News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Return to office is 'dead,' Stanford economist says. Parent comment

Re:Return to office is 'dead,' Stanford economist says by headcanon on Friday December 01, 2023 @11:46AM (#38488839)
That aligns with my (admittedly anecdotal) views as well. I wonder if thats part of why so many managers and leaders feel lost without in-office culture. Most organizations are not good at that kind of explicit communication and organization, and remote work magnifies those flaws. So instead of trying to reduce ambiguity and improve the process accordingly, they instead just wish people could come back to the office and absorb that inefficiency.

And I'm just talking here about dysfunctional organizations, there are plenty of valid reasons for a functional organization to need in-office culture if they need to work through "legitimate" ambiguity (like designing a new technology or product).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Return to office is 'dead,' Stanford economist says by bluGill on Friday December 01, 2023 @02:38PM (#38491198)
Explicit communication is harder as you don't get feedback about what people don't understand. A conversation means you see the blank look on the other's face and know to slow down, or see they got it already so you can go faster. Without that feedback you have to carefully go into extreme detail about everything because you can't be sure the other understood any other way and that is a lot more effort - most of that effort is wasted because the other would get it with much less, if only you knew that.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Return to office is 'dead,' Stanford economist says by headcanon on Monday December 04, 2023 @03:12PM (#38522432)
I have noticed that in my remote-first organization, we've started being much more explicit in all of our communication, written _and_ verbal. This does add a lot of overhead to each of our conversations and I sometimes get impatient, but I suppose it does help overall.
[ Parent | on HN ]