
At JPMorgan, productivity falls for younger employees at home - davidw
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/at-jpmorgan-productivity-falls-for-younger-employees-at-home
======
holidayacct
Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible
problem. Microsoft spend something in excess of 3 billion dollars trying to
quantify productivity in the 90s and they couldn't do it. One of my college
professors worked on this exact problem for the Army in the 80s, they created
a formal domain specific language for quantifying employee productivity it
took them 20 years and several hundred million dollars before they finally
realized it wasn't generalizable. They had to scrap the entire project.

It isnt possible to measure employee productivity because its impossible to
properly quantify the relative importance of a task. Properly scoping problems
is a massive task and finally its impossible to adjust for employees gaming
the system, collusion or simply malicious behavior.

Employees always figure out how to abuse productivity metrics.

~~~
baron_harkonnen
> Never believe stories like this, measuring productivity is an impossible
> problem

I want to start off by saying that I don't completely disagree with you, but
all of us should take a step back and realize how an absurd of a position this
is for us to be in a society.

This immeasurability is inversely proportional to the tangible, real value
created. You can, for example, absolutely measure to the dollar the
productivity of a plumber and you can easily compare two different plumbers,
and see if environmental factors improve or decrease their productivity.

If you own a factory making screws you can unquestionably measure the valued
added and therefor productivity of each and every employee. If you have a farm
and you hire seasonal laborers to help you harvest, again you can easily
measure the exact productivity of each worker, determine if a hot day makes
them less productive etc.

Software engineers are a step removed from this in part because the things we
make are of questionable value (especially in the extremes). Front-end
contract engineers certainly seem to have measurable productivity. If someone
can build you a working store front in 40 hours, you can compare this to
another one how can do a worse job in 100 hours at the same rate.

But as software products grow more complex and the actual value more vague,
then software engineer productivity likewise gets harder and harder to
measure. And I think a real question every engineer who has worked at a large
company has asked, even if they work their asses off, is "do I really create
any value?"

Software engineers, again, are still closer to the side that you can measure
real productivity because in at least most cases software itself is important.
When you move on to other "office workers", those who are really struggling
now, that value again is very hard to measure and therefore so is
productivity.

The question that we need to ask more often is, if productivity is so hard to
measure, maybe it is possibly because we might not be creating as much value
as we have largely tricked ourselves into believing we have.

~~~
MikeTheGreat
> You can, for example, absolutely measure to the dollar the productivity of a
> plumber and you can easily compare two different plumbers

I'm curious about this idea.

What if plumber A shows up, quickly fixes something using existing, on-site
materials, and ends up charging much less (no parts + 'quick' labor), and then
the plumbing breaks again in X months.

What if plumber B shows up, takes more time and replaces a part of the
plumbing, and ends up charging more (part(s) + more labor) but then the
plumbing lasts for Y months, where Y >> X?

Which plumber is more productive? How does one convert the productivity to
dollars?

~~~
jimmytucson
Doesn’t happen to the same degree as in software. With plumbing or painting,
yes there are good jobs and bad jobs, but if the water gets to where it’s
going and there’s no moisture, you’re pretty much done. If the paint is on the
wall and not on the ceiling or the trim, and you can’t see roller marks, it’s
a good job. With software, there seem to be endless layers of nuance between
good or bad, finished or unfinished.

Also, it should take X hours to paint a room of Y size with this many windows
or doors. There are clearly established timelines for a job and any big
deviation from that will get you fired (or not hired again by the same
builder). There’s no “due to this manager’s lack of experience with agile, a
project that should have taken 2 weeks took 4 and a half months, and the test
coverage is poor”.

~~~
atmartins
Doesn’t happen to the same degree as in plumbing. With front end or back end,
yes there are good jobs and bad jobs, but if the data gets to where it’s going
and there’s no bit rot, you’re pretty much done. If the data is in the db and
not on the paper forms, and you can’t see it decrypted at rest, it’s a good
job. With plumbing, there seem to be endless layers of nuance between good or
bad, finished or unfinished.

Also, it should take X hours to code a feature of Y size with this many fields
or inputs. There are unclearly established timelines for a job and any big
deviation from that will get you fired (or not hired again by the same
builder). There’s no “due to this plumber’s lack of sobriety with the world, a
project that should have taken 2 weeks took 4 and a half months, and the
connections on the joints are poor”.

------
rossdavidh
First off, let me say that I have happily WFH for a few years now. I'm not
opposed to it. It works for some people.

