc. Then it seems like people never want
| to end a meeting until its scheduled stop time even if we're
| done after 20 minutes. Then I have to get back to my office...
| Zoom has changed all of that. Zero time wasted at the beginning
| or end, and people don't seem to have as much of a problem
| saying "all right that's all we have, see you later" and ending
| a meeting early.
|
| I can also get a bit more sleep in the mornings because I don't
| have to get ready to leave the house, commute, park, get to my
| office, etc. When the end of the day comes, I'm already home,
| giving me an automatic hour of extra time each day. You can do
| a lot with 5 more hours of free time each week. I get to see my
| kids for more time, especially my youngest, who I watch, as my
| wife oversees distance learning for the other two.
|
| Even with the added distractions of working with at home with
| kids present, This past year has been one of the most
| productive in my entire career.
|
| I'm sure that mine is neither a unique experience, but also not
| how it works for everyone else. But the mindset that says it's
| mostly more productive to work on-site is why some places ban
| WFH, as mine did before the pandemic.
|
| I do, however, agree that WFH is least likely to result in the
| same or higher level of productivity for junior staff.
| briandear wrote:
| > It's the same reason we have gyms for exercise, yoga studios
| for yoga, art studios for painting
|
| No. We have gyms for exercise because there is an economy of
| scale. Who wants to buy a rowing machine, weight machines,
| stair machines, etc.
|
| Yoga studios are because people go there to have a class led by
| an instructor. And most artists don't "go" to a studio, they
| have a place in their house.
|
| For typing on a computer, there's really not much requirement
| for an external place unless your house is such that you don't
| have a desk in which to work.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded
| by other people engaged in related work, and this is especially
| true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced.
|
| More work gets done when you're tired from being up early for
| your commute, then the commute itself, and surrounded by
| distracting coworkers? Not for me, not ever again if I can help
| it.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Don't forget the 5 coffee breaks, multi hour conference room
| meetings, lunch meetings, etc, that can take up half your
| work week if you give in to that sort of stuff.
| mavelikara wrote:
| How do you stay caffeinated at home?
| astrange wrote:
| Caffeine isn't really beneficial for work, right? Most of
| its effect is because it's addictive and you need to
| prevent the withdrawal. The point of a break is that it's
| an excuse to stand up and walk around.
| pdimitar wrote:
| True, the coffee is just one of the devices to take your
| mind off things. My ex-girlfriend had a dog and when she
| was sick I had to walk it 3 times a day. Even though by
| that time (shortly before our breakup) I didn't like her
| or her dog, the walks were extremely therapeutic.
|
| All coffee and smoke breaks actually are aimed at taking
| a step back and gain some small extra energy to keep
| going.
| yorwba wrote:
| You should definitely stand up and walk around even when
| working from home.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Truth clearly lies in the middle. Maybe on average .. a
| workplace is a better concentration of means and dedication
| even though it's obvious that it's a very very inefficient
| place most of the time.
| anticristi wrote:
| Call me weird but it feels like those 5 coffee breaks gave
| me enough situational awareness to avoid 5 hours of
| meeting.
| bluepizza wrote:
| Most times it's out of your control, though. Someone else
| booked the meeting, a higher uo decided you should go,
| and those hours are lost.
| ip26 wrote:
| The average commute is 25 minutes, and this means many people
| have shorter commutes. Just how much is waking up ten minutes
| earlier going to crater your performance?
|
| (If you are one of those poor souls with a 90 minute commute,
| I understand your pain, but you shouldn't try to generalize
| your experience)
| mnahkies wrote:
| I used to have a 10 minute walk to work, and it was great.
| I'd take 1-2 days WFH a month still because there was some
| work that simply needed no interruptions/distractions.
|
| Now I have a 60-75 minute commute over underground, and I'm
| not looking forward to the return to the office. There's
| definitely aspects of working where I long for the office,
| but others where I'm glad for the solitude.
|
| If we have to return 5 days a week I'll probably have to
| move and pay much more or have a tiny living space.
