Work from Home vs Work from Office -- Chime in - Page 3

WfH works for me but being in the University premises is a must at most of the time. I've seen the level of students deteriorate in online learning, they can barely focus for 1 hour!!

I go in whenever I have to conduct classes or research (in person) and most other times, it's study at home. 15-30 minutes of commute doesn't seem too long compared to y'all but it does feel exhausting at times.

Hybrid mode is the way to go! 👍🏼 the access to wonderful lectures and seminars from across the world that wasn't possible earlier is one of the examples.

Good topic Tanu! Interesting responses 👍🏼

Originally posted by: Armu4eva

I understand your take and it is what many of the management in the company who want to bring wfo back also promote. However, i beg to differ.

The wfo model has resulted in concentration of development and unrealistic rent/ payscales/ property taxes in select cities- LA, Bangalore to name a few. Money is a subjective topic- how much is enough?

The concentrated urbanisation of big cities leads to migration from smaller cities thereby increasing pressure on a city's already stressed infrastructure- land/water/energy etc.

Climate change is a reality and hence it is about time there is rationalisation in development. I am more than glad that LA has witnessed a reverse migration and I hope this continues for overstressed cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Tokyo, Singapore.

As for being replaced, i believe the old adage... untill you can be replaced, you can't be promoted.

I feel in India management suffers from a basic lack of trust on employees and that is one of the biggest factors that has driven people to opt back to wfo. For instance look at how wfh has resulted in a rise in "moonlighting" in IT.

So wfh is definitely a reality as transportation, rent and environment deteriorates going forward.

Well, work from home could mean work from anywhere. So, while I agree that "WFH" is likely here to stay and in a disruption of this magnitude there could be potential winners too, a bust and subsequent decay of cities may not necessarily mean a boom of "smaller cities" as remote workers are pretty much digital nomads at this point and home could be anywhere in this world as long as there is an internet service. There will be pay, legal and tax consequences to such a model with wages/salaries being the first casualty.

Regarding environment, it is true that working from home temporarily reduced global CO2 emissions in 2020 compared to 2019 but emissions are now almost back at pre-pandemic levels even when most workers aren’t back in their offices. This is because energy footprint has increased as well as non-work related travel trips, including "short trips", have increased per researchers:

https://earth.org/environmental-impacts-of-remotely-working-from-home/

https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment

As for "climate change", assuming you are broaching anthropogenic greenhouse effects, it is beyond the scope of "work from home" topic but if anyone is interested in discussing what compound (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane etc.) is contributing how much percentage to greenhouse effect, they could do it in a different dedicated topic. For the record, it is water vapor.

Nice topic for discussion , coincidentally I have presentation on the same topic tmrw 😆 wish me luck 🙃

Will come back again to read all the replies ✨

Originally posted by: Radiant-Eyes

Nice topic for discussion , coincidentally I have presentation on the same topic tmrw 😆 wish me luck 🙃

Will come back again to read all the replies ✨

All the best 👍🏼

Originally posted by: K.Universe.

Well, work from home could mean work from anywhere. So, while I agree that "WFH" is likely here to stay and in a disruption of this magnitude there could be potential winners too, a bust and subsequent decay of cities may not necessarily mean a boom of "smaller cities" as remote workers are pretty much digital nomads at this point and home could be anywhere in this world as long as there is an internet service. There will be pay, legal and tax consequences to such a model with wages/salaries being the first casualty.

Regarding environment, it is true that working from home temporarily reduced global CO2 emissions in 2020 compared to 2019 but emissions are now almost back at pre-pandemic levels even when most workers aren’t back in their offices. This is because energy footprint has increased as well as non-work related travel trips, including "short trips", have increased per researchers:

https://earth.org/environmental-impacts-of-remotely-working-from-home/

https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment

As for "climate change", assuming you are broaching anthropogenic greenhouse effects, it is beyond the scope of "work from home" topic but if anyone is interested in discussing what compound (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane etc.) is contributing how much percentage to greenhouse effect, they could do it in a different dedicated topic. For the record, it is water vapor.

Will keep the climate change topic for another topic of discussion😊 Looking forward to your inputs.

As for rise in emissions, one reason is because almost if not all 3rd world countries are back to wfo mode. I can vouch for Indian manufacturing, legal, utility, and several IT companies in this regard who have switched back to wfo. Further to keep economy rolling, Indian Govt. kept infrastructure & manufacturing activities open from late June -July 2020. So emission levels increasing isn't a fallout of wfh.

One cant deny wfh has tremendous savings of transport, fuel, rent etc. Taxes are govt. levies, payable irrespective of where you are- only the rates may differ by area or use.

It's not fair to blame developing countries for emissions (especially India) considering their population sizes. India's CO2 emissions are about half of that of US' emissions and about a fifth of that of China's. And if you go by per capita emissions, India is not even a top 10 offender.

But, as you said, we will reserve all comments on environment and "climate change" for another thread.

Originally posted by: K.Universe.

It's not fair to blame developing countries for emissions (especially India) considering their population sizes. India's CO2 emissions are about half of that of US' emissions and about a fifth of that of China's. And if you go by per capita emissions, India is not even a top 10 offender.

But, as you said, we will reserve all comments on environment and "climate change" for another thread.

I was not blaming but reasoning the factors that could be responsible. When i compare the emission levels post or pre covid levels, i will compare it for a particular country, not India vs US.

Yh i will definitely post one on climate change. I dont know why some political parties still think climate change is a myth

Good to see you continue to participate in these discussions. Demonstrates that you have faith in what you started 😊

A few questions:

1) If CO2 emissions worldwide have dipped in 2020 compared to 2019 and went up back to 2019 levels in 2021, how can you blame (or, attribute it to, if you prefer milder terms) India or developing countries based on "reasoning"? Where is the supporting data that these countries caused it?

2) Even assuming that your assumptions are accurate, how can all developing countries, even put together, account for total worldwide CO2 emissions being back to where they were before the pandemic started?

3) Even when carbon emissions were (temporarily) reduced, research is showing that work-from-home is negatively impacting various other ESG indicators like energy use and transportation use (a 26% increase in the average number of trips taken, including increased non-work travel and more short trips), so how can you attempt to sell work-from-home as a win for the environment?

Originally posted by: K.Universe.

Good to see you continue to participate in these discussions. Demonstrates that you have faith in what you started 😊

A few questions:

1) If CO2 emissions worldwide have dipped in 2020 compared to 2019 and went up back to 2019 levels in 2021, how can you blame (or, attribute it to, if you prefer milder terms) India or developing countries based on "reasoning"? Where is the supporting data that these countries caused it?

2) Even assuming that your assumptions are accurate, how can all developing countries, even put together, account for total worldwide CO2 emissions being back to where they were before the pandemic started?

3) Even when carbon emissions were (temporarily) reduced, research is showing that work-from-home is negatively impacting various other ESG indicators like energy use and transportation use (a 26% increase in the average number of trips taken, including increased non-work travel and more short trips), so how can you attempt to sell work-from-home as a win for the environment?

Noted your points. I will deal with this in detail in the climate change topic. 😊

Moving away from environment based questions:

If Mickey can work from anywhere, what's stopping companies to employ a cheaper, better, Minnie who can also work from anywhere? What's stopping the labor marker from turning into a gig economy?