Quote:
Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek
Got any sources? I’d love to read up on these new studies if that’s truly the case.
Either way hybrid seems like a simple compromise. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
|
As I understand it, the productivity losses are typically due to communication/coordination frictions, lowered collaboration outside of silos, and challenges related to onboarding/socializing new hires.
Quote:
"Several studies find that fully remote work yields lower productivity than on-site work. Emanuel and Harrington (2023) analyze data from a Fortune 500 firm that, before the pandemic, operated call centers with both remote and on-site employees in the same jobs. In response to the pandemic, the firm shifted all employees in these jobs to fully remote work. Productivity among formerly onsite employees fell 4 percent relative to that of already-remote employees. Emanuel and Harrington also find evidence that the closure of physical call centers reduced call quality, especially among less experienced employees. These findings are noteworthy, in part, because they involve a firm with prior experience in managing fully remote call-center workers. Presumably then, the firm had already adapted its systems and practices to manage fully remote workers.
Gibbs, Mengel, and Siemroth (2023) study productivity outcomes for skilled professionals at a large Indian technology services company. In March 2020, the company abruptly shifted all employees to fully remote work in response to the pandemic. Immediately after the shift, average worktime rose by 1.5 hours per day and output fell slightly according to their primary performance measure. They estimate that the shift to remote work lowered average labor productivity (output per hour worked) by 8 to 19 percent. They also provide evidence that greater communication and coordination costs drove much of the measured productivity drop. In particular, time spent on meetings and coordination activities rose, crowding out time devoted to a concentrated focus on work tasks.
The productivity concept matters here, as well. Table 2 of Gibbs, Mengel, and Siemroth (2023) reports an average two-way commute time of 1.3 hours per day. That is, the savings in commute time largely offsets the extra 1.5 hours per day that employees put into their jobs after the transition to fully remote work. From the worker’s perspective, and from a societal perspective as well, the company’s shift to remote work had small effects on productivity. The larger point is that the commute time-savings from remote work can offset sizable drops in productivity, as conventionally measured.
Gibbs, Mengel, and Siemroth (2023) also find that employees “narrowed the scope of their networks” after shifting to fully remote work, engaging in fewer contacts inside and outside the organization. Other studies also find scope-narrowing and siloing effects associated with remote work. For example, Yang et al. (2022) find that communications among 61,000 Microsoft employees became more asynchronous after a pandemic-induced shift to remote work, and collaborations became more static and siloed. Battiston, Blanes i Vidal, and Kirchmaier (2021) find that police dispatchers work faster, especially in busy periods, when they sit in the same room as other dispatchers. These three studies suggest, in various ways, that remote work can slow communications, impede the diffusion of knowledge within an organization, and narrow the scope of collaborative efforts.
|
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.37.4.23
It's tough because it's nuanced. There are definite productivity losses from remote work. Some of these can be managed with better processes and systems: In the office, you can "learn the ropes" just by watching and interacting with others. If you lose the office, you need to figure out how to replicate that kind of tacit exchange of knowledge.
But there are real costs to RTO: You lose the flexibility people have used to manage family care commitments and their work-life interface. People spend their days commuting. And, since wages have not kept up with cost of living, you have people spending substantial amounts on car/insurance/gas/parking. This article from BetterUp suggests that RTO costs employees >$500 monthly on average.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/emplo...114844452.html
So I get that we need people in offices for healthy downtowns, and I understand the managerial impetus behind RTO. But there are winners and losers, and the winners here aren't the workers.
Prev
Linear Mode