However, this is likely a problem that will get worse, not better, over time.
The early WFH experience was able to cruise on the office connections, cross-
training, personal knowledge, team-building, etc. that had happened
previously. The longer people are away from the office, the more that hard-to-
quantify stuff will decay. Plus, onboarding a new college grad has got to be
challenging when there's not a group of experienced team members around them
to be able to see when they're struggling or headed off the wrong path without
realizing it.

All of these problems can be mitigated, but they won't be eliminated. There
will always be some positions and employees where WFH makes sense; as I said,
it has often worked for me. But the idea that half or even a quarter of
employees would become permanently WFH, is fantasy. It's kind of like having a
long-distance relationship. You can do it for a while, but the penalty mounts
over time in ways that are hard to quantify, but real nonetheless.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _onboarding a new college grad has got to be challenging when there 's not a
> group of experienced team members around them to be able to see when they're
> struggling or headed off the wrong path without realizing it_

Has anyone figured this one out? It’s inhibiting hiring quite significantly at
our firm. I can’t imagine we’re the only ones.

~~~
rubidium
For fresh grads: x2 Manager checkins daily for first 2 months

For the 2-5 yr expirence: x1 checkin daily for the first month

For the 5+ yr experience engineer: x1 checkin daily first week.

For all: reduce checkins as appropriate for each, case-by-case.

~~~
andreilys
2x Daily Checkin’s for 2 months.... sounds like a recipe for micro management.

Also given most managers schedules are packed, I’m not sure how feasible this
advice is. Especially if they onboard 2 or 3 new hires.

~~~
rubidium
This is fresh college grads, and it’s literally a “you have things to do? Are
you stuck at all?” The checkins reduce in proportion to the positive check on
things.

People don’t understand the massive amount of time new hires can spend stuck
(be it HR, software license issues, unfamiliarity with the process, etc).

------
OminousWeapons
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I honestly can't wait to get back to the
office (or any other workspace that isn't my home). I really hate working at
home. I don't have enough space or privacy, it becomes far more difficult to
partition work and play when they occur in the same spaces / I find myself
distracted more easily, and there is no one to socialize with when I'm sitting
by myself every day.

Could I remedy all of these problems with extra effort? Sure, but it's far
easier for me to simply go to the office.

~~~
echelon
I've officially reached zero productivity today.

I'm sick of being stuck in my tiny condo with the noise from neighbors and
zero work/life balance. The constant streams of asks on Slack that wake me up
in the morning and keep me up at night.

I'm making more in the stock market than my job.

~~~
haswell
Might seem a little off topic, but you are well positioned to read "Deep Work"
by Cal Newport. It's been discussed on HN many times, and when I recently read
it, it felt like someone finally "got it". Like "yes, this is what I've
believed, but now someone else is saying it!".

Back on topic - I've been on both sides of this. I started working from home
~7 years ago when I took a job on the west coast, but opted to stay in
Chicago.

Prior to this role, I had worked almost exclusively IN the office for ~10
years, with the very occasional WFH day (literally about 1-2 days/year,
usually during the holidays, so definitely not a habitual thing).

When I started WFH, I _loved_ it...for about 3 months. I relished the lack of
commute. I enjoyed the additional focus / reduced distractions. But then I
started to feel the downsides. The lack of connection with people, the higher
effort required to collaborate on some kinds of things, etc.

Over the years though, I found a balance. I found new outlets. New habits. And
about ~25% travel helped break things up a bit.

And then COVID hit.

And now I'm back to fully hating WFH. My new habits, outlets, and most
importantly the work travel, were no longer viable.

On top of that, while _I_ may have been comfortable with WFH by the time this
all started, most of the people with work _with_ were not. So they're going
through the learning curve, and I'm empathizing every step of the way. Which
is in turn reminding me about the things I dislike.

Anyway, this is a super long winded comment that I'll bring to a close by
saying: WFH is not a cure-all. It's not a solution to every problem. Like
everything in life, it needs to be applied prudently, and a balance must be
found.

My advice to you and people struggling with similar challenges is this:
__quickly learn to set boundaries __.

\- Set "Do not Disturb" windows on all work apps/notifications.

\- Set clear expectations with your management about when you'll start/stop
your day

\- Don't succumb to the temptation to just keep working...working...working at
the end of the day

\- If possible (this is hard or impossible for some), set up a dedicated work
space

\- Only check Slack once/hour if you can. Encourage your team to do the same.

\- Invest in good noise cancelling headphones

\- Oh, and read Deep Work :)

~~~
gotaran
> \- If possible (this is hard or impossible for some), set up a dedicated
> work space

This is the real killer IMO. It's impossible to focus in a studio apartment.
It's where I cook, eat, drink, sleep, Netflix, and now work.

~~~
pmontra
Try to micro partition your space.

Have a desk to work and a table to have food, possibly facing different walls.

Sit on a couch to play videogames and on a (office) chair to work.

Don't play games or watch Netflix on the computer you use to work. Uninstall
them.

