Work From Home
Key data
Stack overflow study states in 2023 about 42% surveyed developers work in totally remote environment, 42% in hybrid, and 16% in fully in-office.
Self-employed developers work remotely for 70% of them.
Different studies could conclude different numbers based on the interviewed population, based on inclusion of self-employment, of reaching methods; likely, SO numbers could be sightly upper-bound of workforce on the amount of remote jobs.
It is made clear though, that remote job is strongly demanded for some developers. They are 21% to declare outright quitting a job that would offer no remote option, while being an additional 49% to look for another more remote-friendly position.
Reasons invoked include productivity and focus, saving stress, and saving time & money related no longer having to having to commute by car, while mentionned advantages to work in office include better communication, bonding, and better team efficiency.
Adapting to the employes
The problem with compromises
When it comes to organizing the same team of developers, the 3 work styles (in-office, hybrid and fully remote) are challenging to coherently organize without proper organization.
Very obviously, workers who prefer the office will be disapointed and eventually stop coming if the office is perpetually empty of some teammates. This usually leads some companies towards hybrid work, in order to satisfy a larger panel.
Unfortunately the compromise can be unsatisfying for both ends of the spectrum; poor coordination of in-office hours can result in too empty or too crowded offices, which can be painful office experiences. Additionally, some employees prefer -having a set daily routine rather than commuting to work sporadingly, for example in order to avoid transporting their equipment or forgetting part it somewhere during commute, might have problems around coordinating with others and so on.
Ideal organization
In office organization
An ideal in-office organization must offer comfortable position to work for all employees. Without too much surprise, this includes:
- A central positionning regarding transportation of the team.
- Sufficient space and separation to avoid lack of focus related to overhearing discussions.
- Formal and informal discussion spaces away from the screen.
Remote organization
Remote organization is highly desirable for both employees and employers, because it allows broader area employment, it removes necessity of large offices, it removes necessity to commute, and cut down distractions; without any possible doubt, in terms of efficiency remote is king.
However, full remote is not suited to all, and transitionning to it is difficult for employers who would prefer keeping key employees who might have unfriendly home environment.
Finally, while efficient, it may be ill suited for the purpose of bonding between employees, for a set proportion of them who prefer in-person interaction by a higher margin.
To counterbalance this, an efficient remote organization should ideally have in-person events. These events should include as little actual development as possible, and be more of a planned occasion to meet, plan in team, and have informal discussion.
Hybrid organization
In a hybrid organization, you face additional challenges: the workplace will be variably occupied, and both formal and informal meeting may need some level of effort to include remote workers. -This can be wasteful and unsatisfying for previously mentionned reasons. However, things can be made easier by cherry-picking ideas of both in office and remote organization.
Efficient organizations should include either a calendar to book the office, or an office large enough for everyone to come at the same time.
They should also include working devices to make remote meetings such as meeting rooms with included quality audio i/o devices.
Final notes
Because the development work is such a focused activity, because it can be done remotely, because commuting and occupying offices is vastly wasteful, i believe any new company should reap benefits from a wfh company model in the current state of the market.
While this require some knowledge of how these organizations can work fluently, I, as a developer, would refuse to commute to do what I could have been doing with the exact same efficiency being home.
Thankfully, while there is some benefits to in-person meeting and informal discussions, with clever planning, you don’t really have to choose; with regular interval in-person meeting days, a manager can drive and empower their employees to ensure they will deliver the best when returning home.