My favorite quote:
While employees in the office might kill time messaging friends or flipping through TikTok, remote workers take advantage of being far from the watchful gaze of bosses to chip away at personal to-do lists or to goof off.
Nearly half of remote workers multitask on work calls or complete household chores like unloading the dishwasher or doing a load of laundry, according to the SurveyMonkey poll of 3,117 full-time workers in the U.S.
Oh noes, people actually doing things that are useful for their families instead of even more computer time.
It’s insane that this is even considered strange or surprising. When I work from home, I take longer lunch breaks and I often stop working earlier, but I’m still three times as productive compared to sitting in an office.
At home, I actually get focused time to do something and think. At the office, this is extreamly difficult with all the distractions and noise constantly interrupting my train of thought.
It also comes from the fact that many jobs, and many more historically, are/were, in fact, paying you for your time. If you’re fortunate enough to work in a job that doesn’t care how much of your time is “company time,” and you can work 5 hours a week to get everything expected of you done, that’s great, but I would be quiet about it.
Any manager I’ve met would likely make a decision to give you 8x the amount expected of you each week, if that’s your situation. That would indicate to me that we can find find someone less skilled that will take longer to complete objectives but we can pay significantly less, or we’re not getting as much out of you as we’re paying for.
Most people don’t have the luxury you’re describing, so I would hold on to that job situation!
Ok, first there are no jobs like this. Or, to be more precise, there are jobs like this but they are few and far between and are always in offices where you can make it look like it’s taking a lot of time to get your work done while basically goofing off. And generally speaking they’re hourly paid.
Salaried jobs, on the other hand, have a pretty rigorous work load. They don’t hire people for a salary position without knowing how much work it takes to get the job done. So whether you are sitting in an office or sitting at your desk at home, the same amount of actual work is required. The only difference is that you don’t waste hours getting dressed up and commuting to your job. This is why work from home arrangements tend to be far more efficient for both the worker and the company.
The reason these CEOs and managers are trying to force everyone back into offices is to justify their own egos and jobs. There is literally a ton of evidence that work from home jobs are way more productive than work from office jobs. But these egotistical douchebags don’t care. They need to see people slaving away at a desk and to be seen walking through their expensive office buildings in order to feel like they are worthwhile.
I think your argument overlooks some important factors. First, it might not be the case you’re maximizing productivity for the company when, by your own admission, you’re regularly taking longer lunches and ending work early. Research shows that while remote work can increase productivity by 10-20% for some people, other research shows a decline in productivity. Additionally a recent study from Harvard indicated the productivity increase is less about daily productivity but rather that there are less sick days being taken because they can WFH and turnover decreases because people don’t want to leave for a better job (or get fired for taking sick days while WFH) without WFH benefits, which can also stagnate wages. And your stated dramatic threefold increase in efficiency seems extremely unlikely.
The idea that you can complete all your work in less hours a week I believe, but not without any trade-offs. Studies show that remote workers are often more productive due to fewer distractions and no commute, but employers expect that time saved to translate into higher output, not shorter workdays. If a manager noticed you had that extra time, I’m just saying they’d likely give you more tasks to fill your work hours more effectively.
So, while remote work might make you more efficient, your argument that productivity offsets a reduction in work hours might not hold up if you get an asshole manager or project director that has good surveillance of your workflow. A manager would see the underused time and adjust your workload accordingly to maximize your productivity, so I’m just saying you might not want to make it obvious to any superiors that they can extract more labor from you. Though, I think that’s generally good advice for any job! Protect your time.
The backlog at my old job was a solid couple of years long. Probably a decade if you included all the non-critical stuff