Haven't read the article yet so just going by the blurb: control is absolutely an aspect of it. Some companies have made an effort to have in-house food and on-site childcare for similar reasons, not just for convenience. There was some boss on record in an investment speech saying they didn't want workers to leave the building.

[–] Australis13@fedia.io 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The irony is that that need for control is actually shooting them in the financial foot. There's been a few different studies showing that the WFH and other flexible work arrangements (e.g. 4-day-work-week) increase productivity.

But yes, I agree it's about control (as well as the investment in office space, often in the expensive CBD, which businesses hate the idea of not being used near capacity).

[–] Salvo@aussie.zone 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

The issue is that a lot of people consider WFH to be “stay at home and don’t do any work”.

You can usually pick them out because they are either; Extroverted and spend more time at work socialising than work.

Most people in Management/Decision Making roles also suit this profile; they project their own unmotivated malaise on their employees and assume that all their employees would behave exactly how they would.

[–] Australis13@fedia.io 2 points 7 hours ago

Oh, there are definitely those that would take advantage of WFH arrangements, but on the whole the productivity increase from everyone else seems to more than offset them. I'd also argue that a lot of the issue should be resolvable through appropriate employee management without being invasive or too overbearing (e.g. many companies already have daily standups or weekly progress meetings as well as employee development processes which should make it obvious whether an employee has become less effective after starting WFH).

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