We hear a lot of backlash when prominent CEOs call for a return to office work culture, but I'm curious if others may feel opposite of the public sentiment?
I support the option for people to work remotely within an org if their roles and responsibilities can be performed asynchronously, but my personal preference has always been to operate in-office. That was taken away from me as a result of the pandemic as my company ended up shuttering the local office.
After spending these last 3 years working 100% remotely, I find myself with a renewed desire for a hybrid working environment. It's not an option with my current company, but I can't deny that it's what I think is best for my career progression. I'm far more effective with some in-person collaboration on a regular cadence. Do you share similar sentiment, or do you find yourself freed by remote work?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below ⬇️
Top comments (39)
We just had an in-person team retreat. Not everyone could make it, but it was a real breath of fresh air.
There are things about working remote which are really awesome. There are parts that are really brutal.
I think somehow before the pandemic it was a little easier to be realistic about the good parts and the bad parts, but I think it's become a more religious issue that isn't super realistic about the problems and tradeoffs.
For what it's worth, I partly work from a co-working space which is really good for breaking the monotony, though not a full replacement over the positives of actual side-by-side collaboration.
Before the pandemic, the people doing remote understood they had to learn it, that they had to explain it, they had to find ways to compensate the bad aspects.
This all got thrown away with COVID because
Hopefully after those thesis and anti-thesis, we will slowly move to the synthesis that it's all about choice
Not at all.
Personally, I see no drawbacks with working remotely, and plenty with working in an office or hybrid.
But everyone's different, and some people will have a better home-working environment than others. There can be distractions in both. Offices and neighbours both have people putting up shelves with hammer drills from time to time, and both can have problems where the Internet connection drops out. Offices can have canteens and fire drills, homes can have a private kitchen and a dog you have to walk.
I accept that some people need to be around others, whether to explain things face to face rather than over a screen, to enjoy a chat over coffee or for the pure pheromones of it, but I don't understand them on an emotional level.
We shouldn't penalise people for wanting social interaction, we should help them.
I think the idea of companies paying for shared environments or whatever is fair enough. We should support people who have had difficulties working remotely but we should look on it as a combination of practicality, environmentalism and accessibility.
We should understand that offices can be expensive but can also cut costs by sharing resources.
We should try to cut down on energy costs and unnecessary pollution by encouraging people not to use cars to commute. That can be working remotely but it can also be using a cycle-to-work scheme.
Above all, we should try to make the work environment as inclusive as possible, and that includes providing both remote support and shared spaces for people who have difficulty working alone.
Not really.
Going remote was the best thing I did. I did it in 2014, and would never go back.
The whole pandemic didn't even bother me from a career perspective.
Time zones are a bit of an issue, but if you work with people who prefer remote work, they're usually more invested in good communication and mindful of keeping synchronized meetings (i.e., calls) down to a minimum.
For me, going to the office would only lead to additional overhead, and while I liked my co-workers, I wouldn't call them my friends or something. So, staying at home, saving a few hours a week on commute, could be nicely reinvested into my private life.
But I understand it, some people don't have much going on besides their work and are good friends with their co-workers, if that's suddenly gone, they fall it a hole.
I love reading all these different perspectives on it, and despite all the mixed feelings I have about remote work, I definitely like the new options that have opened up (at least in my bubble) after the pandemic.
Personally, I found it really difficult to be forced into a remote setting as a Junior Dev - I felt like I was missing out on a lot of context and many things that could have been picked up in water cooler conversations, got lot in the void. Even when things went back to somewhat "normal" the hybrid model meant a lot of akward semi on-site video calls and left a feeling of a compromise gone wrong.
I would have never thought that I would actually one day enjoy remote work - but these days I work for a fully remote company and I am still so surprise at what a difference it makes if a company is founded remotely from the start, everybody opts in consciously and makes a real effort to connect.
Humans are hard-wired to desire camaraderie and closeness with others - both as a survival mechanism and as means of growth.
I've felt the same way since going 100% remote. As much as I value being home and having the "freedom" that entails, I also see so many negatives to this new lifestyle - something we don't talk about enough.
I'd noticed my social skills had greatly diminished due to lack of practice with face-to-face communication. I'd also seen my social anxiety skyrocket - especially in and around large groups of people. Even things like being able to read other's body language is much harder to do (likely because it's much more difficult to do over a zoom call or slack thread).
I've had to make a conscious effort to take myself out of my comfort zone and practice spending time around other people. Some things that have helped me are: booking a co-working space a few times a month at least to get out of the home office, being deliberate about scheduling time away from home with friends and others, and plugging into community efforts through church.
Everything is a balancing act in life - finding your balance - your center - is the journey we are all on and something we should not ignore.
I would never go back to commuting and open floor plan offices. But I can see why some people like the office.
The office can be a social outlet, a way to compartmentalize the stress of remote work, and a way to avoid the distractions that home might have. And some people just find it easier to collaborate in person.
Remote work and hybrid are both better than office-only. I think it makes sense for some businesses to allocate money that would have gone toward a lease or building expenses for an additional employee perk: co-working funds.
While also highlighting the value of on-site collaboration and productivity, there is no doubt about how impactful the rise of remote work has been. It’s clear how it has improved productivity and business results and also helped employees have a better work-life balance.
That’s why, rather than rejecting this work model or being completely in its favor during this new adaptation process, we believe it’s important for companies and professionals to consider individual experiences, adapt to changing dynamics, and continually assess and refine approaches to create a supportive and inclusive work environment for all.
My team is geo-diverse, so it kinda makes no sense to pose the question in the first place, BUT some of us reside in the sam city.
This depends on work styles, really. No disrespect, but developers who aren't self going, should group in person. Self going developers should if they want to. A project like Linux wouldn't be possible with people working in an office. But some might like to meet up and fo m a group locally.
So there is no right way. It should be decided on a team by team basis. In my company some teams hardly ever meet, unless to go to a restaurant and hang out. (That is important.)
When work isn't - well working, it's because team leaders or middle management don't know how to manage geo diverse teams. It's not easy. You have to assign tasks and measure on when and how tasks are delivered. Not easy. Nothing I would ever want to do. But my boss, who manages 7 teams manages. We have no team leaders. We self-govern. We have trust and support and a boss who helps us solve problems of resources or politics, when we need it. We don't have to do that. Just focus on doing the best we can with the resources we have.
So it's all about skill and interest. Your team must want (or need) to work remotely AND the skill level of management must match. Only very skilled teams can pull this off, but they will leave your company if they aren't allowed to work how they want.
The important thing here is dialogue. What does the team want and need. What does the company want and need.
Happy grouping and work.
I've been working remotely since 2015 with 2.5 years break in between. And I always had some issues with it. It's not good for work-life balance, at least for me. The communication is also harder and pairing is especially difficult.
Sure, I got used to it and figured out most of the stuff, but I'm definitely not an evangelist of remote working as a cure for all problems. It takes away some problems, it adds different ones. A game of trade-offs, as usual.
But what many people find especially surprising is that I miss commuting (for long time I actually commuted to remote work; mind blowing, I know). It was a pretty cool routine, I always had time to catch up with tech news on my way to work and with "general" news on my way back. Unless I felt like reading some book, then I read a book for about half an hour. I guess people like me really like this kind of routine and it was brutally taken away from us with COVID-19.