They can all fuck right off. Here’s the article if anyone’s interested: https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminlaker/2023/08/02/working-from-home-leads-to-decreased-productivity-research-reveals/
Here is a link to the actual study (PDF via GDrive)
One of the authors of this paper is from the Chicago School and the Hoover Institution. Both are pro-business, anti-worker think-tanks that have been this way for decades. They also don’t do any research of their own, but cite other papers that show the 5-20% reduction.
However, the methodology mentioned in the papers is suspect. First, they show that remote workers have the same productivity, but work longer hours. So the net output doesn’t go down, they just spend more time working. Which raises the question: How many more breaks were they taking throughout the day? Being remote means a much more flexible schedule, so it’s not uncommon to take longer breaks if you’re a salaried worker.
Another study was IT professionals shifting to remote work at one company at the start of the pandemic. This one showed an 18% reduction in productivity. But considering the timing of this and that company culture and procedures can contribute to this, it doesn’t seem to be a valid data point.
Then they bring up some common criticisms of WFH, which I’ve seen and refuted since I started working from home 2009: People can’t communicate, working in groups is harder, and people can’t control themselves. Yawn.
Honestly, the fact that they cherry picked hybrid work as being equally productive shows me this isn’t about productivity, it’s about keeping offices open. Which makes sense considering one of the authors is affiliated with groups that want to prop up the commercial rental business.
Then they bring up some common criticisms of WFH, which I’ve seen and refuted since I started working from home 2009: People can’t communicate, working in groups is harder, and people can’t control themselves. Yawn.
Exactly. I work for a global company, so the way I communicate with the people I work with everyday is via zoom. What’s the point of commuting to an office just to get on zoom anyway to talk to people?
Don’t forget that Forbes and The Economist were all in favor of outsourcing jobs, which leads to me having meetings with people all over the world even when I’m in an office.
So if working remotely hurts group work, a lot of it is their fault for sending jobs overseas. Unless they also want those jobs to eventually move back here so we can have happy group work fun time.
They want whatever keeps their property value highest and overhead lowest, they’ll claim they want onsite workers and then turn around and hire remote people in India because it saves money.
Everything that falls out of their mouths is a piece of shit intended to save some 7 figure earner enough money to buy another vacation home.
Promoting hybrid is actually a smart move for them. Lower usage means less maintenance with the same rent.
Thank you for the summary! This is the investigation I was looking for.
Disallowing remote with when it’s possible is anti-worker.
This really isn’t a study, so much as a lit review. Sort of. Anyway, in the fully remote section they cite three studies that argue show a fall in productivity. The first (Emmanuel and Harrington (2023)) found an 8% drop in call volume as a call center shifted to fully remote work at the onset of the pandemic. But their comparison group was a group of call center employees who were always remote. So even if you buy the argument that the change call volume is solely attributable to a drop in productivity, you cannot conclude that the productivity shift was caused by working from home, the group that shifted from on-location to remote work did 8% worse than the group than the always remote work!
The second study (Gibbs, Mengel and Siemroth (2022)) is, again, an analysis of call-center employees (this time in India) who shifted to remote work at the onset of the pandemic. They find no change in productivity, but that employees are working longer hours at home, which they argue means a real 8-19% drop in productivity.
The final study (Atkin, Schoar, and Shinde (2023)) is another firm from India which involved a randomized controlled study which finds an 18% drop in productivity for data entry work.
So, just taking their lit review at face value, one of their studies directly contradicts their argument, yet they somehow present it as if it is evidence of a causal relationship between working from home and productivity. Another study shows no effect, so they break out some razamataz math to try to turn no effect into a negative effect. Only one of the three studies shows a plausible effect.
Since these are the only three papers they cite to support their argument that fully remote work causes a drop in firm productivity, let’s look at them in more depth.
If you go to their references section, you find that there is not a Emmanuel and Harrington (2023) cited. Hey, that a bad sign. There is an Emmanuel and Harrington 2021, but its an unpublished paper. Maybe it got published and they just forgot to update the cite? I plugged the title into google scholar, and find one result, with no copy of the working paper, and no evidence of any sort of publication record from any journal. Plugging the title into regular google returns a “Staff Report” of the federal reserve bank of NY. So not a peer reviewed article. They employ whats known as a difference-in-difference design to compare employees who shifted from fully in person to fully remote. They report a 4% reduction in productivity for these workers, not the 8% reported in the original article. I just skimmed the article, so maybe they get their 8% figure someplace else. What is interesting to me though is that their DID models seem to show there is not any difference between the different groups for most of the periods of observation. IDK. I’d have to read more in-depth to make up my mind.
