> I think that many people struggle at home (group A) while others don't (group B).
As someone who has worked remote long before COVID, there's another layer to this issue: Many of the people who think they are in Group B (work well from home) are actually in Group A (struggle at home) but they are resistant to recognizing it.
Prior to the pandemic, remote companies all understood that not everyone who wants to work form home can actually be productive at home. For some reason the pandemic WFH push made everyone forget that, and we started assuming that anyone who wants to work from home is good at working from home. Predictably, a lot of companies saw a huge increase in issues, panicked, and force every to RTO.
It's a challenging issue because the problems aren't immediately obvious. We had some very productive programmers who just couldn't WFH because they were hostile in text chat but very cordial in person. Others would spend entire works grinding away at problems in isolation that could have been solved with 1 hour of communication because they think WFH == freedom to isolate from others.
Many of these things can be trained out with good management and mentoring, but only when it's introduced gradually. The pandemic WFH push opened the floodgates to everyone, with predictable results.
I hope we go back to wide acceptance of WFH, however with the understanding that it's not for everyone. Some people can't handle it even though they like it.
Having gone remote in 2020, I’ve noticed similar to things to what you mention. Or, it’s almost like there’s a set of soft skills that develop when working from home. Writing styles change, and people speak/listen in a different cadence during videoconference.
Once you learn it, you can become very productive and endearing, but it takes time. It’s not for everyone like you mention.
As someone who has worked remote long before COVID, there's another layer to this issue: Many of the people who think they are in Group B (work well from home) are actually in Group A (struggle at home) but they are resistant to recognizing it.
Prior to the pandemic, remote companies all understood that not everyone who wants to work form home can actually be productive at home. For some reason the pandemic WFH push made everyone forget that, and we started assuming that anyone who wants to work from home is good at working from home. Predictably, a lot of companies saw a huge increase in issues, panicked, and force every to RTO.
It's a challenging issue because the problems aren't immediately obvious. We had some very productive programmers who just couldn't WFH because they were hostile in text chat but very cordial in person. Others would spend entire works grinding away at problems in isolation that could have been solved with 1 hour of communication because they think WFH == freedom to isolate from others.
Many of these things can be trained out with good management and mentoring, but only when it's introduced gradually. The pandemic WFH push opened the floodgates to everyone, with predictable results.
I hope we go back to wide acceptance of WFH, however with the understanding that it's not for everyone. Some people can't handle it even though they like it.