~~~
gotaran
Yeah, counterintuitively buying a TV helped. It's better for my sanity than
going full cold turkey on Netflix.

------
daxfohl
I'll venture a good chunk of that is due to an out-of-sync-with-reality issue.

I think we'd all feel more productive and motivated working from home if the
world wasn't collapsing all around us. Working on some new feature shaving a
few milliseconds off an API call for investment bankers seems a bit out of
touch, whether at home or in the office.

Blaming loss of productivity solely on working from home may be the wrong
conclusion.

~~~
avolcano
This has been a massive issue for me. I've had the same problem off-and-on
over the past few years, whether in offices or at home. The work I do feels
rather pointless in a world collapsing around me with no short or long term
future. I at least sometimes get pulled back into feeling good about what I
work on because it's a consumer app that does have a large userbase that
depends on it for their happiness, and I do feel good about contributing to
that, but if I was working in _finance?_ No way.

Anyone who has been able to stay productive, let alone get _more_ productive,
in this reality is either in denial or far more optimistic than I'll ever be.

~~~
kortilla
> in a world collapsing around me with no short or long term future.

This is just your world-view being shaped by your “news” sources. Maybe get
off of social media for a while or only follow people who do not talk about
politics/current events.

> but if I was working in finance? No way.

People who say this tend to underestimate the importance of finance. For
example, enabling easy mobile banking for tech illiterate people is going to
have a much larger impact on society than 99% of the apps already out there.
Another: imagine if you can fix budgeting for the 90% of people who don’t
bother.

Don’t shit on fields you don’t understand. It makes you look ignorant and
blocks you from even realizing the opportunities in the world.

~~~
wsatb
> This is just your world-view being shaped by your “news” sources. Maybe get
> off of social media for a while or only follow people who do not talk about
> politics/current events.

This is a good way to escape reality, but not much more. I've done this plenty
of times, but the world doesn't stop moving because you're ignoring what's
going on. You become ignorant, and that is far worse.

> Don’t shit on fields you don’t understand. It makes you look ignorant and
> blocks you from even realizing the opportunities in the world.

I took the comment as they are not interested in finance. Maybe they've worked
in the field in the past and don't like it. They didn't "shit on" anything.

~~~
r29vzg2
> This is a good way to escape reality, but not much more. I've done this
> plenty of times, but the world doesn't stop moving because you're ignoring
> what's going on.

Unless you’re in a position to actually create change, I don’t see how
following every single update to an unfolding news story helps you. I am not
talking about being completely ignorant. There is a saying, important news
will always find you.

You could try avoiding news, and letting the news find you. Just following
that simple methodology will greatly change the perspective you have on the
world, and your short term life.

~~~
tsimionescu
Avoiding the news is a good recipe for becoming ignorant, and only knowing the
propaganda. In a world of public relations experts, the only way to avoid this
is to look for original sources that you can trust (e.g. by interacting with
people who were part of the event), and/or listen to as many different news
sources as you can find. You should usually avoid the bigger ones, especially
the ones intended for mass consumption.

If you just find out about the world from what the NYT or Fox or WSJ write
about, you only know propaganda.

~~~
kortilla
Following the news is a good way to drink a bunch of propaganda and think
you’re not ignorant when you still are. See Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

------
pydry
Younger employees probably have less space. Apartment/house shares, etc.