|
| I value my time more than my comfort so am accepting of
| this, but it still frustrates me after living the afore
| mentioned dream.
|
| I'd also note that I regularly start work an hour or two
| early since working from home - with >2hrs of commuting
| slashed from my day, if I get a good thought at breakfast
| why not bash it out?
|
| When you're facing 12hrs as a baseline for your working day
| it's much less appealing to contribute outside that time.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Commutes are responsible for a 9.91% drop in hourly
| wages[1].
|
| Also, the less time you spend commuting by automobile, the
| less likely you are to be involved in an expensive,
| injurious or deadly accident, especially if you're
| commuting while while you or others are tired in the
| morning, or are tired after working all day.
|
| [1] https://go.frontier.com/business/commute-calculator
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Pretty sure you're the one generalizing here by
| specifically selecting the US. A fair number of
| countries[1] have a far longer commute.
|
| Also consider overuse of cars is a big issue
| environmentally, while use of public transport tends to
| increase one's commute (bad schedules, detours).
|
| [1]:
| https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-
| trans...
| Timpy wrote:
| I was acutely aware of how my commute was affecting my
| lifestyle before WFH became widespread, if you think the
| only difference is waking up 10 minutes earlier you've lost
| your mind. You are the one generalizing here.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| Not all commutes are created equal.
|
| 10 minutes in a car is far less pleasant (to me) than a 25
| minute walk.
|
| Also 25 minute commute means 50 minutes out of the day,
| every workday. That adds up.
| wott wrote:
| > Also 25 minute commute means 50 minutes out of the day,
| every workday.
|
| Yes, that sums up to over 4 hours per week, i.e. half a
| working day.
| tolbish wrote:
| Not to mention getting ready for the commute/getting
| settled back home which is easily at least half an hour
| every workday.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Just having to put on work clothes, do basic grooming,
| prepare food to take, etc., already adds more than 10
| minutes, on top of whatever the commute is. Driving to work
| probably means 8-10 less hours of free time a week, all to
| go to an office and do the same exact thing I could do at
| home.
| glogla wrote:
| You dont do basic groomung and food preparation unless
| you go to the office?
| hawaiianbrah wrote:
| Sometimes not?
| jekrb wrote:
| For me it was less the commute time and more planning
| around traffic.
|
| Even if the commute was 30 minutes (a good day), I'd
| usually need to buffer time to plan for being late due to
| traffic accidents and construction (frequent).
|
| Switching to remote work gave me back at least an hour
| every morning, and at least 1.5 hours in the evening.
| Anecdotally this has led to massive performance and quality
| of life increases.
| leppr wrote:
| The commute doesn't have to tire you, if you do it only 2-3
| days per week. Increased workspace flexibility might be one
| of the biggest wins from this period of forced WFH. I know
| the thing that tires me most is the boredom from a fixed
| routine.
| [deleted]
| didibus wrote:
| > and this is especially true if some of the team members are
| young and inexperienced
|
| I think this is the big one for me, at least with the
| experience of WFH for Covid, it is so much harder for people to
| ramp up and learn in a WFH situation, you can't just ask your
| neighbor about a weird compile issue, or why the IDE isn't able
| to run your tests and be helped promptly with them just showing
| you right away. Instead you ask in a Slack, get a slow churn of
| reponse, nothing helpful enough, so you then schedule an actual
| short meeting with someone else to walk you over it, etc. And
| this support doesn't naturally distribute like it would at the
| office, it seems it's always the same more senior person
| remotely who has to now help new members in these more formal
| ways.
|
| I've also seen so much more just confusion around like, what to
| do, who's doing what, when to do it, etc. Getting everyone
| aligned and in-sync is much harder. And that adds a lot of
| overhead and creates a lot more churn I feel to projects.
|
| On the flip side, when you have a clear task to do and you know
| what needs to be done and it doesn't depend on others, you can
| really crush through it. And you save a lot of time from
| commute, launches are faster, etc.
|
| I've also found, appart from Covid, remote work is pretty nice
| in terms of work/life balance. You can make laundry while you
| work for example, saving you time in your day.
