I have worked 100% remote for 3 years and love it.
On the quantitative side of things, remote workers are much less likely to have commute time to and from work, leaving an extra ~1 hour a day (assuming 30 min commute from home to being in office chair ready to work) being available. Assuming those numbers, thats an extra 5 hours per employee per week. Again, assuming that multiplied by 50 weeks, thats 250 additional hours per employee per year. No small sum which could lead to a sizable productivity advantage.
This is assuming that the employee would devote that extra hour a day to the company of course. By my point is that onsite employees would not even have that hour available since it is eaten up by transit time.
For worker value the important input isn't time, its focus. Does an extra hour on personal life, rather than commute create an extra of hour of focused, innovate, high productivity work? Answer depends on the person.
I've run a remote team for not quite a decade, but close. I've run an office. I have a lot of friends that work remotely, besides my own developers. There are big pros and cons to both. For an information worker there are huge health downsides to being inside at home all day, even with a full family around.
My conclusion based on these experiences is having both a physically active and healthy social life is what matters. Both working at an office or remotely from home can make these better or worse, dependent on the person and who they work for.
> For an information worker there are huge health downsides to being inside at home all day, even with a full family around.
This statement strikes me as odd. I can't really figure out what health downsides do you have in mind. Can you elaborate?
I would argue the opposite. Being an information worker in an office environment is deleterious to one's health. Humans are not designed to sit around in poorly ventilated rooms for a larger part of the day(light), where the only recourse from the unpleasantness of the situation is a fridge stocked with free sweetstuffs and soda. I've been there, eaten the Snickers, and am much happier now that I'm working from home, where I am able to take a short walk around the neighborhood, do a couple of yoga asanas or other exercise or even take a short nap almost anytime I want. There's also the fact that I can eat healthy food as per my liking, and not just one that is available in the cafeteria or nearby restaurants.
I am aware of the research and the reality of how important it is to not be alone all the time, but you really don't need the daily office-going grind to protect yourself from those particular dangers. In fact, at the end of my workday, I am eager to go out and socialize, whereas in my office-worker days, all I could think of was going home, cracking open a cold beer to decompress, and hoping that I don't have to talk to anyone for the rest of the day (not likely with family around).
I agree with you but still see it as a net positive for the employer, even if none of those hours are spent on work. Perhaps it's a stretch, but I think that 250 hours of potentially stressful commute time being allotted to more fulfilling activities will result in a better employee (albeit only incrementally perhaps).
Yes, I'd also add that when you work without commuting, the time you start work is likely also the time you start working. Whereas if you have a long and possibly stressful journey, you might have a bit of warmup time before you are ready to start working.
Totally agree, and that's the point I would have made, vs. one where the employer benefits by having me work from the time gained by not having transit. That's why I found it odd.
And what is the correlation between happiness and 'productiveness', or more to the point, profit? Ibankers and junior associates at white shoe firms are overwhelmingly miserable, and still a) people line up for their jobs; and b) they make their firms a multiple of most other jobs (maybe with software being an exception, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that tech companies are successful just because they have great engineers).
Correlation isn't causation in either direction in this case. Among the many reasons for long hours for finance, productivity and profit are quite low on the list. "Face time" is a phrase for a reason.
For those of us who only drive out of necessity, it's effectively six weeks of vacation that the employer doesn't need to foot the bill for. I suppose people who enjoyed commuting would not view it that way.
I suppose it would depend on who he's trying to sell this to ;) workers are more inclined to like the version you present while employers would be more inclined to like his version.
Also, consider the fact that hiring pool increases many folds once you allow remote work. So a company will be able to find better people at lower costs.
On the quantitative side of things, remote workers are much less likely to have commute time to and from work, leaving an extra ~1 hour a day (assuming 30 min commute from home to being in office chair ready to work) being available. Assuming those numbers, thats an extra 5 hours per employee per week. Again, assuming that multiplied by 50 weeks, thats 250 additional hours per employee per year. No small sum which could lead to a sizable productivity advantage.
This is assuming that the employee would devote that extra hour a day to the company of course. By my point is that onsite employees would not even have that hour available since it is eaten up by transit time.