Not to question you, but if Ontario is like Manitoba, then the gathering restrictions set forth by the government don't apply to workplaces. My firm made the decision to send everybody home from April to July last year, but we've been back in the office ever since. At least here, there's never been restrictions on employees working in offices.

BB, provincial stay at home order since mid-march here. We're only expected to leave our homes for essential things or are essential workers. This is different than the rules pre-xmas.

But my office has always been "open" to those who can't work from home.  I've gone in after hours a few times.  The rule here is if you can WFH, then your employer is obligated to do that.

All = just you. ?

Nope. Me plus ten other people.

My previous post was a bit confusing.  I was in the office during the WFH order because I was only one in the office and thus allowed.  

I can't read sometimes.

What's the premise of your question?

there's no "premise." i'm just curious if you're a designer, pm, owner, etc.

I think one of the things the WFH situation has shown is that people who are typically producing at their computers are able to be quite productive at home, and those that are usually in meetings (or maybe more specifically managing and telling others what to do), are wanting to get back into the office because they feel productivity suffers when they can't look over your shoulder. But yeah, debatable for sure.

I'm torn between WFH and in the office. There are definite things I like about WFH and times where I feel more productive. But it seems like just as often I wish I could turn to the people next to me in the office to figure out something without trying to get everyone on a zoom call where half of them are trying to multitask on something else. My tasks are probably pretty evenly split between stuff I do by myself with my head down and needing to communicate with other people on.

We aren't fully back in the office and probably won't be until after Labor Day, but I anticipate working something like 75% in the office and 25% from home. Sometimes it might be an entire week or weeks from home, other times it might be a complete month at the office ... all depending on my workload at the time. All indications from leadership is that they're willing to allow us the flexibility we want.

interesting ea- i'm probably the opposite, anticipating 25% in office and 75% at home, which also corresponds to the type of work like you're saying. although i don't really feel the need to be able to lean over and ask anything.. i've found digital communication sufficient enough, and worth the trade off, so to speak, although my pm might feel differently.

i also really appreciate the ability to focus at home; in our office space we were packed like sardines, and i do not miss being able to hear every conversation about every project, all day.

@Everyday Architect. It's all about accountability and trust. Employers don't trust their employees, that's why there has always been such a strong push against more WFH. Did they have good reason not to... sometimes yes. But having been forced to do things this way, I think it should open their eyes, and if you can't learn how to keep your employees accountable working from home, maybe you should re-evaluate if you are actually able to do it in the office. Most of the people I wouldn't trust at home that I've worked with I don't trust to get anything done in the office either.

Being in the office more in my case does two things for me. First, it gets me quicker access to people I need information from. A lot of my job is filling in the pieces where people don't know what they don't know. In order to fill in those pieces, I need to have conversations with them about what they know (or what they think they know), and what they don't know so they can make decisions I need them to make. I can do this remotely (and have for many project teams over the years that were in different office locations from me), but it is faster in person. So it's just more efficient for me to get this work done in person.

Second, it allows me to be available more readily for drop in questions and problem solving sessions. I fight to keep my desk away from the windows and corners and more centrally located where people are always coming and going. I'm a firm resource and you'd be surprised at how many times people "suddenly remember" something they need to ask me about while they're on the way to get coffee and they see me at my desk. No one sees me at my desk at home.

But I also don't want to be constantly interrupted so being able to stay home when I need to get something done is great too. Sometimes I've checked out a small conference room to hide out in so I can focus on a task, but it's just not the same as being at my monitors with my other resources around me. I used to not like working from home for this reason, but now that I've figure out my home setup out of necessity, I can continue with it out of convenience at times when it suits me.

EA, you could not have put it better. This is exactly my situation. I need to be around to be a resource for others, but also I need time alone uninterrupted to produce. I love working from home when I need that uninterrupted time, but it is so hard to get people to make the decisions I need if I’m not seeing them physically in person.

i don't believe i've said anything? why so defensive? either share something or move on.

"What are you saying about the difference in perspective among these different positions?" I think the folks who end up in those different roles have different personalities and ways of interacting with colleagues. There are probably exceptions but certain types of folks function well in a social environment and may be ideal as a manager where as a person who can do excellent focused detailed work (like specifications writing) probably does better with less social distractions.

The perspective from those positions is different. That's just how the economics of business works, different roles are rewarded for accomplishing different tasks. It's a fair question to ask which perspective you approach WFH from.

