I dunno, my work in office days I NEVER get as much done as my WFH days. I really like being around others and having those spontaneous conversations, but I also waste a ton of time every day. So when I actually really want to get something accomplished, I make sure I don’t go into the office.
I am in the office 3-4 days per week recently.
I am almost certainly less productive when I WFH. And I’d like to keep it that way.
I get more work done at home, due to fewer distractions, and not having to waste time with a commute.
I learn more at the office, for the reasons mentioned above.
I don’t think this is an absolute truth of all people.
However, I agree with your advice to your son to find a company where he would work in the office, for the other reasons you stated, mainly training.
Oh, yeah, for sure, I’m far more productive at home because I have a lot of experience. I would not have done well starting out WFH, not in this career anyway.
No, WE are more productive. Generally it’s easily just as productive.
What’s preposterous is lack of quantification, even when presented with viable alternatives that half the world has been using for 2 years. That’s where the boomer thing comes in.
People can and do manage and train remotely just fine. If other people can’t do that, it’s not the tools that are the problem. And suggesting that having to commute, spend all that money and their employees personal time to do so, so you can see me instead of on a video conference, that wasteful of resources and ee’s personal time.
Doesn’t matter what I think though. The market is telling everyone this quite loudly. The problem is correcting itself.
Sorry, at Lake Wobegon Mutual, SpaceLob and his peers are more productive WFH.
I think if you polled parents of school age children, a clear majority of them would agree that their kids’ learning suffered during school from home over the pandemic.
Look, it’s JSM supporting my point. Who would have figured? FWIW, JSM I think you are in the majority on this topic.
I don’t know if I’m in the majority. But I work to live, not live to work. I suppose if I liked working, I’d claim that I’m more productive WFH, but then I’d also like working, which is the saddest human state.
I’m good and experienced enough that I can make 5 hours of work a week seem like 40 hrs of work.
I’d say I’m equally productive at working, whether from home or at an office.
My PERSONAL productivity (cleaning stuff, working out, enjoying my pool, NOT eating a 1000+calorie lunch daily), though, has soared.
We don’t hire school age children here. But I’ve worked at insurers before, so maybe you have a point.
I think something is definitely lost from not being in person. For a junior person being trained, I can often feel, just walking behind them, whether they are having difficulty with something, and if they are, offer help. It’s trickier remotely. Teaching is much trickier remotely.
More generally, in person communication is a visceral experience. Remote communication has a disembodied quality to it. Again, it’s harder to take an emotional temperature.
I think its hard to quantify productivity in they way you’d describe, in part because its not just about what is productive at this one time and place. It’s really about a strategy to adapt to a changing environment. Will we do that as well remotely? Maybe.
Overall, while I think remote work is happening, I’m a little more hesitant that it will work as well.
All I know is since the day I left the office for Covid my pay has gone up 52.2%. I have done fantastically W’ingFH and so have my teams. Also in health insurance when your turn on the yearly cycle comes and you’re spending a month or two working 60-80 hour weeks it’s nice to just be at home in comfy clothes cranking it out. The commuting used to just cut into sleep time during that time pre pandemic.
I’m saying this respectfully.
You know where I hear talk like this? In sales. 99% of insurance salespeople talk like this. Oh, sales is in person huggy kissy horseshit. You all know this is true, it’s the way the industry works.
And in sales, that’s 100% false. Sales isn’t huggy kissy horseshit. It’s a defined, rigourous, DOCUMENTED and tested process that’s repeatable. the same as the work that actuaries do.
That’s how they teach modern sales methodologies. It’s how modern tech companies do sales. No vague ‘oh, you have to be a people person’. Here’s the document. We have tested it. It works. If you follow this, you will make sales.
I went through this 15 years ago. The whole industry went on and on about all these vague ‘you can’t sell unless it’s in person’. Just like some management is doing now - can’t do this, not in person.
Yeah, except I’m an elite salesperson. I’ve sold thousands and thousands of insurance policies (including to regulators, actuaries, and other insurance brokers). And you know how many I’ve met in person? None. And every single one of those policies has a super strong relationship with me, my policy retention is as good as anyone’s in the business.
You can have a perfectly great working relationship with people without being close enough to smell each other’s farts. I’ve done it thousands of times, AND better than those around me that don’t know how to do it.
The ironic part is that when I stopped doing B2C sales in that fashion was just before covid hit. Which is when the whole industry started doing it non-face to face, like I’d been doing forever.
WFH is no different.
Actually, I did go in-person on a sales call one time. Had one of our staff connect with a consumer local to me that just HAD to see someone IRL. I went for no reason other than so that the staff could get their commission, otherwise I’d have blown them off.
I had to go on a Saturday, on personal time. Took the whole morning. They were refugees, so I got the whole story about that (which was fascinating). Their kids sat there and interpreted back and forth. Eventually it was lunch time and no sale, so I’m like, make a like a baby time. Oh no, I have to stay for lunch. They’ve been preparing lunch for me since YESTERDAY. Dad killed the chicken in the garage, and the feet are boiling on the stove. I stayed for lunch. Had some very cool, very original asian soup (not kidding about the chicken) and some asian beer. And no business was done.
Lots of camaraderie and getting to know people. Zero business. Waste of my time.
yeah people saying in-office is good for XYZ is like people missing the sound of engine with electric cars.
You’ll get used to it. And if you don’t, in one generation no one will even know what you’re talking about.
The experience of being around people in body is different. We have evolved capabilities to empathize and connect with each other. Long distance relationships can work, but it is trickier.
I believe you when you say that you did well in sales over the phone.
However, i don’t think that’s the same as establishing an environment in which you have enough trust in your boss to disagree with them, say, or to talk about a possible career change to get advice.
You can build that kind of trust over the phone, but i don’t think it’s usually as easy as in person. That opinion doesn’t make me some kind of boomer luddite 
I feel pretty good that wfh for senior team members doing familiar work is as effective or more effective than office work. I’m less convinced of that for more junior team members, or unfamiliar work.
Well, the whole life insurance sales industry learned how to do it in under two years.
This sounds right.
Also, it’s much harder to read the room when doing a presentation to a lot of people.
But one on one training and mentoring? That much more effective remotely than i would have expected. And of course a lot of my work involves interacting with Excell and databases, and they don’t care where I’m sitting.
it’s almost like you all are willfully ignorant of the fact that there are whole spectrums of people, for whom work-remote or in-office will be appropriate, or will not, depending on role, personality, experience, mentorship opportunities, industry, time zone, etcetera etcetera.
You’re the exception, not the rule.
Consider that some of the folks whose role suggests being in the office is “better” than being full-time WFH derive some of that benefit because they end up being around people who could reasonably be full-time WFH.
I think that most credentialed actuaries working at carriers are in roles that could reasonably be full-time WFH. I’m not certain that full-time WFH is the best idea for actuarial students at carriers. I think a plausible argument could be made for a carrier requiring its credentialed actuaries to come into the office in at least a hybrid model for the good of those students.
(This would, however, really suck for me since I live five hours from my office. My employer does have an office a half-hour-plus-traffic away from me, but I don’t work with anyone there… But I am back to going into my office a few days every month, with the necessary travel reservations made out for the rest of the year.)