I’ve been seeing quite a few articles lately whinging about remote work. I have news for the writers: those office buildings will remain empty. Some claim lower productivity which is disputed. I would be more impressed with the articles if I were sure that the authors weren’t sitting at home writing them. One that I read recently described how much more efficient people moving boxes were when they came back to the office. People moving boxes aren’t working from home. I found the simile puzzling.
To understand why people won’t be returning to their offices any time soon, this article at Forbes by Morgan Smith makes a pretty good primer:
Remote jobs aren’t disappearing — they’re just moving out of expensive coastal metros like New York and San Francisco.
Faced with labor shortages and rising wages, companies are hiring for more remote jobs overseas and in smaller U.S. cities.
During the pandemic, thanks to jobs that were no longer tied to offices, millions of Americans flocked to cities like Phoenix, Asheville and Boise, seeking greener pastures and more affordable housing.
But remote work has opened up new opportunities for employers, too. Companies quickly discovered that their employees could still be productive from afar, often for a third of the cost, if they stretched their location requirements.
Some of the claims by people writing in praise of officework are, shall we say, exaggerated:
Currently, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, illustrating the rapid normalization of remote work environments. Simultaneously, a significant 28.2% of employees have adapted to a hybrid work model. This model combines both home and in-office working, offering flexibility and maintaining a level of physical presence at the workplace.
An eighth of full-time employees is not an enormous number and IMO is unlikely to fill those empty offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. For one thing a lot of those employees are really remote. On a daily basis I have meetings with workers in India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Serbia, and Mexico. I doubt they’ll be coming into the office soon.
Do wish I lived in Boise.
Say, Grey, have you seen this ad?
If you can work from home, someone in New Delhi, Rio or Cairo can do your job for a fraction of your salary.
That 12.7% working from home will eventually be 12.7% unemployed. Add them to the current 3.5% currently unemployed and you have a nice depression.
PS. What happens to the investment in the empty office buildings? Looks like a major banking crisis is brewing.
That’s only true in part. The reality is that New Delhi, Rio, and Cairo are different from New York or Chicago. People in New Delhi understand the reality on the ground there but have little idea of the reality on the ground in New York but the jobs they’re being asked to tackle require understanding of the situation on the ground here not there. In other words while on paper they may be able to do those jobs in practice they’re not doing the same jobs.
Is it just me, or is the “whinge” usage in America relatively new? Until the last couple of years, “whine” was by far the predominant word.
As for remote work, maybe this will force cities to more seriously address cost-of-living and quality-of-life issues. Remote work is very appealing when you have more money and time for non-work activities.
“Do wish I lived in Boise.”
I was just there a couple of weeks ago – it is quite nice, but the people I met there (on business) weren’t happy about the increased cost of living and congestion.
I’ve spent the last two years consorting with Brits. 😉
My knee-jerk term is “kvetch” but that’s Yiddish and not understood by anybody except Americans and some Israelis.
Cow tanking on the Loup River, That’s by Ord, Ne. I’ve been there a couple years ago but it was too dry to float. Another attraction is the old salt mine.
You want something unusual in the area, check out Winnetoon, Ne. https://ashfall.unl.edu/about-ashfall/overview.html
One family built an entire town that is a ,western themed tourist attraction which has no other reason to exist, but it’s fun.
North of that is Ashfall Fossil Beds.
An ancient creek where animals extinct today went to escape from the smothering ashes of a volcano, probably in the area of Yellowstone, around 25,000 years ago.
The excavation is still ongoing and open to the public. The site has been overseen by the same man for over 30 years and he is still working, believe his name is Voorhees.
What interests me most about the site is that these creatures are mostly not to be found in Nebraska today.
The site is?25,000/YO.
Does that span satisfy those who are convinced of the evolutionary origins of life?
It has been almost 40 years since the last time I visited Nebraska–my wife and I were returning from our honeymoon. We drove from Carmel to Chicago.
We were treated better by a young couple in Nebraska (Grand Island?) than anywhere else on our travels. I should tell that story some time.
Andy,
Well, maybe I can’t afford to live in Boise, plus I have obligations here.
Passed through there last July on my way to Neah Bay, and all the people looked so attractive, but money does that.
Still, Boise looked much better than anywhere in Wyoming.
We were treated better:
They’re like that, I hardly feel one of them.
If you have a flat tire you probably won’t be allowed to change it yourself.
I mean, it’s nice, maybe what they call Minnesota nice.
You are safe here.
We have been involved with speech and debate for a long time. Twice went as a chaperone to Omaha. The schools where went for the competitions were in immaculate condition. Really impressed me that they would invest in their kids like that. Otherwise, not any more or less nice than other Midwesterners.
Steve
Yeah but that’s Omaha, there’s 400 miles of Nebraska to the west. It’s different and they vote differently.
I’m not really trying to suggest that they are better people, but more likely that they cannot hide behind anonymity and so act to protect their reputation.
And I know they would disagree.
And so be it.
One advantage to “local remote” vs “remote remote” is time zones. A 5 hour overlap with colleagues during the day (like an East Coast / West Coast team) vs a 2 hour overlap (like an East Coast / European team) makes a dramatic difference.
In that respect, countries like Mexico and Brazil have a huge advantage for this type of work.
A side comment; the proficiency in English in countries around the world has really gone up compared to 10-15 years ago. The ubiquity of the internet, social media, American mass media has almost made English an lingua franca.
Every morning I have a meeting with people in (at least) five different timezones.
My experience on English comprehension is that practically everyone is functionally illiterate whether English is their mother tongue or not. “Illiterate” means you cannot read; “functionally illiterate” means you do not derive information from the written word.
It’s not that work at home can’t work. And some types of positions / functions lend themselves better to that style. However, I think a point being missed is organizational dynamics. There is something to be said for people in proximity. Any leader knows this.
I would point out another issue. Many organizations, especially large ones, have accountants scouring numbers and generating performance reports. They don’t know a damn thing about how the place runs, but they have outsized influence as they use their comparative statistics generated from cubicles. It’s very corrosive to organizational performance.