This also reminds me of the "Maker / Manager" delineation in time management: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html 

To me it seems like someone primarily on a Maker's Schedule would be comfortable with remote work, while someone on a Manager's Schedule would rather be in an office setting. As architects we often switch between the two, but not in equal proportions, so it makes sense that the perspective would differ depending on your role in the firm.

Interesting, yeah I would say I'm roughly 2/3 maker (drafting/production) and 1/3 manager. And sure, on any given drafting task I can probably get it done faster in my highly controlled and quiet home environment - but when you start to think about the longer arc of getting really good at Revit and learning the art and science of building design and construction - I don't think slack and zoom are any match for the alchemy of smart people in a room together.

I'm a mix of maker and manager too. Mostly maker, but at times I need to have a manager schedule. I've never thought about it, but I do lose like half a day when I have a meeting thrown in mid morning or mid afternoon. I've started doing an office hours thing so people can drop in with questions, etc. and not feel like they are interrupting me. Kind of like he outlines for advising other startups, except I'm not scheduling appointments ... it's all just drop in. It's worked better than I was expecting it to though not always used and I just work on other things. It might be something I take back to the office when we do get back more.

There is going to be inherent differences in perspective. It depends on what your role and duty/function is. If you are mostly CAD/BIM production, you will have a different point of view then if your role is one that is mostly working with clients, stakeholders, and other stuff generally done in person, site-visits, etc. It will be different depending on what you do. It depends on what you are doing. I suspect some hybrid combination of WFH and in-office is going to be something people will like but I can not see how it will look for all offices.

Not to mention the differences in financial incentives between production & ownership. Even a small percentage difference in office wide efficiency will make a big difference over the course of a year to take home pay for leadership.

It will also be interesting how firms manage the decision. You won't be able to make everyone happy either way. So it will come down to the comparative advantage of the entire firm. Some people will be told tough luck & may leave as a result. It will balance out over time.

Indeed.

EA I really like the 'office hours' idea. I'll have to remember that if/when I ever become important enough to have people who need to ask me questions.

Sounds like a great idea. Why can't we do that with clients........ 

EA, I’d like to know more about your office hours. How do you communicate when you are available, and set/keep that boundary?

I think it's a balancing act (the office hours thing) if I'm being honest. There are a handful of us (basically the unofficial technical experts, code experts, QA/QC people) that have always had an approachable "open-door" policy when in the office. People drop by our desks to ask questions whenever they feel like they can, and we try to be as approachable as possible because we'd rather have people feel comfortable asking the question.

In person it's easy to see if I'm at my desk and even to gauge if I'm really busy or might have time to field a question without needing to interrupt me (Do I look like I'm frantically working on a deadline? Do I have headphones in trying to block out distractions? Am I on a phone call?). That's basically impossible when you can't see me at my desk.

Early in the pandemic the question was raised about whether or not we were still all approachable, but more importantly whether staff felt like they could still approach us. Simply telling people it was ok to call or message us anytime didn't feel sufficient to handle the fears of staff that might be shy, new, or who may not know our personalities as well to feel comfortable potentially interrupting us. So we thought putting together weekly office hours was a good idea to lower that fear threshold. They don't need to worry about interrupting us because we set the time aside. We don't all make it every week, but they are at least guaranteed someone will be there.

The other side of that is we still want people to feel like they can reach out whenever and not have to wait for the office hours. But we were worried that by creating office hours, some people might feel like they can't reach out to us whenever, and that they'd *need* to wait for the office hours. That's the part that I think is maybe more of the balancing act. Are we still approachable if it looks like the only time we have to answer questions is an hour each week?

So when we started the office hours, we also opened up a slack/zoom channel to field these questions too, and other people can chime in with help or advice too. I think that plus us just being our usual approachable selves has created a good culture of being able to feel like you can still ask questions whenever you need to, but also allow people who might not feel comfortable doing that to jump into the office hours or slack/zoom channel.

The side bonus for the office hours is that when there are those weeks where no one shows up, we still have the time to turn off our cameras and mics and answer emails or something. More commonly though, we use it as an unofficial happy hour to share concerns, mentor each other, or simply talk about the local sports ball or whatever and catch up.