I've known some who are working on their bed. This isn't healthy nor is it
likely to be conducive to productivity.

~~~
gotaran
Not to minimize the struggles of suburban parents, but I do feel they might be
divorced from what single urban life is like right now.

As a "younger" (30 year old) tech employee, in addition to living in a cramped
space with 3 roommates in SF with no privacy, I have to work in a dining room
because my bedroom has very thin walls. I also have to do cook and clean way
more often, when I previously used to get 3 meals a day at work. I also have
to haul groceries a couple times a week, which is super painful without a car,
and then I have to compete for very limited fridge space.

I also haven't met friends and family in over 6 months, and my dating life's
been obliterated. It's been mentally taxing in a way that living with your
loved ones in a McMansion isn't. I can't even handle Zoom calls with friends
anymore. It's the last thing I want to do after the 3 hours of back to back
Zoom meetings I get roped into because I'm "senior".

Again, I don't mean to minimize the struggles of parents, college kids, the
many people unemployed, our essential workers keeping things running, or our
elderly who are at risk of dying. I'm in a very privileged position. But it's
clear that all the lifestyle changes I've been forced to make have been a huge
drain on my productivity.

~~~
an_opabinia
How about moving back home? Your parents will be happy to have you around,
cooking will be fun again, they are your best friends. And since there are
only 7 zipcodes in the whole US where single men outnumber single women ages
20-40, your dating life may surprisingly improve too!

Listen this is a healthy perspective. Having such clarity about how shitty
things are without the perks. Most people sit around years ruminating how
crappy all this stuff is and you figured it out pretty quickly.

~~~
gotaran
Thanks, that's actually great advice. I can't move back home - my parents
aren't in the US and with border closures and tax implications I don't want to
risk international travel now.

I don't have any visa issues thankfully, so I can pretty much relocate to
anywhere in the country. I'm thinking of an AirBnb in a nice seaside town.

------
lindenksv85
I think it’s unfortunate that people are taking statistics (or anecdotes) from
this period to support or not support WFH. At this point in time, it would be
rather audacious for anyone to claim that productivity is more tied to the
location of your desk than to the fact that people are working through the
apocalypse, and some people are working through more than one “once in a
lifetime” disaster. If productivity is down, maybe it’s because we expect
people to keep adding to billionaire bottom lines when their entire lives are
falling apart, in many cases irreparably??

~~~
oh-4-fucks-sake
Chiming in here. I moved across the country to SoCal and returned to the
company I left, (re)-starting in Sept. 2019 as full-time WFH. I worked 4-5
days in the office before the move.

I'm a good control here because I've worked for the same company:

1\. In the office

2\. WFH pre-Covid

3\. WFH during-Covid

What's more, all of my favorite activities: golf, hiking, cooking--are largely
unaffected by the pandemic. My income's been the same and the work activities
have been roughly similar.

I felt relatively productive WFH pre-Covid but something has changed that's
affected my productivity/motivation--and I can't put my finger on it. I think
it's the general, subconscious, back-of-my-mind feeling that things are
profoundly going to shit that's dragging me down. It's been a struggle now
when it's not been before.

This is all purely anecdotal, but I think I'm a good case-in-point example of
your position: that WFH is a convenient strawman to hand-wave away the effects
of people living in the final pages of a Vonnegut novel.

I love WFH; I want to be productive; but I don't think that shoe-horning
people back into offices (wearing a mask all day, nonetheless) is going to
magically turn everyone back into creative, chipper good-time-charlies.

~~~
mepiethree
if we're doing anecdotes, the apocalypse makes me more productive since good
work allows me to hide from everything else in the world being terrible

------
koolba
The younger employees clearly haven’t mastered the art of the automated Monday
morning 7:47am email or how to rewrite git commit history to edit the author
time stamp.

------
el_don_almighty
The old guys want us back in the office as well. The party is over. It's a
shame. I am getting so much more done at home. I can't believe I have to go
back to that hell hole. There's no way I can replicate my home office setup. I
think I am going to glue my headphones to my head claim it as an ADA
accommodation...

------
JamesLeonis
I want to bring up another question: How much of the work was synchronous vs
asynchronous?

A company that is deeply in bed with meetings and face-to-face cooperation
will suffer in a remote-first environment. The article, as others have noted,
talks a lot about feelings of the upper management rather than any hard data.

Reading a linked article further down [0] says that JPMC, and other banks,
were ramping up the return to the office for months, and it's now when they
are making it mandatory.

Also, several weeks ago large New York landlords [1] were urging Wall Street
banks to bring their staff back into work. Might be a coincidence, but the
timing certainly warrants a look.

[0]: [https://archive.is/qJYRo](https://archive.is/qJYRo)

[1]: [https://archive.is/LSp9t](https://archive.is/LSp9t)

------
mjfl
As a young guy who was a full time remote worker for about 6 months, and also
very honest with myself: I was more distracted as a remote employee. I wasn't
as focused as I needed to be and when I was on site working next to the guy I
reported to I was much more productive.