|
| So I'm still a bit mixed feelings about WFH, I like some aspect
| of it, mostly no commute, convenience of being at home so I can
| easily cook my launches at launch time, do some laundry or have
| the oven repair person show up and manage them while I work and
| all that. But I also feel doing the actual day to day work is
| harder, the coordination overhead is pretty high, and everyone
| is more siloed, so anything that involves collaboration has
| more friction.
| Guest42 wrote:
| For me, I think it depends on the office layout/vibe vs. the
| home layout/vibe. I feel much more productive at home as I
| don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me
| and if a manager stopped by they would often feel compelled to
| say something. Communicating via email is much more deliberate.
| Also, it seems as though the places I've worked have opted to
| silo projects and give them to individuals in a way that
| minimizes collaboration. It's also nice for people that are
| invited to a number of meetings for things that don't directly
| affect them to be able to multi-task at those times.
|
| I also think that being watched produces a certain level of
| anxiety that is counter-productive.
| epr wrote:
| > I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to
| listen to all the conversations surrounding me
|
| I know this isn't a problem for most people, but this is such
| a huge issue for me. If you are talking in my vicinity, my
| brain locks on to your speech and prevents me from thinking
| about anything else. Unless I am listening to someone else
| speaking that is closer to me / louder there is no way to
| mentally block this out. If I'm trying to program and someone
| is talking near me, my productivity drops by maybe 80%. I
| either put on noise cancelling headphones, ask people to talk
| elsewhere (which irritates people who don't understand), or
| get nothing done.
| Guest42 wrote:
| Exactly, it makes it particularly difficult to do something
| new that requires creativity or intense thought.
| tra3 wrote:
| I dont think you're alone in this at all, as evidenced by
| the prevalence of headphones in open plan areas.
| orzig wrote:
| Yes, and I think that so many internet conversations would
| benefit from an explicit reminder that "People are
| different", and "Groups of people (teams) are even more
| different", so we should bear in mind that any average has a
| wide standard deviation, likely spanning the positive and
| negative domains
| [deleted]
| superflit wrote:
| Sorry.
|
| *We* are not going back.
|
| Not going back to long commutes. Open office plans and office
| politics.
|
| Not going back to cheap lunch in a plastic/cardboard box that
| costs a lot.
|
| Not going back to paying high rent in bad cities without any
| quality.
|
| Not going back to frivolous meeting.
|
| Now after almost 2 years we have proved that yes the company
| can be run remotely, several things that were "not possible"
| are and the ultimate thing:
|
| We can choose where we want to live and with whom.
|
| We are not going back as same we are not going back to cable
| anymore.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| You think you are not...
| krapp wrote:
| You're not going to have a say in the matter, and I think
| you're going to be surprised at how many companies consider
| WFH to have been an unavoidable aberration from a status quo
| they intend to return to as quickly as possible.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Workers not having a say regarding working conditions?
| Sounds like a recipe for poor morale and productivity.
| hawaiianbrah wrote:
| Office politics exist regardless
| tolbish wrote:
| Two years? Did I miss something?
| closeparen wrote:
| Not going back to paying developed-country wages.
| charlesu wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I'm in no way concerned about remote
| work depressing wages. Competition has always been global.
| [deleted]
| bluepizza wrote:
| Which started happening some 15 years ago when outsourcing
| development to India started getting traction.
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| I want the option, because one day my mind might change if I
| have a family, but right now I absolutely hate WFH as a new-
| grad. I feel like I've learned almost nothing since March (or
| if I have, it's taken way too long).
