Re:Ask HN: Why aren't more UK companies offering WFH friendl...
by CollegeSea9518 on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @03:45AM
(#36968130)
> Yes, some people will be more productive WFH. Some will be less productive.
Agreed. Which is why some office space is good.
> it's clear that you need a big enough office for your entire team for when they do show up
That may be true for small companies - although equally they could all just go to the same shared space. For large companies though, this is not true. A company with 1000 employees could do a poll to understand what's the max office space they might need at any one time and add a buffer on top. Alternatively, they could have policies whereby team A and B shows up on Mondays, team C and E shows up on Tuesdays etc.
Yes, some people will be more productive WFH. Some will be less productive.
While I enjoyed remote work for 15+ years, I've looked for a hybrid environment in 2022: lockdowns really burned me out (it's one thing to be remote and then travel the world for team meetups a few times a year, and another to be remote period).
Now leading a team of people in combination of work setups (WFH, in office, in another office remote), it's clear that you need a big enough office for your entire team for when they do show up, whatever team gets most of their members showing up in the office, starts having WFH members excluded from conversations, decision making and even social events. The solution is mostly to behave as if you are fully remote.
So some of the benefits you list do not really exist: you have to keep paying the office space, yet you also lose the high bandwidth of in person communication even for people sat next to each other (or you start excluding people who are not).
Basically, one could look only for people who need no daily interaction with their colleagues, but that goes exactly against your 2 and 3.