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You’re more likely to be promoted if you go into the office. Maybe.

I wonder if this is true?

Over the past year, remote workers were promoted 31% less frequently than people who worked in an office, either full-time or on a hybrid basis, according to an analysis of two million white-collar workers by employment-data provider Live Data Technologies. Remote workers also get less mentorship, a gap that’s especially pronounced for women, research shows.

In one sense, of course I think this is true. You'd have to be something of a moron not to understand it as a likely price of working from home.

On the other hand, the business press constantly creates clickbait out of press releases from companies I've never heard of. Here's what Live Data Technologies says about themselves:

Our patented technology continuously monitors the open web for job change signals, tracking the employment status for 95M+ decision makers in North America and the EU.

"Since 2018," they say, "we have turned the open web into a continuously updated truth source for workforce data." A truth source. Uh huh. Should I hold this kind of tech mumbo jumbo against them? Or just shrug it off as standard marketing patter updated for the 2020s?

I don't know. But I also don't know how seriously to take anything they say. This might be genuinely state-of-the-art stuff powered by very powerful analytic software—or it might be bullshit. How can you tell?

18 thoughts on “You’re more likely to be promoted if you go into the office. Maybe.

  1. Adam Strange

    You should definitely hold their tech mumbo jumbo against them.

    In my experience, people who mask clarity are not reliable business partners.

    1. Art Eclectic

      +1

      Propaganda sponsored by the commercial real estate industry. Plenty of all remote companies have figured out how to evaluate and promote the people who raise the profile of the company, make clients happy, ideate new products, and increase the margins.

  2. D_Ohrk_E1

    Aren't you going to report PPI? After all, you're obsessed with inflation data points.

    Back to the topic:

    I would suggest these are trade-offs, and the trade-offs are likely considered acceptable. As the guard changes, values are also changing. One shouldn't assume that promotions are what people want; people tend to want more money to keep up with inflation but not necessarily the rise in responsibilities.

    1. Art Eclectic

      Exactly. Some people want promotions, other people want a flexible work environment that doesn't involve spending 2 hours commuting each way. There's room for both at most companies.

    2. lower-case

      not necessarily the rise in responsibilities.

      i enjoy coding, and as a sw developer i can change jobs at the drop of a hat so long as i keep my skillset current

      there is absolutely nothing about managing software projects that i find appealing

      got forced into it a couple times, at which point i would hit the ejector button and go find a coding job

      probably not maximizing my income, but paid well enough to do something i actually like instead of getting an ulcer for a few extra bucks

  3. Steve_OH

    "Single source of truth" is software development jargon for ensuring that all parts of a system fetch their data from a single location (rather than from copies that might undergo modification) so that they all agree on the "truth" of the data.

    It sounds like "truth source" is an abusive derivative of that notion.

    1. lower-case

      yup; some shops also refer to it as the 'system of record' or 'authoritative source'

      (usually backed by an ACID compliant repository)

  4. iamr4man

    This “study” remind me of one a few years back that indicated employees that smoked had a greater chance of promotion than non smokers if their manager was also a smoker. The thinking was the smokers would hang out together outside the building in designated smoking areas and would thus bond.
    I suppose being in the area where your boss is might give you an advantage, but it might also give you a disadvantage. Maybe the boss will think you personally obnoxious and choose someone else they don’t know that well. Familiarity might breed contempt.

    1. Adam Strange

      "Familiarity might breed contempt."

      Usually, familiarity breeds content. But not always. I have discovered that the better I know some people, the less I like them.

      One of the great things about "work" is that it is possible to maintain cordial relationships with people you don't like, if you minimize your interactions and keep things strictly professional.

  5. KinersKorner

    Let me tell you a story about man Jeb…
    Jeb was King, Prince or lucky sperm for 35 years. Jeb saw people that weren’t but still broke even at least. Jeb advocated for such souls as hey, if they aren’t losing money and have made money odds are they will make money once again. Jeb worked remotely for 4 years, 2 as King and 2 as one those Breakeven guys. Well management suddenly took a dim view of those break even guys and Jeb is now gone… if Jeb were in his office I don’t see him losing his job. A lot tougher to fire a guy when you look him the in the eye everyday and know his personel situation. Much easier when he is just a voice.

  6. KJK

    The WSJ article is paywalled so I can't check it out. Back in my day in financial services (corporate lending), there was a concept of putting in "face time". It could be helpful to your career if you stuck around the office until the sr managers left, even if you really did not have anything useful to do there. It would not help overcome poor performance, or if you were just simply an asshole, but being seen showed your dedication to the job.

    While I don't know if putting in face time was really beneficial, I do believe that in office politics, perception is reality, notwithstanding the truth.

  7. azumbrunn

    The data exists of course. It is in the human resources databases of employers. It is also confidential. You can't get it without breaking the law.

    Probably what they are doing is relying on some proxy.

  8. csherbak

    Pretty sure Programmer to Senior Programmer promos are NOT noted on the company website, so unless it's self reported on LinkedIn (or publicly posted on FB?) the wider public (or web scraping Consulting Firms) wouldn't know.

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