That said, not every role, in every situation, needs in person interaction. It’s even reasonable to argue not every day needs in person interaction.
- no commute
- being at home with the people you love and miss
- not getting distracted by office drama
- simplified work/life integration
As a company we're using WFH as a selling point for engineers - they love it.
- Harder to join team for new members
- Harder to learn field for novices
- Lack of unit cohesion through informal interactions
- Lack of access to equipment and tools necessary to complete job effectively
- Lower social interaction
- Risk of underworking
- Risk of overworking
- Unending distractions
The list goes on...
The interactions that take place when humans are next to one another is irreplaceable by current technology. Actual bandwidth to exchange ideas is lower.
I know this is going to bring a lot of bitter downvotes, and I accept that, but the reality is WFH failed as a universal, "Everyone can do this." idea. The upsides are all for the employees, and the downsides are all shouldered by the employer, the one with the money, the one who creates and justifies the job, so it is ending for most. Not everyone! But most.
Specific to your team, I do think it can work remotely, and have run remote engineering teams. But (and this is a big but) it requires a specific personality for everyone on the team, and you must do a lot to make up for the loss of in person interactions, and I can totally understand orgs who either a) don't think they have teams with the right dispositions to handle it or b) don't think they'll be able to successfully execute on all of the many extra work involved in recreating some of the missing aspects of WFH teams.
Do you have conflicts? If so, how do they get resolved? Maybe it all works, but if any real problem shows up, I've found creating safety is a lot more difficult remotely. WFH can breed all of the nasty "snake pit" attitudes and behaviors a lot more easily when everyone (or even someone) is remote and therefore less interconnected.
The one thing it can't address (unending distractions) is a red herring. Either you've hired an employee that can manage their own time or you haven't. If they can't manage their time while WFH I doubt they would be much better managing their time WFO, either.
I've found it's only bad management (and in some cases, access to exotic/expensive hardware) for WFH to not work for software development.
If you work on a team with no conflict you're lucky, and it won't last forever. That's when WFH shows its downsides.
> WFH can breed all of the nasty "snake pit" attitudes and behaviors a lot more easily when everyone (or even someone) is remote and therefore less interconnected.
That's not how social conflicts arise.
It seems to me that there's no evident connection between the points you list and your - in my opinion - quite premature and unjustified conclusion that "WFH failed".
That’s on the same level as flat eartherism or antivax, so if those are the kinds of positions you want to support, that’s on you.
But after these ad hominem attacks I'm not actually in a mood to discuss this any further with you. If you cannot make a cogent argument and have to descend to such derogatory accusations, I'll rather leave this conversation.
Have fun in the mud.
No, I don't. Like I said, if you can't see how those two concepts connect, there's nothing here to discuss.
Also for anything I wrote to be an ad hominem, I would have needed to call you a name and also claim that, because you are that name, you are therefore wrong. I did neither, so no ad hominem occurred. There is nothing here for you to be sick of.
You can feel vaguely insulted all you want, but that's got nothing to do with what I wrote.
You sound upset that your points aren’t being acknowledged, but you’re not presenting them clearly and you’re incredibly defensive when responding to feedback
You can feel vaguely insulted all you want, but that’s got nothing to do with what I wrote
Maybe take that rate limit a bit more seriously, consider why it was applied...
WFH was thrust on a good portion of the world by necessity. It was cobbled together at the last minute so that business could continue, with the typical amount of investment and diligence of a profit-driven entity fully expecting a return to the status quo. To frame WFH over the last 3 years as some deliberate experiment where learnings were sought (and found) is just plain ridiculous.
At best, you can argue that particular roles are best performed, or can only be performed, in an office environment, and that some people prefer the more social environment of an office. Any remark on WFH otherwise is just an anecdote that you're attempting and failing to pass off as a universal truth about WFH.
Study after study demonstrates in person interaction is superior to remote interaction when it comes to rapport, bonding, emotional safety, and every other critical aspect necessary for building and maintaining a team.
The people who think WFH is fine are the people who aren’t responsible for keeping a team functioning, and the people who are demanding a return to work are. There’s a reason for that, and no it’s not because they’re evil or out to get you.
I think this bullet point belongs under cons of working in the office. I have FAR less distractions working from home.
But in person teams are way more effective IMO. I think an example is that (at least in my experience) with colocated teams if you have a problem to work through, you generally keep finding time to work through it until you solve it. With remote teams, it's really easy to become a slave to your calendar: "our one hour is up, maybe let's schedule some time for next week to discuss again". I'm not saying this is a trap that everyone is guaranteed to fall into, but I _do_ think that it's a case where there are a bunch of behavioral nudges that make collaborative work much more natural in person. In a lot of cases, that's very valuable!
This blanket statement is not compelling on its own. In theory or in practice, it would need to be demonstrated that any of these soft assertions are true.