Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston: real estate, how much, home)

[charolastra00]

This feels like a "be careful what you wish for" sort of thing. I understand that some people (but certainly not all) want to work from home all of the time. But if that's the case, why pay Massachusetts salaries when you could hire someone remotely in Tennessee where you could pay 30% less and the employee would likely have a higher standard of living? Not saying that employers would do this as I think many would still prefer local candidates even if 100% remote, but there's always that option.



There are a lot of benefits to working from home, but a lot of the spontaneous collaboration is gone. And Zoom meetings make meetings 600x worse. People are less focused (tabbed out to answer emails or do other work) and it's exhausting to look at so many faces at once! The forward momentum I appreciated working on complex projects together is just gone.



We definitely won't all be back 100% of the time, but going full time remote is also not likely to be an option.

[msRB311]

I think this has been discussed for months in terms of the salary thing and why pay someone Boston money when you could hire someone in TN and pay them a Memphis salary. Sure go ahead and do that but that could be a ways away. We just hired someone who lives in DC. I don't know what they're getting paid but the hiring manager looked outside Boston. They are also part time.

I've had spontaneous zoom meetings. I didn't see a huge difference vs in person. Things got solved, new ideas are still happening. People seem to have a fear of remote work becoming more widespread. Maybe people are worried they'll lose power if they aren't seen in person. It seems to be the men wanting to run back to the office and have everyone else return.

[mdovell]

As for pay long ago when I was in retail the compensation was based on competition, not location. No competition meant low pay. Having said that we sent people to a NYC store and our crew was making at least 15% less.

I just still find it funny about how many still think business is done face to face. After 9/11 business didn't end just because the airliners were down. I deal with people mostly by email. Why? Because it leaves a record. I have to revert back to records because

1) I can't search a voicemail
2) Verbal contracts are not legally binding in mass
3) Actual phone calls are a two party consent law in Mass.

Zoom of course can be different but still you want things on the record.

When I was in Springfield there was a member of the City of Rochester's NY staff in the complex. She just works online. It isn't that hard. You reduce something to data and work with the data. It shouldn't be that hard to understand this. Quantitative vs Qualitative.

Now if the stock market was tanking I could see the argument but the idea that productivity dropped is iffy at best. When I shop online I don't go to a store, when I send an email I don't involve the post office, when I go to a web site I don't get a magazine involved etc.

The Hawthorne effect has been debunked time and time again
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...sniperse2809d/

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by mdovell

As for pay long ago when I was in retail the compensation was based on competition, not location. No competition meant low pay. Having said that we sent people to a NYC store and our crew was making at least 15% less.

I just still find it funny about how many still think business is done face to face. After 9/11 business didn't end just because the airliners were down. I deal with people mostly by email. Why? Because it leaves a record. I have to revert back to records because

1) I can't search a voicemail
2) Verbal contracts are not legally binding in mass
3) Actual phone calls are a two party consent law in Mass.

Zoom of course can be different but still you want things on the record.

When I was in Springfield there was a member of the City of Rochester's NY staff in the complex. She just works online. It isn't that hard. You reduce something to data and work with the data. It shouldn't be that hard to understand this. Quantitative vs Qualitative.

Now if the stock market was tanking I could see the argument but the idea that productivity dropped is iffy at best. When I shop online I don't go to a store, when I send an email I don't involve the post office, when I go to a web site I don't get a magazine involved etc.

The Hawthorne effect has been debunked time and time again
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...sniperse2809d/

This is all fine if your goal is to move to a society of corporate-androids who stay home all the time. Outside that, this type of scenario removes the human element. How that will affect people over the long run could be terrifying. The dramatic changes in human behavior can be seen from just the last 20 years of tech as it infiltrated society and human development as those raised on tech have become less and less social and interactive. Human interaction is a serious element to be considered. It should also be considered within the organization framework as for many fields, relationships are a BIG deal and can make or break your results. If you think that business or government will run smoothly without emphasis on building and maintaining relationships, you're delusional in my view. Those organizations that understand this will have the upper hand. The world cannot be just broken down into "data" and human relationships can't be effectively built and managed electronically over the long run. If your work revolves strictly around being in a lab, engineering or research where its centered around data, you may not get this. But it's a big deal generally. Even in those industries that are focused on data the organizations are managed by people who depend on human interaction to be successful.

https://www.brainspire.com/blog/what...an-interaction

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by mdovell

Now if the stock market was tanking I could see the argument but the idea that productivity dropped is iffy at best.