~~~
djmips
That's true but you were fooling yourself. Wait until you get fired and then
you'll realize it's about getting your work done and not where you are
sitting. Discipline should come from within.

~~~
mjfl
> That's true but you were fooling yourself.

When did I fool myself? What are you talking about?

------
topkai22
We took an entire society from in-person offices with norms structured around
a clear delineation between home/work to full WFH basically overnight. There
was little to no training, often limited or confused technology rollout, and
no planned culture transition. On top of that, many people had their kids kept
home as well and had other essential services disrupted.

The fact that it is difficult to measure whether or not WFH had an impact on
productivity or not is a HUGE mark in its favor. This should have just fallen
apart, no consultant or advisor would have every recommended trying a mass
remote working initiative this way. Instead it seems to have mostly worked.

I say mostly, because now we are at the point where it takes concious thought
to build processes and culture to sustain a remote work culture. Developing
young talent is difficult regardless of the circumstances, but in the in
person office we have well developed norms, culture, programs, and processes
to support them. Have you and your organization spent significant time
thinking adapting and developing those cultural factors? I'm a remote work
advocate because I've seen it work not just for me but for those around me,
including junior talent, but you have to think about it, experiment, and work
at it.

Beyond the workplace, a lot of people have complained about the sudden
transition to WFH do to them being not set up for it. I've heard this
expressed as because they have limited space / lots of roommates or just being
uncomfortable with the lack of home/work seperation. The root cause of these
is (mostly) the unique circumstances of this experiment. If WFH was a strong
social norm, people would have chosen different living accommodations and
would have "seperate spaces" without needing a corporate office.

While not every job ultimately can or should become primarily remote/WFH, I
think the benefits for most information workers and their companies will win
out. But right now we are going to see the long and hard process of rebuilding
culture and norms in a new work environment.

~~~
notfromhere
I don’t know about you, but work/life delineation pre-Covid wasn’t much
better. The reason that employees are feeling it worse now is because even
that pretense is gone, even if it barely existed before.

------
ghaff
Dimon kind of throws them under the bus, doesn't he:

"Work output by younger employees was particularly affected on Mondays and
Fridays, according to findings discussed by Chief Executive Office Jamie Dimon
in a private meeting with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts. That, along with
worries that remote work is no substitute for organic interaction, are part of
why the biggest U.S. bank is urging more workers to return to offices over the
coming weeks."

Of course, if one were cynical, you might suspect he wanted return to office
anyway and young workers are a convenient and safe group to blame.

~~~
zepto
Do you think he’s just lying about it?

When I was a younger worker I certainly did slack off on Friday and Monday
when I could get away with it.

I’ve worked in more than one office where people started drinking on Friday
afternoon _in the office_ when the CEO was out of town.

~~~
nsriv
You're right in that most office workers take Monday to get going and wind
down on Friday, but Jamie Dimon is the guy that lied in Congressional
testimony multiple times, so that's equally likely.

~~~
zepto
It’s not equally likely unless you think 50% of statements Dimon makes are
lies.

If you do think that, it would be an interesting and unusual claim worthy of
analysis, but it’s certainly not a reasonable assumption without such
analysis.

~~~
nsriv
I think he's not a dispassionate observer of WFH trends. Lies have an
underlying motive, and he's shown before that he is willing to lie in high-
stakes testimony to avoid a negative outcome. Dimon's WFH assertion was made
to analysts, and in his role as a leader at JPMorgan, presumably for a
positive motive (market sentiment, boost morale, ensure a return to normalcy).
This wasn't an off-the-cuff observation. By equally likely I mean he was in a
situation with a clear motivation so the likelihoods are between truth and
falsehood. In that frame, 50% is generous.

Edit: the above does preclude the idea that "truth" can have a motive behind
it as well, but I don't particularly think he deserves the benefit of the
doubt.

------
actuator
I used to enjoy short periods of remote work but I have hated WFH since it
started during the Covid period.

\- I miss talking with colleagues on things related to tech, but not
necessarily related to the current task.

\- Video meetings are exhausting to be a part of for resolving simple things.
It was way faster to just talk in person.

\- Video meetings feel less collaborative in general for open ended
discussions, I see far fewer participation from teammates if it is not their
own task.

\- New employees who onboarded during Covid feel isolated as they didn't get
to build personal rapport with others in the same or different teams.

\- Interaction with people from different teams has almost disappeared, not
everytime you had a new idea, you were actively looking for it.

