Last July, I noted that studies that claim that telecommuters are less productive than those in fixed workplaces were unpersuasive because they “mostly dealt with low-skilled jobs such as call centers and data entry.” I’m not the only one who thinks so. Writing in Business Insider, Ed Zitron noted last week that studies of call centers are inapplicable because they “are extremely controlled and heavily micromanaged environments — ones rife with labor abuse.” Bottom line, Zitron concludes, managers pressing workers to return to offices “have no data to justify it.”
Working at home can be more comfortable and less stressful than working in and commuting to an office or other workplace. Photo by Roberto Nickson.
A much more persuasive report came out earlier this week comparing flex-work policies and revenue growth at 554 companies. It found that revenue growth over the past three years at companies with more flexible policies was 16 percent greater than companies that ordered employees back to workplaces when the pandemic ended. While this isn’t absolute proof that remote workers are more productive, it certainly contradicts those who say they are not.
This is particularly critical for the future of downtowns. The latest University of Toronto downtown recovery report, which includes data from March through June, found that a few downtowns, such as Las Vegas and San Jose, have almost completely recovered while others, including St. Louis and Minneapolis, are still seeing little more than half their pre-COVID activity. This report is based on cell phone data.
INRIX has a somewhat older report based on vehicle trips that found that 18 of 20 major urban areas are still well below pre-COVID levels. While the average is –18 percent, traffic ranges from +6 percent in Phoenix to –41 percent in San Francisco.
While there is a reasonable (.41) correlation between the Toronto cell phone data and INRIX vehicle data, the correlation between vehicle data and transit ridership is virtually zero. That’s because transit ridership still lags in many urban areas that have seen a recovery in vehicle traffic.
For example, Phoenix had 6 percent more vehicle traffic than before the pandemic, but ridership in June was 41 percent less. (I used June because the INRIX report came out in July.) San Diego had 3 percent more traffic but 36 percent less ridership. Denver had just 2 percent less traffic but 40 percent less ridership. While San Francisco had 41 percent less traffic and 41 percent less transit ridership, it was an exception: the correlation between the INRIX data and transit recovery is a mere 0.002, which means no correlation.
The point is that downtown recovery, even where it happens, won’t be sufficient to ensure transit recovery. Transit agencies are largely oriented to downtowns — in many urban areas before COVID, transit carried around 40 to 50 percent of downtown employees to work but only 3 percent of employees in the other parts of their urban areas. Downtown-centric transit won’t work if a lot of downtown workers are on flex time because they can avoid congestion by driving to work at less busy times of the day, and so they’ll have less of an incentive to ride transit. This is why transit agencies need to stop planning downtown-oriented transit projects and start reinventing themselves to serve their entire urban areas.
Transits relevance to urban economics is less important because urban areas are becoming less relevant to economy.
– The US has a super efficient freight rail system that can move trillions tons goods/commodities at extremely low labor cost. This puts us economic advantage in warehousing and goods distribution over EU and Asia. Bar codes and the international shipping container means we don’t have to open them to move its specific contents.
– US has 15,000 Airports or runways, air distribution of packages and freight is ubiquitous on global level.
– Urban land prices, have made industries like steel making, car production and machine part fabrication insoluable, at this point, electric power has replaced coal/coke so American industry doesn’t really pollute much anymore, and is also quieter, so factories/industry in suburbs are not only tolerable, but transportation makes them convenient.
– historic seaports have too shallow a draft to accommodate the supermassive container vessels
– Energy in USA is cheaper than Europe and Japan, which benefits Energy intensive industries like metal processing, concrete making. BMW’ largest factory…..is in South Carolina.
– Lastly, thing most people forget, USA has more entrepreneurs and self employed people than EU and Japan. They require on demand transportation, that only cars fulfill. As on demand conversation and the “Sneaker-net” fulfill when online contact is deferred.
Remote work is also miserably depressing without a companion. Before moving back to central work location with dozens daily co-workers. I worked in a home office with 4-6 people in bosses converted basement. That social connection BETTER than alone.
A Study by the American Psychiatric Association, nearly two-thirds of people who spend at least some time working from home say they’ve felt isolated or lonely from time to time. For 17%, that’s a constant feeling.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2021/10/15/remote-workers-report-negative-mental-health-impacts-new-study-finds/
Working from home has made you occupied 24/7. No reason you cant call out….
Sure it may rise, but it puts corporate control into your homestead…..indefinitely. There’s many reasons working from home sucks….
1: What’s getting done?: Many CEOs and managers are not in favor of employees working from home because they don’t believe any real work gets done there.
2: Group Effort: You’re now cut off from support of colleagues. When workers think together…. coalescence breeds new ideas and tasks accomplished. That’s why tech firms and new offices use open campus layout replacing the classic cubicle farm. The inventor of the cubicle believed walls granted individual freedom. Years later, he grew despise his invention. Yet workers miss the cubicle, as it offered privacy, as well as social communications.
3: Your mental and physical health declines.
Being at the office is not just great for creativity and collaborative problem-solving, it is also good for your mental health and overall wellbeing. Working from home, communicating sporadically with colleagues across vast distances, can leave you feeling isolated and depressed. That’s exactly what happened during pandemic even for those gainfully employed; Morale collapsed.
Even with communications technology and talking to people thru big Screen’s like Star Trek did not undo the social isolation. In isolation; Motivation plummets and procrastination is your only companion.
On the medical side. Pew survey poll and university Health research show.
– Half Remote workers get no exercise
– one in three suffer skeletal/muscular problems before age 30
– Half suffer sleep problems.
– One-third have no real motivation to work.
4: Growth of silos: All work usually depends on teamwork, remote work, solicits none that.
5: Living costs rise: Working from home eliminates commute? Maybe but typically people who work in office settings bring or cater to their own meals. And the office supplies energy/resources for work. Your home is hooked to constant energy and internet demand. Mobile internet skyrockets energy use, because devices aimed as substitutes to actual computers are seen as “efficient” because they’re so small and thin. But the power, speed and data storage limitations of such portable devices is instead shifted to data centers, world wide wireless transmission, satellites and cloud storage centers. Because the data that is to be processed, and the resulting outcome must be transmitted from the end-use device to the data center and back again, the energy use of the network infrastructure also increases.
3G wireless data transmission uses 15x more energy than wifi. 15x more energy per bit of information sipping at a starbucks. 4G uses 23x more energy per bit. 5G uses over 54x more information per bit. 6G will undoubtedly use over 100x. ONE hour of internet use on my phone uses the battery compared to the laptop…. but unseen energy of data storage grown exponentially.
Power consumption is not only influenced by data rates but also by the type of service provided. For applications such as email, web browsing, and video and audio downloads, short delays may be acceptable. However, for real-time services — videoconferencing, and audio and video streaming or rapid financial data transactions; delay cannot be tolerated and is financially detrimental. This requires a more performant network, and thus more energy use.
Also you have to pay for your own office supplies.
6: Lack Benefits: Many work from home gigs offer zero benefits that regular employees take for granted. We are talking about health insurance, pensions, 401K, and paid vacations. Many remote workers are paid per job or per hour and have to take care of their own health costs and savings plans.
your health declines, your personal costs increase, and your social life takes a nosedive.