It seems like these conclusions, whatever you make of them should really only be applied to call-center work during the pandemic.
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Also, with both studies cited, the best argument is that workers are happy to work more than 8 hours a day. Does that mean you should expect workers to be on call for longer than an 8 hour day because they are working remote?
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Pick one. Otherwise you aren’t better than alt-right people on Facebook that say to “do your own research”.
Right, but you’re no better than alt-right people on Facebook ignoring the research that’s literally one click away because you’re afraid it will disagree with you
I’ve provided sources from reputable sources of journalism, you haven’t.
FYI, none of your posts in this thread have any links
And because jfc you’re lazy: Here is a study by the Harvard Business Review showing increased productivity.
It took three clicks from Google so I can see why you’d have trouble getting to it.
I’ve been posting the Economist link in several comments. I left it as presented to show where the link came from in case people argued with the source.
This source just states that there is a disagreement over whether work from home is more or less productive and provides survey information to show the difference in opinion.
That isn’t making the argument that remote work is productive, just that workers view it as more productive and the study isn’t conclusive. The closest this study gets to saying if productivity increases is “In theory, both sides could be right[.]”
Science. Is not about winning. Fuckface.
You and people like you are literally inhibiting the progress of the human race for personal gain. Congratulations.
So there is no scientific evidence that remote work leads to more productivity?
Ignores salient points made, what-about-isms to reassert bad point, doubles down on the science is a competition thing while illustrating complete lack of knowledge of scientific process
At least you are consistent.
Ignores salient points made
I’ve responded to them, not ignored them.
what-about-isms to reassert bad point
I’ve said that, if you want to argue the studies presented, present other studies. The only one presented I had comments on and quoted the text.
doubles down on the science is a competition thing while illustrating complete lack of knowledge of scientific process
Science is about presenting data in a way that can be reviewed and verified. I’ve asked for studies that back up the assertions made while providing references to my assertions. Where is the data to back up the claim that remote work is more productive?
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Probably swimming in their Scrooge McDuck piles of cash since WFH became more widespread?
It’s the landlords losing money and the owner/C-suites not being able to see their minions in one place that are pumping out these articles.
So I go back to my original question, is there a study that says remote work is more productive? Where is the science to back it up? The science should be out there if it is true.
And are you honestly telling me that major companies wouldn’t love to sell all their real estate and go full virtual? Why not cut that business expense to save money? Major companies have cut everything else, why not cut this too? Why wouldn’t an activist investor start pushing to release this capital as a dividend?
Hell, you can start depressing wages, since you can source your staff from lower QoL places and use those places as your bench mark for pay.
is there a study that says remote work is more productive?
https://www.business.com/articles/are-employees-more-productive-working-from-home/
https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html
and just for fun, here’s fortune straddling the fence:
https://fortune.com/2023/07/06/remote-workers-less-productive-wfh-research/
https://fortune.com/2022/10/20/remote-hybrid-workers-are-more-productive-slack-future-forum/
I need to read these, but you are the first one to post several articles defending your thesis.
Thank you.
First off, thank you for providing. This was the most thorough list of sources given by anyone.
The buisness.com article is based on a survey of remote workers. The survey states that remote workers feel more productive at home and that they work longer hours. This correlates with anecdotal evidence presented here, but it isn’t a measure of actual productivity.
The Monitask.com article refers to two studies that make the claim that remote work is more productive, but one study is blocked by a paywall and the other study isn’t even linked. There is one article about a call center in China, which the Economist article I’ve posted notes that later data shows that the work was not as efficient as previously stated.
The ApolloTechnical.com has a lot of good articles, but there are some self reporting surveys. The article does note that not all research indicates increases in productivity, including one study in 2012 and reported in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization that found that creative tasks see increases in productivity at home while dull tasks see decreases in productivity; I like this study the most as it seems to do more academic rigor of creating an experiment to study against.
The businessnewsdaily.com article is another survey of remote workers, so no objective study on productivity.
There is some good science in the articles you posted, but there are also a lot of self reported surveys. Given what you presented, I can see someone believing that remote working is always more productive.
That said, there seems to be additional studies being performed that are making the claim more disputed. However, the articles you provide also give other very good reasons why remote work should still be allowed.
Just saw that I have responses to things! New Sync user, don’t mind me.
Looks like you got your sources, but wanted to address major companies and real estate. Commercial real estate has way longer leases than residential. And their landlords don’t have any incentive to let them break lease early. Who else is going to come rent that space?