\- As much as I enjoy cooking, I hate that it feels like a chore at this point
to do day in, day out.

\- I hate that personal time and work time boundaries have merged and it seems
like I am working at all hours and relaxing at all hours at the same time.

------
tchalla
> The bank has noticed the productivity decline among “employees in general,
> not just younger employees,” JPMorgan spokesman Michael Fusco clarified in
> an emailed statement, adding that younger workers “could be disadvantaged by
> missed learning opportunities” by not being in offices.

From the article

------
conductr
Something I’ve observed is middle management is doing more of the doing. That
is to say, they are cutting out their (younger) subordinates. This is
happening as they want to be in the best position to survive layoffs. I sadly
have overseen the talent reviews aka lay-off rankings and I’ve heard from
colleagues that this is happening at their companies too.

~~~
user5994461
This.

Interns and new graduates are mostly dead weight right now. They're impossible
to train and bring up to speed without being physically together.

Layoffs will come and younger employees will be the first to go.

------
wirthjason
With a 1.5 year old daughter WFH is great. Sure, there’s distractions — she
wants to climb on my lap and bang the keyboard and play with the mouse. In the
start I used to get upset about the interruption but now I take a 5-10 min
break and play with her. It gives me purpose to why I’m behind the keyboard in
the first place. If I were in an office I’d miss these moments, leaving the
house before she wakes up and returning just before she goes to bed.

------
spike021
I'm not nearly as productive in my 1 bedroom apartment as I am at the office.

I try to only go to my desk during work hours but it's where my dining area
would be, so while cooking I like to browse the internet/watch Youtube on my
ultrawide monitor. At the same time, it's a small apartment, so the dining
area is part of my living room.

This means I'm in the same room for pretty much the entirety of the day. I try
to avoid going into my bedroom outside of night time sleep hours so that I can
at least keep that space as more of a nighttime only relaxing one.

I desperately need a completely separate space. I was already planning to move
to a new, nicer apartment this year, and because of COVID WFH I'm considering
getting a 2br and taking the hit on the additional cost just so that I can
have an entirely separate office space.

But regardless, while I don't mind WFH once or twice a week, I really prefer a
separate office a majority of the time. I need and value the separation.

~~~
jfoutz
It sounds a little silly, but a uniform can help. Pick some clothes that are
work clothes, put them on when you "go to work" and then switch back out when
you're done. Sort of like how changing into gym clothes helps (me anyway)
motivate myself to go out and excercise.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
It’s a pretty powerful psychological motivator - if I change into my gym
clothes there’s no way I’m not working out - imagine going through the trouble
to change into your gym clothes and then changing back out without doing
anything. To me it’s almost unimaginable.

------
fhood
I despise working from home, and think my productivity has taken a massive hit
as a result. Believe it or not I _like_ being able to switch between a work
and home environment, and find it vastly improves my mood and productivity.

------
ecmascript
I work from home and have done so for a couple of years. It all depends, like
most stuff in life. It depends on the person working from home, their
situation, what their job is etc.

It works great for me since I have a dedicated office at home which is larger
than any office space I've had before. I can have this because I can live on
the country side where housing is cheaper.

I can walk my dogs when I need to and I can focus a lot more here than I ever
could in an open office. I have respect for people who claim they cannot and
see no reason (except a pandemic) why people should always work from home. I
can imagine why a 20-year old in his or her 20 square meter apartment isn't as
productive as they would be at a big, bright office. For me, if I had to go to
an office, I would have to leave my dogs in some dog care facility in the
morning, stressing in my commute to work since I am forever a optimist when it
comes to time. I wouldn't feel good, I would be tired and unable to focus. I
have been there and done that. I know I am more productive at home.

I think it's nice to offer people the ability so that for the people who
thrives in it (like me) can have the ability to work from home.

It has been hard, because the WFH mentality is either all or nothing. Why
can't people and companies simply be a bit more laid back and offer both? The
world isn't black and white, just let people decide for themselves since we
are all grown ups.

I expect companies not to treat me as a child and so should you.

------
mcqueenjordan
I prefer arrangements where I go in to work ~80% of the time. (e.g. ~1 day
each week WFH of my own choosing, completely spontaneous day-of decision.)

That being said, I don't think my productivity has taken a hit during this
long period of WFH. If anything, I think I'm being more productive. I do miss
the social interaction, though. That's why I prefer the 80/20 arrangement.

