I absolutely detest this framing of remote vs onsite. What it really is is accommodated vs not-accommodated.

Accommodated employees perform better. Non-accommodated employees perform worse.

For some people, an office is an accommodation - they need that not-home space with other people in it. For others, a home office is an accommodation - a very convenient/local space with very few distractions.

It should come as absolutely no surprise that putting someone somewhere they do not feel accommodated is going to reduce performance.

I also really reject this boomer-esque idea that in-office helps underperformers underperform less. Instead I find it helps under-performers _appear_ to underperform less because they can chat up the boss and more visibly do performative stuff like showing up early or leaving late.

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Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In my situation above we were accommodating people. They got to choose where they worked.

The problem I was talking about was with people who asked to work from home but struggled with it.

Some of them did start coming in to the office more when they realized what was happening. Many did not, believing that work from home was best for them.

	▲	dijksterhuis 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> In my situation above we were accommodating people. They got to choose where they worked. this sounds like the WFH people might be treated the same way as the in-office people. as in you're retaining an in-office culture but people can choose to WFH. that is not the same thing as being a remote working company. the culture is completely different in an org that successfully does remote working. as a functional example on the social side, people booking in time to just hang out and chat. even if it's work chat but just more relaxed chat. build in some social element beyond just treating it as cogs in a 9-5 machine. add an extra 30 minutes to a team update call to just have a chat with everyone -- including folks in the office. edit -- to be clear, managers need to be doing that ^
	▲	4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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deathanatos an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think I like where you're going with the "accommodated" or not framing. I feel that most companies' offices, especially tech companies, have lately just taken to straight-up not accommodating people. The company crams nothing but minimal, 4ft desks in, edge to edge, with zero partitions whatsoever (… let alone an actual wall to form … an … office …) but want to pretend as-if that's somehow accommodating. Add in crappy chairs, bad keyboards¹, 3 hour commutes, etc. and it's just so "wtf?" that, yeah, remote work — for what flaws it does have — ranks higher. I have a better equipment, a better desk, more space, more quiet / room to concentrate — I can build an office that exceeds what my employer will provide — and I can do so in spite of today's ludicriously priced real estate market where I haven't even really got the room to do so.

And with RTO, it seems that wasn't even rock bottom, now that employers are straight-facedly suggesting things like "hot desking".

> It should come as absolutely no surprise that putting someone somewhere they do not feel accommodated is going to reduce performance.

I agree, but this required corporations to admit they're the problem in not properly accommodating employees. That is the problem: corporations would far rather blame performance on the employee than any sort of self-reflection.

(¹as accommodated by the employer. Even when I worked in an office, I did have a custom keyboard, but it's something I paid for.)

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dijksterhuis 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

100% agreed. i flamed out while remote working at $LAST_JOB. it was a combination of a changing cultural dynamic, changing expectations of my role (which i wasn't comfortable with) and a lack of necessary staffing.

remote work was a blessing for me. but turned out the ceo didn't want us remote working.

i tried repeatedly to communicate what i needed to do my best with my boss and the ceo. but the ceo fought me on all of it.