Of course these companies want to “make use” of those wasted dollars. Even major companies aren’t immune to sunk cost fallacy.
Corporate leases are longer than residential ones, but they only go for 3 to 5 years generally. We are seeing a shrinking of leases because of this, which is causing office occupancy rates to plummet. We’re seeing companies shift to a hybrid model, but few companies seem to want to go full remote.
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Yawn… even if it’s true, who give a shit. Even before the pandemic, when people had a lot to do, they stayed at home so they could focus undisturbed to meet deadlines.
Yeah. And it isn’t like there aren’t other reasons to maintain full remote work. It just happens to be that one of the reasons may not be accurate anymore based on further study.
I know in my line of work, employee retention is the main reason why full remote or hybrid is being maintained.
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Saying that a conservative economic school is pro-business and anti-labor is not what I’d call an ad hominem, but a statement of fact. Saying they want to prop up the commercial real estate business isn’t ad hominem either.
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The Chicago School itself says:
Conservative politicians like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher championed Friedman’s ideas
So maybe the school itself holds to some kind of political neutrality, but conservatives love their theories.
This. Economics is a social science where every theory or opinion aims to achieve different varying desired outcomes for different people and in achieved in different ways, with spectrums for every step along the process. The entire field is on a spectrum, that also generally aligns with the political spectrum because politics, like economics, strives to achieve a certain outcome for a certain group of people, in a certain way. Trying to disentangle the field of economics from people. and the politics that people create, is a red flag for not actually knowing what economics is.
Ah, so it’s not that they’re conservative, it’s that they desire the same things conservatives want. But they’re totally apolitical, and it’s just a happy coincidence.
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Yeah tell that to Chileans
I swear, when I’m called into the office I get fuck all nothing done. Like once in a while there’s a reason for me to be on site, and I do that thing and nothing else all day.
Distractions, interruptions, noise, general discomfort. Seems every time I actually start making progress on something, a person stops by my desk and that basically erases whatever I did. So it always ends with “I’ll do it tomorrow when I’m at home”.
I recognise that I’m probably a minority here, but I have a much harder time staying focused at home. At my office I share a room with a couple others, on a floor with a couple dozen more. Pretty much everything I do (outside 1-3 meetings a week) is individual work.
For me, something about physically “going to work” helps me “switch on” much more. Taking breaks with other people, rather than alone, also helps me structure the breaks, and it’s not uncommon that we get good ideas or resolve something that’s been bugging someone during a break. Lastly, I really appreciate the option of “just dropping by” when I want to ask someone about something, and the fact that they can do the same to me. In my experience it’s never gotten to the point that it happens more than maybe once or twice a day, so it’s not really that disturbing either.
That is great and you should have that option. Some of us work best from home and want that option. The idea that we all work the same is the problem, flexible is the solution. The ability to allow people to work in whatever way they think is best and trust them to get stuff done would solve this issue. Except it isn’t about that it is about office real estate and management thinking the only way people are working is if they are watched.
I absolutely agree that flexibility is the way to go. I also have to admit that a large part of what makes me function better in the office is that my coworkers are there as well. As such, I think a compromise that everyone can be as happy as possible with is the best thing.
Remember: Some people would prefer to work from home everyday, and function best when the do. People like me would prefer that as many as possible people are in the office as often as possible, and function best when that is the case. The optimum (both regarding satisfaction and productivity) is clearly somewhere in-between.
That means flexibility is very important, but “full flexibility”, i.e. everyone always working from where they would prefer, is probably not the global optimum.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I think you’re saying, essentially “I work better in the office with others, so others should be here to make me work better” and I would submit that a better solution is for you to find a company that hires like minded folks so you can all work together in an office.
I can see why you would say that, but my point is that in any reasonably large group of people there’s going to be diversity regarding how often people prefer to be at the office (if ever). It’s also well documented that things like training and meetings are much less efficient if people are remote. Together, I think this means that the solution to having as efficient and satisfied employees as possible is to do some coordinating, such that everyone has their needs met.
I don’t think it’s realistic to have some companies consisting only of people that prefer to work from home every day, and others where everyone wants to be in the office every day. Flexibility and coordination is key.
Same for me. I found having my workspace be outside my home is better for both my productivity and mood. But I will fight for whatever method of work people find works for them individually.
The trick for me is having a dedicated home office. I wake up, shower, dress in work clothes, and “go to the office”.
Only things in there are my work desk, and some excercise equipment.
