[mstefanko]

I think the cutting costs and distractions are extremely important variables when even thinking about trying to quantify the benefit of remote workers. But of course your productivity drops when you're in the office when you're not usually. People are taking advantage of one of the few times you're on-site, increased distractions already. The environment you're working in on-site is no longer what you're used to working in. Meaning you don't put up with distractions as well as you would if you worked there every day. And your body doesn't really go into 'work-mode'.

It goes the same way for someone who works in the office every day then decides to work at home. When I've had a dedicated office space in my home and worked there for an extended time, I always feel like I missed out on some social aspects that I needed from the office environment, including both productive and unproductive communication, but my productivity went up. But now that I've been working daily in an office, and I do not have a dedicated space at home, when I do end up working from home, i'm far more distracted. I think it's easy to look at either side and flail your hands attempting to qualify as well as justify what you're doing. But it's not that cut and dry. In your experience working from home may make perfect sense, but I still don't think it's easy to quantify the benefit of remote workers. For a lot of people working remotely is distracting in a different way, and you end up giving up a lot of essential in-office interactions, sometimes without ever realizing it.

[marknutter]

I'll tell you why working from home makes sense for me, and it doesn't involve hand-waving: without it being an option, I would simply make less money. I am not willing to move to work for a company, so every company that allows me to remotely contract increases my revenues. This goes both ways, too. Without being open to remote workers, these companies would have a far smaller talent pool to draw from, which would mean they will inevitably get worse talent at a higher cost.

[mstefanko]

I think you make a lot of very valid points, and honestly I hope that companies continue to see the benefits of remotely contracting work as well as just telecommuting in general. I'm definitely not arguing with the benefits. Just offering minor support for the value of in-house talent as well. For me personally, I've worked in offices on the east coast, then moved to the bay area to follow 'that dream'. Offices on the east coast offered me little in the form of tech culture or inspiration, aside from some interpersonal relationships. Here in the bay area I found a lot of things to be worse than I idealized in my mind before moving, but one thing that has been very apparent is the culture and tech community. Even just the conversations I hear outside, on my commute to work, let alone the conversations i'm involved in at work are just so different than what I was used to. Feel like for the first time in a long time, i'm no longer just doing a job, but i'm growing, i'm getting better, i'm learning, and I'm constantly motivated. I worked for a number of years thinking the remote lifestyle was a dream come true, and for a lot of people it is. I think your point about the limited local talent pool at least for the majority of places is extremely accurate, and something that needs to be considered. But just in my little bubble, I have to say that going to the office, even despite the increase in interruptions and distractions, it's been extremely favorable for my career as well as the quality of work that i'm able to give back to the community and my job. And moving across the country, despite the hardships I faced in the few month transition, a year later it ended up being one of the best decisions of my life.

[marknutter]

Great insight. I'm in no way saying that working on-site is worse than working remotely. I'm simply trying to say that these days, one isn't any better than the other. I could list of a lot of things I miss about working on-site, including a lot of the points you just brought up.