Not an employer. But I believe most employees simply put in less hours when working from home, and most employers aren't very good at rewarding people for their results, not their hours.
Opposite for me. At home I start working when I wake up and often don't stop until the evening. When I go into the office I have to get ready and commute, and then at the office there are so many distractions - our campus has fantastic fitness facilities and I'll often spend a few hours each day over there. So, at home I probably work for 10 hours. When on campus I probably get 4 hours of work in, if that. Plus, I am so much more productive at home. I have a quiet private office with a much faster internet connection and better equipment. On campus, people don't know how to shut up, so it is hard to get work done with people around me discussing things that have absolutely nothing about work - the other day, 2 people spent an hour discussing how much butter is in Danish cookies! Right next to me!
Same here, started my first fully remote job semi-recently. I've got a nice quiet area to work and the worst interruption I get is maybe my dog drops in for some pets. The productivity and satisfaction remind me of when I was way younger and used to code for fun before it became a job, so I actually kind of enjoy it.
Like maybe I go afk 30-45 mins here or there when I normally wouldn't in office. But for me, I put in more hours overall. A key to this was learning to not have my personal laptop open to the side, and avoiding distractions like social media and idle browsing.
YMMV of course, I think it can really depend on the person and their life situation. But the same could be said of anyone remote or not when it comes to productivity. It's on the managers to measure if things are getting done or not, which is the most important thing.
It is always the employees telling these stories, but how managers are supposed to know if they are really working? When they are at the office the see it with their own eyes.
Common counter argument to this is that the manager sucks because he/she can't measure the work otherwise. But from managers perspective it is much easier to force people to be on-site than fix his/her own problems.
Person you replied to said they spent hours in the company gym during office hours. Either they are delivering what's expected of them anyway, or the manager has no idea what to expect regardless of in-office or remote working.
They also mentioned avoiding other distractions: That's the main feature of remote for me, after many years of wearing headphones all day in various offices.
1. My manager lives and works in an entirely different state. 2. We do not have assigned seating on campus. We are just required to be on campus, but can find a place to work in any building. So, even if my manager was in the same state as me, I certainly would not be anywhere he could see me.
That hasn't been my experience. With a home office, it's hard to tear myself away from work. Commuting is a waste of my time, and a "clean break" ends up costing my employer several hours a day. I'm salaried, so that isn't a monetary cost, but I've seen a real benefit to productivity.
Of course, employers want both butt-in-chair metrics and 24/7 availability without increasing pay. Don't give them that.
> But I believe most employees simply put in less hours when working from home
What do you have to back up your belief? I work from 8-6 on most days +/- 30 minutes. Lunch is a walk downstairs, grab something and eat it at my desk. That's pretty typical of the group of engineers I've been working with remotely on/off for the past 15 years. I don't think we're exceptional in this regard.
Just personal observations. I've worked with a bunch of larger clients and there were many people whose output over long periods of time was minuscule. Hard to measure when I was not their superior, so take it as just a feeling.
With three out of three different employees so far, all slowly did less and less work the longer they worked from home. I’m 90% sure one of them had an additional job, and another one admitted it when he quit. I don’t like to micromanage so give developers a lot of freedom. Few people have as much long-term integrity as we like to pretend we all have.
It’s not irrelevant and could be a conflict of interest if you work for competitors. Where I live I’m pretty sure you can’t have multiple jobs without informing all employers. Also you can’t claim more than a normal day job of hours, so both jobs have to be part time and can’t add on to more than one full time.
That's my point though. It isn't "oh they had two jobs so they got fired," it's "they weren't performing so they got fired."
Plenty of people with one job don't perform and get cut. I've worked with people in the past who I knew had multiple FT jobs, or a FT job and a very demanding contracting schedule, or whatever, and had no trouble doing their work in a reasonable timeframe.
This whole idea that it's wrong or bad to have two FT jobs just smells like some middle manager feeling like they "own" their employees. I'm glad to see the culture has shifted somewhat and people are starting to see how ridiculous that mindset is.
> I believe most employees simply put in less hours when working from home
From my experience and observations I've gathered from my teams, my conclusion is the opposite of this. I have to regularly tell folks to watch out for burnout and it's ok to wait until Monday.
I've definitely been on the other side of this. If I have a 5pm train home to catch and a 45 minute ride to disconnect from work, I'm not likely to log on later and get more work done from home. With remote, there is at least the temptation to continue working longer, especially if I have a lot of work to get done or a deadline.
Over the past 2 years many studies have actually shown the opposite. People work during what was their commute time, they work when they are sick, during lunch break.