The company is currently hybrid, with a couple days required in office every week. From everything I’ve heard, productivity is up, and there is no talk from management that we’re changing things.
Try adding some plants too. Having the occasional distraction of watering or picking dead leaves available is useful, without being excessively distracting.
Also, I guess people like oxygen and decorations, it whatever.
That’s me too. Sure it’s useful once a week to sit down with my team but the rest of our work is solo or on an ad hoc debugging call where sharing screens actually makes things easier.
Even worse my office doesn’t even have enough desks for everyone, and even fewer of them are properly setup with a monitor from this decade. Each of I ur 3 mandatory office days is a complete crapshoot on whether you’ll actually get a proper workstation or will you be stuck at a table with your laptop all day.
They’re write offs where fuck all gets done. Some of my colleagues who are in meetings all day seem to be okay with the office but if you actually need to do work there’s little point in being there.
I must be in like some weird alternate reality because my boss recognises that the office is a distraction, and doesn’t go there often himself. We go there very seldomly, primarily to catch up with colleagues, but not to work on our tasks.
I get maybe 15-20% of my normal work done at the office.
Granted this might increase over time if I came in regularly but it’d never touch how productive I am at home. This rhetoric about losing productivity working from home is dangerous and bullshit.
And you know, working from home I’m comfortable doing things otherwise I wouldn’t agree to doing - particularly coming online late hours.
They’re doing maintenance at 7pm, that’s no big deal, I’ll adjust my hours around and make it work. Not like I’m driving or just staying late, okay I’m not doing a 12 hour day at the office. And realistically 4pm-7pm would basically just be waiting. Guess I would if I really had to, but I wouldn’t be too happy about it. Heck just last week I checked to see if something applied correctly at 12am. No big deal, just log in and make sure.
And I fully recognize this could be exploited, become the norm. I’m careful to set boundaries, but I guess working from home has loosened my boundaries of what is and isn’t okay. Used to be I wouldn’t even answer my work phone after 5pm, but now it’s not so bad. Little annoying sometimes, but I’m okay with it.
Dude, same. I’ve never been more productive than working from home specifically because people have to engage with me via teams or email instead of barging into the office and disrupting my work flow.
Shit… Did I commit that router config before Becky needed my help fixing her user error? Oh no, I did but I forgot to change the DNS on the DHCP pool so now I can’t hit the domain for remote authentication because they’re still using public DNS.
Fuck! I’ll just do it tomorrow when I have my coffee in hand and my cat buzzing happily, with lo Fi beats to overhaul WAN circuits to blaring.
Im the exact opposite. At home there are way too many distractions and temptations than in an office environment.
Im the same way, i just catchup with the coworkers and we spend most of the day chatting about various things and then a long lunch and at least two hours of meetings is basically my days in the office…at home no distractions, get shit done in the morning, make lunch, deal with any issues in the afternoon…can at least take a shit without smelling other peoples shit…
I’m like this too, but also social. I screw around with my coworkers so much in the office. I have to be home for my own good!
There are tons of other studies that show massive increases in productivity. These bullshit studies are probably sponsored by commercial real estate landlords. They’re losing $850B per year since 2020.
Awesome! Eat the rich!
Yup. Offices business is massive. Let them rot!
It’s both decreasing productivity AND saving the economy!!!
https://fortune.com/2023/08/01/remote-work-preventing-economy-from-recession/
Such an incredible paradox 🤯
Reminds me of the headlines trend a few years ago when Millenials were killing everything.
That’s a pay site
Totally bullshit. When I’m in the office I’m constantly approached by coworkers wanting to chit chat. Sometimes even when I’m in a Teams meeting with headphones on.
I probably do the same if not more work at home as I did in the office, but only “work” about 2/3 of the time.
I don’t have a boss lecture me on blockchain for an hour because they were near my desk, I don’t need to listen to Carla’s story about her flat tyre, I don’t need to get constantly distracted when I’m deep in an analysis hole because someone on maternity leave has walked in with their new baby.
The time spent caught up in boring distractions is used to put on some washing, set the roomba going, or put a pot roast in the oven freeing up more time to just chill out later on and I still get everything done.
Never mind the 2 hours a day of commuting time I get back.
I was in the office 3 days this week. Got almost nothing done. Probably got more done half of today than the last 2 days
Meetings and distractions while in person
Same. We go into the office whenever the big bosses go in… so once every couple months. We get almost no work done on those days.