This really isn't how the stock market works, particularly recently.

[msRB311]

It seems kind of weird to me that they're increasing capacities by 40% now:

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/02/...city-increase/

Why? Is it really worth it in February? I actually agree with the mayor of somerville here who said it seems like as soon as the hospitals get out of the weeds we open things up and here comes more spread.

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

This feels like a "be careful what you wish for" sort of thing. I understand that some people (but certainly not all) want to work from home all of the time. But if that's the case, why pay Massachusetts salaries when you could hire someone remotely in Tennessee where you could pay 30% less and the employee would likely have a higher standard of living? Not saying that employers would do this as I think many would still prefer local candidates even if 100% remote, but there's always that option.



There are a lot of benefits to working from home, but a lot of the spontaneous collaboration is gone. And Zoom meetings make meetings 600x worse. People are less focused (tabbed out to answer emails or do other work) and it's exhausting to look at so many faces at once! The forward momentum I appreciated working on complex projects together is just gone.



We definitely won't all be back 100% of the time, but going full time remote is also not likely to be an option.

On this forum I am very pro-WFH but I would be happy with hybrid WFH. Pre-COVID the vast majority of managers I worked under (direct managers and higher ups) were against allowing even situational WFH. It made me highly appreciative of those managers who allowed situational WFH.

In my opinion if a company offers WFH then individual managers should not be allowed to withhold the benefit unless there are performance issues involved. I have run into more than my share of managers who would not allow the practice only because they weren't comfortable with it. My response to those managers is this: society is changing, get comfortable with those changes or give up managing people.

[msRB311]

My division actually just sent results from a WFH survey. It was sent to over 2000 people, 1200 people responded. This includes people who work in a wet lab and really can't do much at home.

91% of total respondents rarely or never worked remotely pre-pandemic

87% of remote respondents found personal advantages associated with working remotely

83% of remote respondents have found that they are able to work productively remotely

87% of total administrative, education, and dry research respondents would like to work remotely two or more days per week post-pandemic if they had the ability or choice

They've put together a committee and will share recommendations on the future of remote work with us this summer. Hmm.

[id77]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

This feels like a "be careful what you wish for" sort of thing. I understand that some people (but certainly not all) want to work from home all of the time. But if that's the case, why pay Massachusetts salaries when you could hire someone remotely in Tennessee where you could pay 30% less and the employee would likely have a higher standard of living? Not saying that employers would do this as I think many would still prefer local candidates even if 100% remote, but there's always that option.



There are a lot of benefits to working from home, but a lot of the spontaneous collaboration is gone. And Zoom meetings make meetings 600x worse. People are less focused (tabbed out to answer emails or do other work) and it's exhausting to look at so many faces at once! The forward momentum I appreciated working on complex projects together is just gone.



We definitely won't all be back 100% of the time, but going full time remote is also not likely to be an option.

The distractions don't stop after the WebEx/Zoom call ends, either, and this is going to be the one thing that eventually curtails WFH back to hybrid (and for some, full-time in an office).

I absolutely agree that collaboration is big, and it's diminished when done remotely. Sorry, but whiteboards on WebEx just aren't the same as locking the brains in a conference room and letting the magic happen. I've been full-time WFH for 6+ years now and the biggest hit to my performance this last year has been the loss of ability to fly to offices monthly for collaboration. I would get more roadblocks cleared with 4 days of in-person collaboration than I would in 4 weeks of phone calls, WebEx, and playing Slack Tag with coworkers. Often it meant cutting into my personal weekends (Sunday evening flights and Friday red-eyes are a regular occurrence), but it was worth it.

The best perma-WFH employees are the self-motivated ones who love what they do, but people who don't love what they do for a living are not going to prioritize their work, and WFH has made keeping those people focused on work more difficult. The worst offenders will just find a water cooler in an office to waste time around anyway, but many otherwise average employees, now given the option of having a TV on in the background or chatting with family/friends while on the clock, do so in numbers significant enough to materially impact productivity.

[msRB311]

Seems like everyone says their company has been having a great year. No proof of low productivity.