Having worked from home for 20 years now, there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of working from home since 2020 because so many people started doing it with no background and little mentorship.
If you walked down the street and chose the first 20 people you met and threw them on an engineering team, you'd expect the engineering product to suffer. The same applies here. We threw a whole bunch of people into working from home with no skills or experience related to WFH and, as you would reasonably expect, they are floundering.
This isn't the fault of any particular tool, rather inexperienced people not understanding how to properly use the tools they have available and conduct themselves generally. I anticipate that things will improve as experience grows, but it is still early days. A few years is still quite junior. We don't expect great software from someone who has only been programming for a few years, so we shouldn't expect great WFH ability from someone who has only been working from home for a few years.
As a long-time remote worker I also noticed (especially in early 2020) that a significant portion of people were struggling simply because they assumed they can continue doing things _exactly_ like at the office, only at home.
No, it's a considerably different setup, and you (and your team) have to adjust your processes accordingly:
• Slack is not a (chit)chat. Be precise about what you want and provide enough context to the reader. Small niceties are important, but reduce the overall fluff.
• Pay attention to how you structure your messages / exchanges. Take advantage of the formatting features. Make your messages easily digestible. Small things add up over time.
• Take notes / write documentation more than before.
• Embrace tools that you didn't need previously (for communication, brainstorming, whiteboarding).
I believe work in a remote setting is generally more productive if done well.
P.S. Not trying to dismiss the highly extroverted folk who _need_ human contact to feel normal day-to-day. I believe that's a separate topic entirely.
I’m actually curious as a follow-up here - what do you think are the skills people are missing or the mistakes they’re making? I’m a first-go-round wfh-er too, and while I think I’ve been fairly successful at it, I’d love to hear from someone who’s made a career of it.
If you walked down the street and chose the first 20 people you met and threw them on an engineering team, you'd expect the engineering product to suffer. The same applies here. We threw a whole bunch of people into working from home with no skills or experience related to WFH and, as you would reasonably expect, they are floundering.
This isn't the fault of any particular tool, rather inexperienced people not understanding how to properly use the tools they have available and conduct themselves generally. I anticipate that things will improve as experience grows, but it is still early days. A few years is still quite junior. We don't expect great software from someone who has only been programming for a few years, so we shouldn't expect great WFH ability from someone who has only been working from home for a few years.