DeepSummary
In this podcast episode, Hanna Rosen interviews Jerusalem Demsas, the host of the Atlantic's new podcast 'Good on Paper'. The discussion revolves around the first episode of Demsas' podcast, which explores the impacts of remote work. Demsas shares insights from a study she co-authored examining software engineers at a Fortune 500 company, some working in-office and others remotely.
The study found that remote workers received less feedback and mentorship compared to their in-office counterparts, impacting their skill development and productivity. However, senior engineers benefitted from increased productivity when remote, as they didn't have to spend time mentoring junior colleagues. The study also revealed gender differences, with junior women receiving more feedback in-office and senior women bearing the cost of providing that feedback.
Demsas and Rosen discuss the implications of these findings, comparing them to other remote work studies. They explore factors like work-life balance, industry differences, and potential biases in their perspectives as labor economists. Overall, the episode presents a nuanced view of remote work's tradeoffs for different employee groups.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The study found that remote work had varying impacts on productivity and skill development based on seniority and gender.
- In-office work facilitated more feedback, mentorship, and collaboration, particularly benefiting junior employees.
- Senior employees experienced productivity gains when working remotely as they didn't have to mentor junior colleagues.
- The feedback and mentorship received by junior female engineers in-office was more pronounced than for their male counterparts.
- Remote work may impact individual well-being beyond just productivity, with potential trade-offs in work-life balance and social connections.
- Labor economists studying remote work may have inherent biases in their perspectives based on factors like extroversion and urbanization preferences.
- The remote work discussion requires nuance, as different occupations and workplace cultures may experience varying impacts.
- Hybrid work environments where not all colleagues are present can diminish some of the benefits of in-office collaboration and mentorship.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “One of the things that's pretty interesting is that we find even when you're in a building with colleagues who are not on your team, we still find a sort of bump in the mentorship and the feedback that one gets, and it's not from your teammates, then, of course, it's from the non teammates.“ by Jerusalem Demsas
- “And so we're finding that this mentorship is particularly important for female engineers. And to sort of unpack where that's coming from, we find that the female engineers are much more likely to ask questions when they are in person.“ by Jerusalem Demsas
- “And so zooming out a bit. So Adam Ozimek, he's also a labor economist, and he's also a longtime booster of remote work. He once half jokingly said that skeptics of remote work could basically be described as either they're extroverts, urbanists, workers in obviously non remote occupations, and downtown office building owners.“ by Natalia Emanuel
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Episode Information
Radio Atlantic
The Atlantic
7/4/24