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I've never been more productive at work than during this
| pandemic. I don't want to be surrounded by an audio maelstrom
| thanks to open office (who actually thought this was a good
| idea?)
|
| Coworkers and bosses ambling over to my desk for a "quick"
| interruption? Meetings that only make the meeting makers feel
| like they've accomplished something? No thanks.
|
| I create a space of discipline at home _with_ discipline. If
| the only thing keeping you from indulging in whatever
| Clubhouse-flavor-of-the-week distraction is the enforcement of
| order from above, you need to take a strong look at what is
| motivating you to work your job in the first place. I
| specifically exempt parents: my condolences for the chaos that
| must be to your peace.
|
| We need to stop treating employees like automatons to be filled
| by the directives of middle management and start trusting them
| to produce.
| anticristi wrote:
| > I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a
| pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a
| productive state of mind
|
| Not to mention the constant "we lock / we don't lock", "kids go
| to school / kids don't go to school".
| jahewson wrote:
| Funny I just said last week to my wife that I doubt I'd ever go
| back to a yoga studio and probably not a gym. It's just so much
| more convenient and comfortable to do these things at home.
| Especially with kids around.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| To each their own, but I'd point out that a huge reason
| people go to gyms/studios to work out is for the social and
| structured aspect of it, and there is a ton of evidence that
| working out with others or gym partners leads to much more
| consistent progress, statistically speaking. That is a big
| reason all of the recent Peloton and Peloton-esque programs
| fundamentally include a group social aspect.
|
| I've always had the ability to work out from home, and during
| the pandemic I've pretty much had to, but I greatly prefer
| going to the gym. I'm really not social at all, but I just
| feel like I can get much more "in the zone" at a gym than my
| house.
| reader_mode wrote:
| If you have the luxury of space to load up a rack and some
| dumbbells - but it doesn't sound realistic for most people.
| Plus gyms are everywhere these days - it's easy to slide them
| into work commute so you don't have the time overhead of
| going there/back.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The reason to go to the gym is because my kids are not there.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I love my daughter, and did just as much when she was a
| youngster, but I think many dedicated spaces are a benefit
| because they allow for greater focus, because the kids (or
| spouse or parent or...) are not there. I have seen no data
| on it, but I have the impression that experienced workers
| with no dependents do better in a WFH environment, than
| either new hires or people with family at home.
| bulek wrote:
| Depends what you're going to the gym for. If it's just to
| lift weights, sure, reasonable safety precautions and you're
| good to go at home. If you're into martial arts, gyms are a
| hard requirement.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded
| by other people engaged in related work
|
| I don't think that first part ("dedicated space for work") is
| so significant.
|
| In my experience working remotely answering bug bounty reports,
| what most helped with working was the presence of a chat
| channel containing the rest of the team. It was used, in part,
| to discuss or ask for help with difficult reports, but
| primarily for making fun of stupid reports. (One of my
| favorites in this category being "If I zoom in too far on your
| mobile app, the text starts to become blurry.")
|
| That might not sound especially productive, but you can't do it
| if you're not looking at the reports. You could view the
| channel more abstractly as providing irregular notifications of
| the form "I just did some work" -- participating requires you
| to do some work, and that helps you keep working.
| lupire wrote:
| Why is it stupid? Vector fonts should render smoothly at all
| scales.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It might legitimately be a bug in the app, if you're on the
| UI team. It's stupid because it was reported to the
| security team, and it has no security implications
| whatever. Nobody pays UI bounties.
| yunohn wrote:
| Well, did you forward it to the UI team...?
| astrange wrote:
| Maybe you should pay UI bounties. You're certainly losing
| money if customers leave because your app sucks.
| jrockway wrote:
| Users are going to use whatever mechanism to provide
| feedback that they find first. They don't know what's a
| security issue, what's a bug, what's a sales request, and
| what's a support request. All I can say is that I hope
| whatever system you use for collecting security reports
| is shared by those other teams, and you just change the
| "security" tag to "ui" and move on. Because if you don't
| do that, you know whoever is reading that "ui bug" queue
| also has a slack channel where they make fun of people
| filing security reports as ui bugs, and then proceed to
| drop them on the floor.
|
| Always be careful about shipping your org chart.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-
| pandemic times.
|
| I tend to think this is likely true. I also tend to think that
| WFH productivity is improving as people adjust to it. A lot of
| people who found themselves suddenly WFH had to setup a
| workspace, buy a decent chair,desk, etc. There were also mental
| adjustments. Now people are pretty used to it and it's become
| the new normal. Going back to an office (if we do that) is also
| going to mean a performance hit as well because people will
| have to adjust to that change. Any kind of major change is
| going to lead to a performance hit for a period of time as
| people adjust to it.
