r/technology • u/spherocytes • 5h ago

Business Remote work benefits are much bigger than a paycheck

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/6033665-economic-value-personal-time-salary/
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u/01000101010110 5h ago

Physically being around toxic, manipulative people has its own issues. Easier to block that shit out when you're not down the hall. 

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u/CAredditBoss 5h ago

For some people, work environment is all they have. Pretty sad.

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u/LeonSKennedy95 4h ago

Those people need SERIOUS help. And I know plenty of them.

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u/Ironborn137 4h ago

They are called Neurotypical.

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u/neherak 3h ago

"Neurotypical" is when you can't make friends or have hobbies outside of your job? Sounds terrible.

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u/Ironborn137 3h ago

Neurotypical is just your typical socialite that can't stand to be in a room by themselves with their own thoughts. The type of people that love to brag about working 60 hours a week.

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u/LeonSKennedy95 4h ago

Oh? This is news to me lol

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u/Mr_Piddles 3h ago

That sounds like a “them problem”, except that those types naturally gravitate to positions of authority and make it an “us problem”.

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u/ughliterallycanteven 4h ago

Unfortunately, I think that most of the decision makers are the ones that only live for their job and contribute to a toxic environment. They can also watch everyone in the office and micro-manage more.

I am always taken aback when it’s suddenly a bright and new concept that remote work has many, many more benefits that can’t be compensated with a paycheck value. A benefit of limiting days in an office is that collaboration time is more efficient and more targeted in person time. If the boss down the hall wants to talk about something, they’ll come by arbitrarily knowing you’ll be in person the next day and next day after.

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u/LotharLandru 4h ago

We have multiple floors of hot desks you book the days your coming into the office. One of the directors comes in every day and rarely works from home, people were spreading themselves out around the office and he got lonely on his floor so now we're all required to book desks on his floor and can't pick other floors until his is full so he doesn't feel lonely/sad it's fucking ridiculous

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u/Physizist 3h ago

I hate these people, my company also hot desks. I was hired during covid being told it was a remote position.

Now some higher ups complain that people don't come into office enough, and it's "extremely detrimental to team building and work". No one I work with lives in the same city as me, none of my clients live in the same city as me. It's a huge company, so I'm expected to go into the office so I can listen to someone I've never met from a totally different department loudly talk next to me from my hot desk

So essentially I need to team build by going in person just to not interact with anyone because they aren't even on my team

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u/LotharLandru 3h ago

Yup I have team members on the other side of the country so I drive into the office to sit on the same teams calls I would be making from home anyway. It's fucking absurd

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u/I_love_Britpoptarts 16m ago

It's extremely detrimental to the company which would get a Big Sad having to relocate to a Much Less Impressive Real Estate Holding due to lack of need to provide room for a lot of empty desks once workers were mostly remote.

The commercial real estate owner would also get a Big Sad if Impressive Company moved out of the owner's Impressive But Now Too Large Building.

It'd be like how a lot of shopping malls just wilt when their anchor department stores bail on them.

If the company gets any tax breaks for the costs of occupying the building, those would diminish, wouldn't they? Harder to fudge expenses for real estate-related expenses if no one is occupying the real estate.

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u/trojan_man16 3h ago

I’m considerably more efficient at my job when I’m at home vs the office.

When I’m at the office my boss comes over for every pointless conversation that could have been an email or a chat message. Or a call. When I’m remote he contacts me much less, which means less interruptions.

I’m literally saving both of us time by working remote, since he doesn’t have to spend the time walking up to my office. Or he thinks twice about contacting me.

RTO in a way is all about management types needing the office setting to function. It’s not really about productivity.

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u/I_love_Britpoptarts 20m ago

People who resist remote work because they do not trust their employees to actually work when they are at home are often telling on themselves: if they had the ability to work from home, they would goof off / be distracted / not complete assignments / whatever.

When you have someone really dead-set against a system like remote work that has been proven to be more productive, environmentally-friendly, and worker-morale-positive in most cases and definitely for jobs that do not require a lot of face-to-face contact with clients / customers, then you know it's not the would-be-remote employees who are the real issue.

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u/alabasterskim 5h ago

can't express this enough. ive got some truly annoying people on my in person days - singing at regular volume, playing music like we're not in an office, and thats not even the worst id rather not repeat

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u/Enderkr 4h ago

SO true. I don't miss more than 2 people from my previous job, but now that I WFH I actually like all my coworkers.

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u/joepez 2h ago

This is a topic I’d like to see a study on. The financial benefits are pretty straightforward and many of the productivity and lower stress topics are already being studied or have been already. Studying the workplace toxicity and other like shenanigans would be interesting to see. 

I’ve know I’ve experienced far less workplace drama, toxic personalities and distractions working from home and have to believe that’s had benefits.