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Comment by rcme | Hacker News Reader

I did mention my experience was anecdotal. This is a debate that can easily be settled with hard data.

https://fortune.com/2023/07/06/remote-workers-less-productiv...

For what it’s worth, I agree with all of your office complaints. Yet, personally, I’m still more productive at the office. I liken this to working out at the gym alone vs. with a personal trainer. Working out alone is like working from home. No one is watching you to keep you accountable. Feeling sleepy? Take a nap! Whereas at work you have to appear productive all the time, similar to how it’s hard to slack off when working out with a trainer. And the easiest way to appear productive is just to be productive.

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Looking at the paper, their "10 to 20%" figure is based off of three studies, one for call center employees, one for Indian data-entry workers, and one for Indian IT professionals. The one closest to most of HN's audience is the IT professionals case, and even in that one they note "measured performance among these workers remained constant while remote." In addition, they only mention how "productivity" is being assessed for the call center case (call volumes), not the other two.

Personally, I wouldn't really call this "hard data." It's also interesting that the same authors previously found the opposite effect -- https://wfhresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Barrero-A...

If you need someone to physically check on you to keep you accountable, you have a problem and should definitely work at the office.

Don't poison the lives of the ethical workers that are productive from home.

I think a lot of it is going to be both the person and their environment. I have a separate office workspace, and have built up a fair bit of compartmentalization at home.

I'm also very frenetic about focusing (or not), so the ability to work for 10min and then be distracted for another 10min is great for me. That might sound like I'm less productive, but ... my work output is higher than my coworkers and is generally completed earlier.

I can realistically see it being a net loss, because I think a lot of workers aren't in tune with how their minds work relative to focusing on a tast, and a structured environment is perfect for dealing with that.

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