| jiofih wrote:
| > from the employer's viewpoint
|
| This being purely subjective, and especially based on employers'
| assessments only, discredits the entire study. And on top of
| that, these are not normal conditions - people are obviously
| under way more pressure and in fragile states due to the
| pandemic.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Agreed, subjective studies like this are worse than useless,
| because they're destined to just reflect the inherent biases of
| the respondents.
|
| IIRC Google did have some objective data that purely looked at
| average commit rates and lines of code before and after working
| from home, and they saw a significant decrease in productivity
| during WFH (again, to your point, this was pretty early on in
| the pandemic and tons of people were dealing with childcare
| issues, etc.)
|
| I remember people commenting "oh, lines of code, ha ha, you
| can't use that to measure productivity", and while that may be
| true for comparing individuals and groups, across a very large
| sample size over time (i.e. all Google developers), this is
| actually an excellent objective metric to gauge productivity.
| tpmx wrote:
| It's kind of weird that they included manufacturing and retail in
| the mix.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| At least they split it out and show different productivity for
| different fields.
| ipatec wrote:
| I don't believe Japan is a good example. Having worked for a
| Japanese company for about 4.5 years I was really wondering how
| they handle the WFH. Japanese companies are very hierarchical and
| permanent reviews and monitoring are required in order to reach a
| decision. I can see WFH not being as efficient as office
| presence.
| manmal wrote:
| Off-topic, maybe you have an answer to this: How do the
| Japanese work so much? I read that they have naps in the
| office, but still - I think I would burn out super quick.
| tpmx wrote:
| No direct experience with working in Japan, but in Taiwan
| people rested their heads on a pillow on the work desk to nap
| for an hour after lunch. So essentially shifting some of the
| sleep time at home towards sleep time at work.
|
| Never quite understood the thinking behind that. My hunch is
| that I'm not understanding "face" properly.
| manmal wrote:
| That's what I was referring to, yes. I heard of a situation
| during a merger where the Japanese delegation took turns
| sleeping, while the other delegation was up all day. As a
| consequence, the Japanese delegation got their way because
| they had more stamina.
| brigandish wrote:
| Sleeping at work is sometimes allowed because it's
| accepted there is such a chronic lack of sleep generally.
| If they were taking turns sleeping it means they probably
| already were overworked and needed a nap. The story
| sounds like "history is written by the victors" or just
| more fetishing of Japan.
| tasogare wrote:
| No this is different. Lot of Taiwanese companies have the
| after-lunch rest (source: Taiwanese friends). I never
| heard as such for Japanese companies.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > How do the Japanese work so much?
|
| Simple answer, they don't.
|
| They spend a lot of time at work looking busy, but they don't
| actually do that much actual work. For me (a lazy Frenchman),
| Americans are the hardest working people I know in terms of
| actual productive work.
| [deleted]
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Blind guess: they actually are permanently in a state of
| pseudo burn-out and combat it through various means, a less
| individualistic mentality and gradually drop their ambition
| to prevent it from increasing. Also, just in general going at
| a really slow pace to stay sane.
| brigandish wrote:
| It's not productive "work", it's desk warming because it's
| just as important (if not more) to _show_ you 're working
| than do work. Japan is horribly unproductive[1]:
|
| > Japan ranks twenty-first for labor productivity among the
| 36 nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
| Development, according to the Japan Productivity Center's
| International Comparison of Labor Productivity report. Based
| on OECD data, the report found that Japan's per-hour labor
| productivity in 2018 was $46.8 (equivalent in purchasing
| power to Y=4,744); this is less than half the $102.3 level in
| Ireland and roughly 60% the $74.7 level in the United States.
| The government has raised "work-style reform" as a key task
| and aimed to lift productivity, but Japan has continued to be
| dead last among Group of Seven nations since 1970, when
| survey records were first available.