It's interesting to think about what the ideal balance would be - even for someone like me who is not a big fan of WFH, I could see maybe wanting to make a regular pattern of WFH on say Mondays and Wednesdays. Or better yet, two weeks in the city and two weeks at my cabin in the mountains (that I hope to have someday)

I think I'm also a person that benefits from some separation of work and home. I've had to become more rigid in my switching off home and switching on work, and then back again. Otherwise I'm always trying to take care of that thing in the garage, and then back to answer that email, etc. I don't miss my commute, but then sometimes I do miss my commute for that time to transition between work and home. Like I said above, I'm kind of torn between the two and look forward to finding the right balance for me.

I've also noticed a stretching of the work day. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as long as the expectations are tempered with reality. We've had a lot of people sharing parenting duties with their partner that will not be available all morning because that's when they have kid duty, ,but then work later into the evenings. It's worked just find when the team understands the reality of the situation and knows what to expect. The problems have happened when you may not understand that an email at 9pm for that person is normal and not something to get all worried about. Or that if you need an answer for something at 10 am, it's not going to happen unless you ask for it the evening before.

no- i am no longer provided free snacks or coffee or beers. in terms of commuting, some people used to bike (nearly "free" commuting), while others walked (completely free), and others took transit (not so free), but salaries weren't adjusted accordingly (we're in the city though so this is different per location). and like you said i'm expected to use my own equipment (though our office is starting to address that). lunches.. another strange one because i almost always brought my lunch from home, and now that i am home i still get the occasional lunch out in the neighborhood. so that cost hasn't changed at all.

in my mind, there are too many variables/individual choices that cancel each other out to justify cutting my salary.. at the end of the day i'm still doing the same work, and often more productively.

Thanks for the response. I agree with you that it would be too much to figure out on an individual level. But if you're an employee moving to a new company, don't be surprised if this is a tactic used by potential employers in the future if WFH really becomes a permanent thing

absolutely, would not surprise me- which is why i'm not moving any time soon!

I'd immediately ask what compensation I could expect by saving them overhead on physical office costs, or if they will be subsidizing my rent/mortgage.

It should be the opposite - WFH staff should be a paid a bit more, as the office is saving on overheads in a massive way.

No kidding. How much more are we spending on power and water these days? It's not trivial.

IMO, WFH staff should have reduced responsibilities or they become highly specialized, almost like consultants. If you aren’t coming into the office you don’t get to play a central role on projects.

@axonapoplectic

Kinda depends doesn't it? Different projects require different levels of in person involvement. Sometimes, i think this is fair, but if you're doing something that only takes one or two people, it's not that critical. I found this to be the case prior to covid, it's all dependent on the project, and what needs to be done. Realistically, I think most projects would do fine, or even better with most people doing a split part at home part at the office. 

My firm sort of addressed the difference in costs working from home by adding some compensation to cover for internet and phone usage, or needing by buy additional equipment, etc. Rather than try to figure it out individually they added some money to our paychecks. 

They also typically offer incentives to use mass transit, bike, or walk into the office and those all stopped as no one was using them (we always had to pay for our own parking). I used to take advantage of pre-tax dollars being put on a bus pass for me as well as a portion of that being matched by the office. So the overall effect for me was a (small) take-home pay raise to work from home that I don't expect to stay as we get back to the office.

I'd like to see some numbers on savings on overhead as more people work from home. I don't think there is a whole lot unless you move into a smaller space, or completely close the office for certain days. Otherwise, you still lease the same space, and still pay to condition and light it. There is probably some difference, but I don't see it being a lot until you get to the point where the office is closed.

Biggest cost savings to having me wfh, from my office’s POV, is that they did not have to purchase coffee.

@Everyday Architect; 

I don't disagree, but I think opportunity matters. I've mostly worked for smaller firms, so 1-2 staff members not taking up space in the office absolutely could be taken up by others. At the end of the day, it makes growth a bit easier if some people are working from home. 

One side too is that leases, mortgages, etc. have basically been a sunk cost the last 16 months and I bet owners are tired for paying for facilities going unused. It's not an easy answer. My perspective is that an owner asking me questions about lunch, or cost of commuting and using that to reduce my pay are not looking at the big picture, and to be frank, being penny pinching pricks. If they look at my expenses as an employee, and decide it's worth risking an employee to try and save a few cents an hour, that's likely not a firm I want to work for. 

Also, for firms that do a lot of work overseas and have travel costs built into their fees, WFH has been a big boom. On the one hand, its hard to not have people on the ground to pound the pavement, and for co-ordination, but saving on flights and hotels ... priceless. And, obviously with WFH, its easier to get employees on late night and early morning conference calls

with everyone in the office, there is no ghosting