Out of Office
The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home
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3.5 • 21 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“This book will challenge you to rethink what it takes to make remote work work—not just for companies, but for people.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
The future isn’t about where we will work, but how. For years we have struggled to balance work and life, with most of us feeling overwhelmed and burned out because our relationship to work is broken.
This “isn't just a book about remote work. It's a book that helps us imagine a future where our lives—at the office and home—are happier, more productive, and genuinely meaningful” (Charles Duhigg, best-selling author of The Power of Habit).
Out of Office is a book for every office worker – from employees to managers – currently facing the decision about whether, and how, to return to the office. The past two years have shown us that there may be a new path forward, one that doesn’t involve hellish daily commutes and the demands of jam-packed work schedules that no longer make sense. But how can we realize that future in a way that benefits workers and companies alike?
Based on groundbreaking reporting and interviews with workers and managers around the world, Out of Office illuminates the key values and questions that should be driving this conversation: trust, fairness, flexibility, inclusive workplaces, equity, and work-life balance. Above all, they argue that companies need to listen to their employees – and that this will promote, rather than impede, productivity and profitability. As a society, we have talked for decades about flexible work arrangements; this book makes clear that we are at an inflection point where this is actually possible for many employees and their companies. Out of Office is about so much more than zoom meetings and hybrid schedules: it aims to reshape our entire relationship to the office.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While remote work "promises to liberate workers," write journalists Warzel and Peterson (Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud) in this insightful and timely survey, "...in practice it capitalizes on the total collapse of work-life balance." To dig into a shifting employment landscape in which "work has taken on such a place of primacy in our lives that it has subsumed our identities, diluted our friendships, and disconnected us from our communities," the authors explore four key concepts as they've evolved: flexibility (considering "how many days we'd like people to be in an office, and for how long, and for what purpose"), workplace culture, office technologies, and community. They discuss how the ubiquity of laptops and email, for example, have resulted in increased pressure for "performative work," such as sending emails and arranging meetings that aren't especially productive, and they make a case that remote work can be a boon to inclusivity as it takes into account individuals' different abilities, home lives, and work styles. Passages of advice for bosses ("stop thinking short term) and workers ("what do you actually like to do?") round things out. Never sacrificing meaningful analysis for easy answers, this is a remarkable examination of the rapidly-changing workplace.
Customer Reviews
Don’t waste your time or money
This book is awful. The few salient points made by the authors are lost in their factually incorrect screeds against capitalism…. Whilst of course they benefit from the system the decry. Sophomoric Analysis and hyperbole Round out the rest. Don’t buy.
Out of Offic
A total waste of time. Written from a bias perspective of 2 people that have NEVER managed people or a business. Are lucky to be able to work from home and move out of high tax state to low tax rural area. They weave their utopia vision and bias throughout the book with Zero support.