|
| Once I realised that the culture is based on far more on
| appearance than truth, so many things made sense that hadn't
| before.
|
| [1] https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-
| data/h00619/japan%E2%80%99s-...
| tpmx wrote:
| Yeah, I think many are aware that Japan has a pretty special
| work culture, especially when it comes to the importance of
| butts-in-seats.
| bluepizza wrote:
| Every time any subject contains "Japan", it always devolves
| into cultural explanations. There are plenty cultures around
| the planet that are hierarchical, consensus based, or both.
|
| It's baffling to me that Japan is always singled out in these
| situations. If the same news was about any of our neighbours
| (South Korea, China, Taiwan) the amount of cultural
| explanations would be much smaller, and the discussion would be
| much more focused on the fundamental principles of the problem.
|
| I understand that we are guilty of furthering this sort of
| discussion, but it is really frustrating to me.
| uranusjr wrote:
| I live in Taiwan. News from Japan usually needs accompanying
| cultural explanations even here. People from Taiwan, China,
| and South Korea have difficulties understanding the situation
| even we're lifelong neighbours. Yes, Japan is that freaking
| unique.
| tasogare wrote:
| Any link to an article that would illustrate that? I've
| been in Taiwan a bunch of times, live in Japan and on the
| contrary Japan, while having a good image there, is not a
| single-outed as it is in the West. The cultural gap between
| Taiwan and Japan is infinitely smaller than between Japan
| and more remote places. Taiwan was even part of Japan at
| some point, so while only the most elderly lived it, I
| really doubt cultural explanations are needed as you claim
| they are.
| walshemj wrote:
| And I suspect the tiny nature of most Japanese homes where its
| very unlikely you will have a spare separate room.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Factors affecting adoption and productivity of WFH:
|
| > "The requirements by rules and regulations that some tasks must
| be conducted in the office": 57.7% (part of a multiple answers
| question)
| lmilcin wrote:
| My subjective data is that overall productivity as measured by
| output has roughly stayed at the same level, but this is only
| because people I work with are now more available after hours and
| are more likely to work long hours.
|
| I expect then productivity to fall when people start feeling
| burnout. I also feel new joiners don't get nearly enough
| attention and their productivity is impaired from the start.
| People who have worked for couple of years are getting more time
| for their tasks only because they have easier time fending off
| distractions -- but tasks behind those distractions don't
| necessarily go away and probably amass in some kind of technical
| / organizational debt due to less casual communication.
| jeeeb wrote:
| One thing I think is worth considering is the effect of living
| spaces on WFH enjoyment/productivity.
|
| There's a lot less living space in the typical Japanese
| house/apartment compared to the much of the west. A lot of the
| apartments young people live in in the cities are little more
| than bedrooms with a kitchen area and unit bathroom attached,
| often with poor natural lighting to boot. That wouldn't be a
| pleasant space to work months on end in.
|
| I lived for a number of years in a "2DK" (2x rooms +
| dining/kitchen) apartment in Tokyo. While a reasonable size by
| Tokyo standards, frankly it was small and cramped. I can't
| imagine really enjoying WFH there.
|
| Comparatively, I now live in Australia in a house with about 4x
| the floor area of that apartment. WFH here is great - I can start
| the day at the dining table while eating breakfast, move to my
| study during the day and then when I feel like a change I can
| move to the couch in the afternoon. I could even sit in the
| garden if I wanted. It's a great environment for focusing on a
| particular task.
|
| We're doing 3 days in the office currently and I'm pushing to
| maintain that - office for collaboration and team building, home
| for focusing.
|
| In Japan in comparison the current discussion seems to be about
| more people moving to the regions. That helps solve the living
| space problem but makes in office collaboration harder. It will
| be interesting to see if the trend sticks.
| eivarv wrote:
| Somewhat weird. From my own experience during the pandemic (two
| organizations, from lead to manager), productivity has been
| higher than ever.
|
| I kinda suspected this, as I'd been doing certain work from home
| earlier - but I was always surprised to hear leadership exclaim
| their fears about WFH, and their suspicions of both efficiency
| and productivity.