“Please send the planet further into its end with global warming by heating it with transportation needs just so I can talk to your face in real”
These people should be fired. Also they should be penalized by never being permitted to have a warm shower ever again. Reused water all the way down. They can do double time when it comes to mending the planet.
just so I can talk to your face in realJust so we can keep the value of our office buildings high
If only there was an objective way to measure the productivity of a commercial enterprise… like with money… oh wait, they have been making MORE money? With LESS productive workers? Curious
That’s obviously all due to the hard work and visionary leadership of upper management
I am exactly as unproductive at home as I am at the office. I’m just more comfortable.
Something I’ve just realised going into the office is how much more unproductive I make everyone else.
If I’m not working at home, everyone else is free to keep working. But if I’m not working in the office I’m going to drag everyone in my team down to my level.
I am at the opposite end. When I’m at the office, I put on noise cancelling headphones and don’t talk to anyone unless it’s necessary. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s that I just want to get my shit done and not have to deal with their shit.
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I’m okay with decreased productivity. I don’t own stock in the company.
You also most likely don’t get paid more for being more productive.
As some high level manager in Barclays said - analysts are like light bulbs. You remove one, and insert another one.
It all depends on the team’s and company’s values. If you are just a number to them (reddit moment lmao) - act like a number. 😅
They don’t understand that I’d do just as little work in an office as I do from home. In fact, that’s what I did, long before I worked from home. I’m really good at exploring hallways and bathrooms and just disappearing for some time.
I get more work done at home.
Personally, I dissappear a lot during work from home just from pooping more because I’m not stressed out due to being around people all day
Shit job?
Seems crappy
Let’s be honest, Forbes has been a trashhole for a while.
There’s like 50 articles i know of that say otherwise.
There are peer reviewed studies saying otherwise
Sure, some people work better when surrounded by colleagues. Those people usually know that and will seek out on-site work, because it probably also makes them happier.
People who are more efficient at home probably also feel better at home and will seek out remote work.
If you want a much smaller hiring pool, more office upkeep costs and more transport emissions, sure make everyone come into the office… it’s so dumb to do this.
IMO if your sector lends itself to remote work and it’s not working for your company, you’re doing something else wrong.
A lot of my colleagues want for everyone to be in office. Their justification is “well, when everyone is in office, I can just walk to a person and ask them for help”. Which is why it’s a bit annoying to work there as a knowledgeable person, everyone always asking you to help them, constantly.
Guess where are all the knowledgeable people going.As a more extroverted person and a people-pleaser, people wanting my help is the dream. Also great for negotiating wages.
But yeah I can see how it can be annoying too!
It’s nice sometimes, when you don’t have anything better to do. Sharing the knowledge is a genuine pleasure.
It’s infuriating if you need to focus on something.
Sure, some people work better when surrounded by colleagues. Those people usually know that and will seek out on-site work, because it probably also makes them happier.
Bingo, some of us actually do like to get out of the house and physically go to work. It seems like everybody except corporate shills think that the whole world wants to work from home, but it would honestly drive me crazy.
But as you said, people like me are going to seek out jobs where that’s the expectation at the outset. It’s shitty to pull a bait and switch and force everybody to come in when they are used to working from home.
Broski, my commute is typically 45 min by car each way. On the days I’m in the office I work 10+ days to avoid the traffic.
Ok, but just because you prefer working from home and have a long commute doesn’t mean everybody else does.
Yeah but they are also the ones who are gonna get promoted
Lmaooooooo Forbes runs a story on a report that’s still in draft (the references section header reads very incomplete), just to spread propaganda that “working from home doesn’t work!!!”
I like going into the office sometimes and the one I’m in is real nice, but I know some are awful, and commutes can be way longer than mine! (one-way 40 minutes by bus).
The same study says hybrid work (1-4 of 5 days remote work) provided on average a small positive change in productivity.
My raises aren’t tied to my performance, so… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Sorry about your arm, I hope it heals quickly.
I definitely pasted it correctly. But you know, accidents happen.
Oh, I know. I went through it once.
The tricky bit is that a lot of scripting/programming languages reserve the backslash for special stuff. For example, “\n” means a line break. When you pasted the right arm (which is seen on the left ; ) ), lemmy’s editor expected a special thingy, so it was kind and removed the backslash for you, so that you don’t have to. The secret is to post it with a double backslash, like this: “\\” (for example, I actually had to use FOUR backslashes in a row, since it’s two double backslashes, because each means one backslash).
EDIT: Lol, I have bamboozled myself, too. I had to edit this a few times.
I’m familiar with this particular way of handling characters, was unaware lemmy did it tho, cheers!
Can’t decide if I should change my post. I suppose leaving it is armless.
