How remote is your job? What is missing for 100%?

1. I find that a good office environment combined with an easy commute is way better for my productivity and mental health than working from home.

2. Having some degree of in person communication with your team makes everyone's work better. This isn't an argument for meetings or small talk, my point is that some meetings and conversations can only be done well in person.

3. I live in a big city, rent a single room and can't afford a home office - working, relaxing, eating and sleeping in the same space isn't my ideal lifestyle.

So to be willing to work remotely all the time, I need to have an employer who is willing to pay for me to set up a productive home office environment - separate room, good desk, screens etc. Only to make me 80-90% as productive as I would be if I had a good office environment and got to meet my colleagues.

In a previous role, the office environment was great and my commute was a 20-minute walk - I never took the option to work from home even though I could have.

Whiteboards - I still find that no software can beat a room of people and a shared whiteboard for talking through certain things. It’s such a simple yet effective tool for so many things.

I can easily do 100% if I want to (and I am at the moment), but doing so means working at 70-80% efficiency. The difference is not a technical thing, but purely a mindset thing. At work I have my work space with my work things and can work distraction free. At home I'm surrounded by Not Work people and Not Work things which are always competing for my attention.

I have never had a video call that had less friction then sitting together with someone. In my experience this mostly comes down to UX: almost everyone working is trained on how to behave in an on-site meeting, but not everyone knows how to behave in a remote meeting (e. g. muting and unmuting etiquette). In my experience there is also a bunch of jobs in the technical field that in principal could be done remotely, but suffer due to lack of technical knowledge of the person you are interacting with. An example I think everyone can relate to is tech support for your parents. In my experience that is a lot easier when standing next to them. And a lot of tech jobs are about explaining technology to people who don't have experience with that specific tech yet.

Probably better end user tools. Better software, microphones, cameras, situational awareness.

I can do everything remote, but 30% is slower because the tools get in the way. In my team, things are arguably better. Crossing team boundaries sucks.

I’m design equipment and automation for biology labs. Much of my work is done at a computer and now I’m 90% WFH. Takeaways so far: - Remote meetings are better than 10 years ago. But still room to gain. - remote design reviews of physical products are lacking engagement from the team. Being in the same room helps a ton. - running actual chemistry needs a lab of course - managing a team of software engineers, hardware engineers and scientists is ok in JIRA, but nothing beats in person discussion for a diverse team.

Making sure everyone has broadband and a strong WiFi signal In the room they are using for videoconferencing. One person dropping audio and glitching can dramatically reduce the quality of a meeting.

I can never be 100% remote in my current role. I’m a DoD contractor and perform some of my duties on networks I can only access from secure facilities. I can do the rest remotely.