|
| The worst part is, though, that many are vying for a swift return
| to a traditional colocated work-place - even though they agree
| that the current situation works fine (pandemic, and its
| specifics aside). I've even heard some say it's different to
| actually be able to pop up and peek over their employees
| shoulders, to see "what they're actually doing", even in cases
| things are going better than planned already...
| itronitron wrote:
| I think a lot of managers measure their own performance by how
| many faces they have spoken with over the course of the day.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I was working from home two days a week at one company, and my
| immediate manager pressed me to reduce it to one day. I
| mentioned that he'd lose an hour and a half of my productivity
| to the commute, and he just nodded.
|
| Rarely saw him in the office. He wanted the concept of me being
| there.
| eivarv wrote:
| Jibes with my own experience.
|
| It infuriates me to no end that (bad) leaders would rather go
| by their own _feeling of_ control, rather than look at the
| numbers.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| This is Japan, very different work culture compared to the
| western world.
| rvba wrote:
| > This column uses survey data from Japan
|
| Survey data is completely unreliable.
|
| Lots of companies never reply, since they wont even trust if
| their own data will not be used against them. Those who reply can
| have an agenda.
| atleta wrote:
| I expected it to be a usual "WFH improves efficiency" (without
| much data) piece, so I'm surprised.
|
| Working from home is different, definitely has its own issues
| those need to be solved and may not work for all
| teams/companies/roles and/or all the time. But what occurred to
| me after actually reading the article is that if WFH is what a
| lot of people want, it might one of the ways we'll handle the
| fact that due to increased general productivity a lot of jobs
| won't have to be 40 hours/week. (Actually, as far as I'm aware,
| it's already around 35 hours on average in Germany.) So instead
| of cutting back to 30, you might be able choose to work (mostly)
| from home at a 70%-ish efficiency.
|
| (Disclaimer: I've spent most of the past 10+ years working
| remotely. Mostly from home, sometimes from coworking places. Now
| those were fun _and_ a productivity killer for sure.)
| nostromo wrote:
| I'd like to see more follow on research in normal times.
|
| Right now, travel is difficult, restaurants are closed, events
| are nonexistent, etc., etc.
|
| So, yes, people may mostly be working ok (if not great) at home
| -- but I wonder if that will be the same when the outside world
| isn't so dire and boring.
| s0rce wrote:
| This has a big impact for me. I'll go on some hikes on the
| local trails but other than that I'm not doing much. No longer
| trips, no seeing friends, not going out to eat, no travel, etc.
| My job is pretty interesting and I can work on various longer
| term interesting projects so I'll do that if I feel like it
| while I otherwise might have done non-work stuff.
| anotherevan wrote:
| "You are not working from home; you are at your home during a
| crisis trying to work."
| isaacgreyed wrote:
| Does anyone know anything about japenese office culture that
| might be relevant to this? Maybe part of the SV culture like open
| offices makes this a whole different deal then how japan is.
| astrange wrote:
| Open offices and micromanagement are the default in Japan, we
| didn't invent them. It's actually a lot worse there because the
| culture is much more intense and yet the pay is low.
| sologoub wrote:
| Looks like we are comparing productivity of well established
| routines, child care, lower overall stress and uncertainty, with
| the pandemic induced disruption, loss of childcare and many other
| social services, isolation, inability to optimize working
| conditions and so on. Any surprises that NOT being under constant
| threat of death, and for parents having to juggle childcare as
| well, is a lot more productive?
| asperous wrote:
| Employers generally do not have clear quantitive measures of
| employee performance [1]. With that in mind this informal survey
| is more likely gauging management's _perception_ of work
| performance... also during a highly unusual time.
|
| I'm not sure this survey can really speak to WFH. We need higher
| quality evidence than this.
|
| [1] Woods and West, The psychology of work and organizations,
| 2020
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| I'll hold on to accepting WFH articles as valid when there
| isn't a pandemic around and lock downs all over the world.
| monkeydust wrote:
| 3 days office. 2 days home.
|
| That's what most people want where I work.