------
FpUser
Without giving even the slightest idea on what productivity and how did they
measure it I would say it is just plain propaganda from managers discovering
that some of them (maybe a good lot) are becoming redundant.

As for learning things - there is insane amount of knowledge online and if one
is unable to use it they have bigger problems than being/or not in the office.

------
nym3r0s
I've worked in two of these top investment banks and the amount of red tape
that needs to be crossed is just breathtaking. Something as simple as
provisioning a kafka topic? Go raise 2 requests, have it approved by these 4
people including your manager, then create multiple system accounts for each
environment, each with its own approval steps. Agreed that these approvals and
audit trails are necessary - but surely they can be simplified.

In office - you always knew someone who knew someone in that team. It was just
a matter of picking up the phone, calling them and getting them to expedite
your request. Now that everyone is WFH, you ping them on IM and wait for them
to respond. With back-to-back zoom calls, it's honestly the last thing people
want to do.

Couple that with the fact that there isn't a divide (like commute) between
work and home anymore - so there's just more fatigue and higher levels of
irritability.

------
13rac1
Apples to Oranges. This is not Work From Home. This is Work From Home during a
Pandemic during Natural Disasters. WFHPND is a bit long for an acronym though.

Productivity may, actually, fall for younger employees at home, but data from
this year is not valid for a calculation vs prior years.

------
Mountain_Skies
I've enjoyed working from home for the past four years but have serious
reservations about how well it would have worked for me at the beginning of my
career. Though I came into the labor market with a good degree from a good
school, there was so much to learn and much of that happened informally and
organically while in the physical presence of others with more experience.
Perhaps the nature or structure of work will adapt in such a way that those
early in their careers will not be hampered by being remote but in the
meantime it does seem like there is going to be a need for extra patience in
developing younger employees into higher levels of productivity.

------
jrochkind1
It's a good thing that in this natural experiment nothing else that might
effect productivity changed between February and March except switching to
work from home, right?

Since factors that might effect anxiety, physical and psychological health,
priorities, demands on time and attention, and external factors effecting
success stayed largely the same, but for switching from working in an office
to working from home, so we know it was "the WFH lifestyle" (lifestyle?!?)
that caused a 'hit' to 'overall productivity', so we can be confident that
instructing employees to return to the office regardless of safety will
restore this stolen productivity.

(not)

------
mensetmanusman
Could they have chosen a more inane data point? These companies hire one
person for the job of three people, underpays them for the number of years
they squeeze from their stressed lives, then spits out the ones that can’t
handle the hazing.

------
didibus
It's important to keep in mind we can't distinguish between work from home and
having to work during a pandemic affecting everyone's daily routine and moral
and keeping us from our normal activities.

------
LatteLazy
The fact that JP Morgan have managed to actually measure productivity for any
complex role is frankly incredible. That alone will get them the (non-) Nobel
prize in economics I imagine...

------
awalton
Going way out on a limb here, maybe productivity has dropped due to the
overall stress of the situation, and not being at home? It doesn't seem like
it's ever going to be possible to separate the noise from the signal here -
everyone's experiencing an unprecedented in their lifetime event causing an
immeasurable amount of extra stressors...

------
boring_twenties
At this point I'm not sure I care whether I'm more productive at home or in
the office. I'm simply not going to consider ever going into an office again
unless someone wants to pay me at least double what I'd make working at home,
and that's that.

FWIW my honest assessment is that I'm more productive at home on average, but
with much higher variance.

------
codygman
> extended remote work may not be all it’s cracked up to be, at least for some
> job functions. While pre-pandemic studies found remote workers were just as
> efficient as those in offices, there were questions about how employees
> would perform under compulsory lockdowns.

Or maybe ya know... A pandemic has its own negative effect on productivity.

------
refurb
Not surprised in the least.

My hypothesis is that we _won 't_ see a massive shift towards WFH with the
exception of a few big name tech companies. Most employers will require people
to be in the office, at least a part of the week.

And even those companies who say "ok" to WFH, will start second guessing their
decision within a couple years.

------
aussieguy1234
Are bank employees that work on securities permitted to use common
collaboration apps such as Slack? Or are they prevented from doing so to crack
down on insider trading etc?

