I think this is the reason why in-person work environments will be more productive over the longer term for any larger organization. Not saying I’m against remote work, as I actually prefer it myself.
Seems like a pretty coarse level of analysis asking if “in-person” is better. What’s more productive for a manager will be different, maybe the exact opposite of what’s productive for a programmer. Some people get paid to talk, but many of us do not. The talking is paid for by our sacrifice of personal time, time spent with kids, or exercising or whatever. Managers, being decision makers, will push us back to offices because they benefit from it, because they are paid to talk. Something to be sensitive to, if you’re not already.
I agree with you that productivity for managers versus programmers is different, but my view is that the majority of workers do more work in person and people actually really enjoy being productive! The “body doubling” that goes on in offices is IMHO an underestimated phenomenon, especially for new employees coming into the workforce. For remote work to be a permanent choice, I think we need to be a bit more honest about the benefits of being in-office. Giving employees the choice is very important to me, just trying to give my perspective.
That sounds like the right orientation to me. There’s a lot of importance in hearing the disagreements, because for many the reality is that returning to the office means lowered productivity and we all want to believe that our productivity matters. If we are more productive at home but management pushes us back in, the only sane conclusion is that our productivity is not actually what matters, rather our sitting in some glassy air conditioned building somewhere keeping up appearances. Of course reality is somewhere in between.
In my view majority of workers are as productive at home as they are in the office or more. The “body doubling” also happens at home, when more family members work from home. There is also much less interruptions and noise polution at home. We should also not pretend office work is without serious down sides compared to work from home. E.g. so much time wasted in traffic.
And I respect your view that generally workers are more productive at home. We can agree to disagree there. Also, work commutes in traffic are indeed silly.
This post is about body doubling, which happens far more in offices. That is a fact. Your reply makes it seem like that’s not the case. But, I agree with your gripes about in office work, which is why I work from home :)
Edit: my point is that what’s best for you, me, and other individuals may not be best for organizations. Do I care about organizations more than myself? No, but it’s at least something to recognize because I still care for some of them.
Surely it’ll depend on many factors: employees’ own preferences, level and sincerity of support-in-principle from leadership, actual working environments, relative distribution of remote vs in-person, level and burden of effort to accommodate mixed teams.
I also prefer remote (and have been remote probably 75% of my career). I’m also ADHD, and while I’d never even heard of ”body doubling” by name it’s something I’ve found helpful sometimes, under some circumstances.
For the minority of my career spent in office, it’s ranged from wildly productive (great team fit, good balance in favor of focus time) to hilariously counterproductive (excessive meetings and process ceremony, continuous interruptions whether ostensibly work-related or social, unbearably noisy).
For the times I’ve worked on mixed remote/office, I’ve generally felt my own and my teams’ productivity is great except when leadership found the arrangement objectionable (self-fulfilling prophecy I guess), or when team communications became challenging at scale (eg we found it hard to do “standups” with ~15 people in office and ~10 people on a screen; but realistically we shouldn’t have had that many people in any meetings).
As someone else with ADHD, I've found that one of the downfalls of "body doubling" is that it works both ways. Productivity can lead to more productivity because the body double can help me overcome the urge to research woodgas vehicles or the history of bread in Mesoamerica. But the double's lack of focus (e.g. being social, or forced meetings) destroys all focus because it's already enough of a task to manage my own executive functioning in a good environment.
The best balance I've found is remote work (so I am my only distraction), maybe with occasional in-person focused work sessions (à la hackathon), and occasional remote "body doubling" sessions with a friend or internet stranger.
TLDR:
Solo remote work is better than attempting body doubling in an office environment, but remote "body doubling" is also occasionally helpful.
I actually do this more effectively working from home with my wife. For people who like the aesthetics and atmosphere of an office for some reason, I think a coworking space would as productive or moreso than the company office. (Is this Body Doubling website coworking industry guerrilla marketing?)
I was dragged back into the office for a couple months in 2021. I was stupefied by how pointless it all was. From the time and resources wasted driving to and fro to the office every day to the meetings which were still largely done online (since we were a distributed team.)
I had to go 5 days a week. The company bled people. Most the people who were sticking around as I was leaving confided to me that they weren't happy about it. The company struggled to hire new workers. That's probably all abated to some extent since then. With a flexible hybrid schedule, I think they could have found a sweet spot.
If anything, remote work actually supports my social needs much more thoroughly than working from an office environment.
At home, I am within a few seconds from my wife (since she is working from home too), which allows for a significantly more rich social environment for myself and her, than having to be in the extended physical proximity of those in distant social tiers (e.g., loose ties, or "work friends").
I value the time I have been able to spend at home so much more than any social connections I may have made at the office; in fact, I focus on getting my stuff done even more quickly precisely so I can return to the quality time that I have to focus on those who truly matter to me.
I am no longer at the age where I care to go for a drink afterwards with work friends. For those of us who have richer social home lives than work lives, remote work is a godsend.