| wott wrote:
| I really don't like this kind of in-between.
|
| * You're still stuck having to live near your work place
| (unless you are one of the few people who enjoy extra-long
| commutes).
|
| * You need to have your stuff in two places, or move it several
| time a week (if you need or like to have stuff).
|
| * It is a mess to coordinate, to know who's going to be there
| or not; if you hoped to meet Person A and Person B in the same
| stay; and so on.
|
| * Remote becomes second class citizen. A remote situation which
| isn't thought as remote-first organisation is a pain. Too much
| information circulates off-band. Decision are taken without
| people which were remote that day. You basically just wait for
| people to come physically to get things done. Remote becomes
| some sort of bastardised day off.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| This is the best of both worlds I think. I've always allowed
| employees to work their own hours as long as we tend to a core
| of 10-2. Some had 4 day work weeks, and worked in the office,
| many others would do one day in, one day out or some other
| combination. I find it makes it easier for people to co-
| ordinate normal life tasks like going to the bank etc. as well
| as work around all those things that pop up.
|
| We're definitely going to see more hybridization and I think
| now that the number crunchers realize they can save on physical
| space (we cut down our 5 offices to only one still active), the
| savings will far outweigh the losses on paper.
|
| I do think there is value in understanding nuance with an in
| person conversation though so i'm not sure 100% WF is the best
| long term plan.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I have done that before, and it worked well. Not completely
| without downsides, but definitely the best of both worlds (for
| programmers, anyway).
| ipaddr wrote:
| It sounds good but you don't have a decicated workspace as
| everyone rotates pods and you lose the face to face advantage
| because no one is there on on the same days because there are
| not enough seats / pods. Everyone ends up coming in for
| townhall type meetings and there are not enough workspaces.
| cobalt wrote:
| depends on where you work. my last job did that (~20
| engineers) and everyone had a dedicated desk
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Somewhat ironically I'm actually _more_ collaborative w / WFH
| because in the office there was no way to have a quick
| unscheduled conversation with someone. Meeting spaces were always
| occupied and talking at the crammed together desks annoys
| everyone. Even ignoring the commuting, health, or 'quiet space is
| good for productivity' arguments, contention for quiet meeting
| space is the fatal scalability flaw with open offices.
| lgunsch wrote:
| My own experience working from home probably follows this. I've
| gone back to work now, but I spent 6 months working at home. At
| the end it took me 12 hours of time to make up an 8 hour work
| day. It was just not sustainable for me.
| asciimov wrote:
| My partner has had the opposite experience. They can typically
| knock out their work in 4-5 hours. Also, they have gained back
| a total commute time of ~2.5 hrs per day. That's like 24 extra
| days they've gotten back this past year in commute alone (24
| DAYS!).
|
| Granted they are privileged enough to have their own home
| office, with a door and are able to play music without
| headphones, and have no kids. As opposed to the office, which
| is in a cube farm.
| astrange wrote:
| If you're living with someone and had a long commute you're
| in a more ideal situation for WFH. (I mean, if you had kids
| it'd probably be even more ideal, not less.)
|
| I live alone and practically next to my office, so while
| there's still advantages it mainly means I have to do chores
| more often and cook a lot more.
| toptal wrote:
| This research paper from Harvard concludes the exact opposite and
| is much better researched:
|
| https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Work%20from%20An...
|
| I'm sure the culture, infrastructure, and other variables as they
| relate to a company have an ability to greatly change the
| outcome.
| maxrev17 wrote:
| I don't think you can generalise. In an open plan office with
| tonnes of pointless meetings, and only able to help one person at
| a time with queries (as a tech lead), I've found working from
| home enabled me to be far more productive. I guess company
| culture, your role etc. All play a part.
| astrange wrote:
| Note Japanese companies typically use the worst possible open-
| office layout, where everyone sits in a row next to their
| manager and competes to be the last to leave the office so they
| won't look lazy.
| brigandish wrote:
| > "Some tasks cannot be conducted at home although these are not
| required by the rules and regulations"
|
| Anyone know where the Hanko stamp is?
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