If they can't use common collaboration apps you in a remote setting you could
see how this could impact their productivity.

~~~
thr0waway2
You can chat to other people on internal IM apps or on Symphony/Bloomberg to
external people. They're all monitored and recorded along with Zoom calls.

My drop in productivity as a trader was mostly due to the fact that despite we
were raking in a lot of cash I could just see us barely getting paid at the
end of the year so I just made sure our books weren't blowing up and spent
most of my time finding a hedge fund job.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/JG7Sn](https://archive.is/JG7Sn)

------
rtlfe
> Work output was particularly affected on Mondays and Fridays, according to
> findings discussed by Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon in a private
> meeting with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts.

How would they measure that? It seems basically impossible, and the article
has no details.

------
Zoo3y
Imagine for a second these comments but for an article praising productivity
while working from home.

------
babesh
Ramping employees new to the workforce is probably best done in person over
the course of several months. There are so many things that someone new can
spin their wheels on for hours that you can solve immediately.

Younger employees won’t be getting the full support they need.

------
Kiro
Report: "WFH has made productivity go up."

HN: "Of course you're more productive. WFH is the best, I hope we never return
to the office!"

Report: "WFH has made productivity go down."

HN: "Don't trust this. Productivity can't be measures."

------
yalogin
I don’t get it. How does one even measure productivity and that too on a daily
basis? How do they know that productivity fell on Mondays and fridays? Are
they stalking their employees and tracking their every keystroke?

------
flashyfaffe2
For those who don't know, Bloomberg journalist have their bonus linked to
their capacity to have their articles impacting th market. Bloomberg has
developed a tool to monitor this.

------
Ericson2314
Don't young bank employees just sit around all day until their boss asks at
7pm for powerpoint they rush to research and make for the next 3 hours?

~~~
muttled
At least it would match the college experience of working those hours.

------
AlexTWithBeard
I see it as good news.

If employees can be fully productive while working from home, they can be
equally productive while working from Mumbai.

I'd rather be in NYC office.

~~~
ralphc
I somewhat disagree. For a lot of work you want workers to be in, or near the
time zone of the majority of the workers. 10+ hours offset means no real-time
communication and email chains take days instead of minutes.

------
m00dy
Landlords in NYC will feel happy about this.

~~~
vertbhrtn
From their perspective, it would be rational to cut a deal with JPMC: they
bring workforce back to offices, landlords get their money and give a % of
that to a few execs at JPMC. And all the health related problems won't be a
JPMC's problem. In some sense, JPMC's execs suggest to burn the workforce now,
pocket the extra money, and depart to greener pastures (less contaminated with
viruses) shortly before the fallout.

------
simonCGN
Sounds like propaganda to me. No word on how they have measured it.

------
mirekrusin
Maybe if they offered desk, stand+keyboard+mouse/desktop so people don't have
to work from the "kitchen table" the results would be better?

------
m0zg
> At JPMorgan, productivity falls

How can it "fall" when JPMorgan doesn't actually _produce_ anything?

------
frompdx
There is a lot of certainty in the quotes this article shares given the
complete lack of hard data.

> “The WFH lifestyle seems to have impacted younger employees, and overall
> productivity and ‘creative combustion’ has taken a hit,”

What exactly is "creative combustion" and how can one measure it?

> “Overall, Jamie thinks a shift back to the office will be good for the young
> employees and to foster creative ideas,” Kleinhanzl wrote.

This is yet another remote work hit piece. There are not metrics presented,
perhaps none collected, and the immeasurable "creativity" is used in place of
facts.

For any of these claims to have credibility the following need to presented at
minimum.

1\. What was measured.

2\. How it was measured.

3\. What the sample size was.

4\. How long it was measured.

5\. The delta in measurements alongside the raw data.

But I suspect Dimon and his cohort don't care about credibility. They just
want to find a way to rationalize their decision.

~~~
traskjd
Where’s all of this for your side of the argument? Thanks!

------
lwigo
Am I supposed to feel bad for JPMC?

------
jimbob45
I’m inclined to believe he’s afraid of change and is abusing his power to push
his feelings-based agenda.

To me, this goes one of two ways. One, he loses a huge swath of young workers
that apply to different companies instead and his company folds. Two, he still
loses a huge swath of young workers who don’t apply but his feelings turn out
to be true and the company comes out stronger. Either way, we won’t know until
many years down the line.

~~~
smeeth
You seem to be operating under the assumption that all young employees want to
work from home. I'm a young person who can't wait to go back to the office,
and I know I'm not the only one. WFH is a much better setup for people who
have two kids and a dog, not single people in small studio apartments.

~~~
sidlls
What makes you think that WFH is better for people with kids and a dog?

