[buboard]

There is no middle ground -- WFH is self-reinforcing trend, because offices are much less useful when they are half-empty and all processes have go online. As soon as some coworkers move, others follow. If people start working 2-3 days at home ... they start to think about moving somewhere better. I wonder what is the endgame of this rearrangement? Perhaps nomadism will become common? But in that case, cities will lose even more cohesion than they ve lost so far. If we take away the work factor, the question "where do i/my family live" becomes much more open-ended. Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move?

[ghaff]

I tend to agree in that coming in only one or two days a week gives you some greater flexibility in where you live, but only some. For a lot of people whose companies are in expensive urban areas, WFH a few days per week means they need more housing than they might otherwise need but they can't move somewhere that's cheaper/preferable.

And while teams can coordinate time in the office, the more people are mostly remote the less value there is in others coming in.

>Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move?

They like the environment more? I work with someone who just ditched their downtown city apartment and bought a place on the coast of Maine.

[munificent]

I don't think it's anywhere near as bimodal as you say.

As far as human pyschology goes, I think it's hard to be productive over the very long term with almost no real in-person time to connect with your team. We're social animals and we bond best when together. And we are more productive and efficient when we have bonded in that way.

Even famously all-remote companies shell out cash to fly everyone together at least a few times a year because of this. At some point, though, there are diminishing returns to getting everyone in the same room. The optimum point surely varies from person to person and depends on the nature of their work, but I don't think the peak is "every day" or "never".

Yes, offices are less useful when they're empty half the time. But homes are too! Most American homes sit empty from 8am-6pm every single day. Miles and miles of dead suburban streets, empty driveways, houses silent except for the ticking of thermostats.

I'm interested to see a company try a middle ground like this: Everyone works from home most days. At some periodic interval, maybe once a week, everyone comes to some shared space for meeting and coordination work.

This sounds like the worst of both worlds because you need both home office space and office space. But the office space can likely be shared with several teams. An office big enough for 100 people could service a 1,000 if teams only came in once every two weeks. If in-person days are mostly around meetings and communication, you don't need a lot of dedicated desk space. It doesn't need to feel like a permanent "territory" for each worker. Instead, just a pile of shared meeting rooms and open spaces.

If you still have to come in a few times, then it sounds like you're still stuck living close to an urban center. But, actually, the livable radius increases dramatically. A one-hour each way commute is a nightmare if you do it every day. That's ten hours a week stuck in a car. But if you only come in once every two weeks, then you could cut your total commute time in half while living five times as far away. And, since in-person days are mostly for meeting anyway, it's viable to have an understanding that commuting is part of your "work day" and have a shorter in-person work day.

In return, you get to spend less time commuting and more time in your own community, with your pets, with your loved ones, and in your own home.

[ghaff]

>almost no real in-person time to connect with your team

I work on a very distributed team and, in normal times, we just physically get together in one of our offices or in conjunction with some event a lot of people are attending anyway a few times a year. Most of us (normally) travel a good part of the time anyway so it's really not especially disruptive.

I actually agree that remote teams should have some real F2F time but that needn't mean living within commuting distance of a common office.

[webmaven]

> Obvious choice #1 is near extended family. What else motivates people to move?

Anecdotally, I am aware of folks who were highly motivated to move away from their extended family.

[thesumofall]

I’m not sure I agree here. I struggle with the assumption that all processes can go online without any loss of value. For some jobs this might be possible, but the more a job is not just about realizing clearly articulated requirements, the more this will be difficult. Hence, companies will expect a pay cut for the loss in productivity. Again, I believe there is a great middle ground to be found that leverages the strengths of both worlds