New study shows 18% productivity decline by those working from home

[midian182]

A hot potato: It's long been said that working from home results in happier, more productive workers, with most arguments against that claim coming from studies carried out by employers, suspiciously. But a new academic study has also suggested that WFH results in lower productivity, by as much as 18%.

Since the end of the lockdowns, few subjects have been as contentious as working from home. Many studies have found that improved work/life balance, no commuting, and extra time with family increase worker productivity.

But a working paper by economists from MIT and the University of California, Los Angeles, disputes these findings. It observed two groups made up of 235 data-entry workers – one working from home, the other in the office – in Chennai, India, for eight weeks. The results showed that those working from home were 18% less productive, based on net typing speed, than those working from the office.

The study stipulated that those in the office stick to a 9 am to 5 pm schedule, while those at home could choose when they did their 35 hours per week.

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As per Insider, the study discovered that people who are less productive when working from home are actually more likely to choose WFH, not less. MIT professor David Atkin, who helped write the paper, explained why this might be the case. He said that some people might choose to work from home even though they're less productive because they need to be there during the day. They could, for example, need to take care of their children, and this can make them more distracted and less productive.

Atkin suggests that the best compromise between WFH satisfaction and in-office productivity is hybrid work, in which employees split their time between both. But coming in two or three days per week is something several companies have mandated, much to the anger of their workers - many are willing to take pay cuts and lose benefits if it means working from home full time, and others say they could quit over a lack of flexibility.

A Microsoft survey in September found most bosses believe working from home causes productivity to suffer; it came almost a year after another Microsoft study claimed it threatens productivity and innovation. There was also a survey that found management was more likely to want to return to the office than employees. Even those working from home often believe their WFH colleagues are being unproductive. Another survey detailed how 40% of remote workers spend four or more hours away from their PCs.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99738-new-study-shows-18-decrease-productivity-working-home.html

 

[Nobina]

Somebody actually did a study on this.

 

[redgarl]

If it was true then the pandemic would have shown a drop in productivity for the last 2-3 years, and it didn't...

 

[redgarl]

"Another survey detailed how 40% of remote workers spend four or more hours away from their PCs."

Because being in front of your PC just demonstrates that you are productive...

/SARCASM

 

[redgarl]

Let's be honest here, this is a manager and supervisor problem... not an employee problem.

Being in an office doesn't mean that you are productive, just that you had to commute for 2+ hours per day just to sit in a chair on the premise.

I have been working remotely since 2020 and it didn't change anything to the deliverable I am providing. In fact, I get my workload done for the day sooner.

However, if I need to plan to go into office, I need to change my routine and I will leave myself more work for those days so I don't have to waste my time doing nothing because I am done with my weekly workload.

 

[waclark]

with most arguments against that claim coming from studies carried out by employers

To be fair (cue the Letterkenny clip), many of those "studies" about work-at-home productivity are nothing more than employee surveys, so you have to take them with a grain of salt as well.

 

[kapital98]

Somebody actually did a study on this.

There have been many academic studies on this (not just survey data). However, at least as far as I'm aware, there hasn't been any good meta-study yet.


This makes sense because these studies are so different in what they are studying. This study is about Indian data-entry workers. Compared to other studies, this provides a clear-cut way to analyze productivity. However, unlike other studies, which tend to be a little more complicated, it doesn't address workers within a developed economy or with more knowledge-work oriented jobs.

There does seem to be a growing consensus, without any data to back it up, that hybrid work is where the "new normal" is going. A ton of op-ed pieces and, even in this study, the authors are recommending hybrid work. It's hard to tell how much of this is fact based or how much of this is simply trying to take the middle ground in something that "just feels right".

 

[kapital98]

Let's be honest here, this is a manager and supervisor problem... not an employee problem.

Being in an office doesn't mean that you are productive, just that you had to commute for 2+ hours per day just to sit in a chair on the premise.

I have been working remotely since 2020 and it didn't change anything to the deliverable I am providing. In fact, I get my workload done for the day sooner.

However, if I need to plan to go into office, I need to change my routine and I will leave myself more work for those days so I don't have to waste my time doing nothing because I am done with my weekly workload.

How can managers prove they are productive if they don't have quantifiable numbers to try to prove the people they manage are productive?

If corporate bureaucracy was rational, things like email would have been eliminated decades ago. Instead, it seems like every management fad seems to cling onto corporate culture like rings in a tree.

So many, individually, good ideas that get lost in the massive glob of corporate culture (bureaucracy).

 

[waclark]

If it was true then the pandemic would have shown a drop in productivity for the last 2-3 years, and it didn't...

You actually have to peel that onion to understand how and why productivity increased (or perhaps, didn't increase). From a couple of research papers:

"The COVID-19 recession, which started in March of 2020, saw unprecedented job losses. In a
span of just a few weeks, around 20 million jobs were lost—most of them in low-wage services sectors.
As a result, labor quality as measured by the labor composition index increased sharply. This increase in
the labor composition index accounted for about 64 percent of the 11.2 percent increase in labor
productivity in 2020q2. Of the 7.2 percentage point growth attributable to labor composition, about 75
percent (5.4 percentage points) is due to within-sector changes and 25 percent (1.8 percentage points)
due to changes in the distribution of workers across sectors."

"They conclude that the official data substantially overstate aggregate productivity growth in the second quarter of 2020, when the recession occurred, and understate it in the third quarter because pandemic-driven lockdowns skewed the data by dramatically shifting the industry mix away from low-productivity contact services, like restaurants and hotels, and toward high-productivity work-from-home industries, such as information technology and financial services. Over the nine quarters between 2020 and early 2022, productivity growth in the goods industries was negligible, productivity in contact services declined at an average annual rate of 2.6 percent, and work-from-home industries accounted for all of the economy’s overall positive productivity growth achievement, posting a strong 3.3 percent growth rate."

In other words, laying off all those restaurant workers made productivity look better because low productivity workers weren't part of the calculations. Productivity increases were not universal across all industries and sectors. And, as I mentioned in another post, many of these "productivity increased" studies were based on employee self-reporting and should be treated as unverifiable. Just because I think I'm more productive, doesn't mean it's true.

 

[Dimitriid]

It observed two groups made up of 235 data-entry workers – one working from home, the other in the office – in Chennai, India, for eight weeks.

Well there goes the objectivity of the study out of the window: This is the worst, most grueling and sisyphean job possible that can still technically be done from 'Home Office' probably tied with being a call center employee abroad working for US customers (Which is basically getting paid for being verbally abused for 8 to 10 hours per day)

Like remember the intro to the simpsons were Bart is writing out endlessly on a chalkboard as punishment? Now imagine you have to do that, non stop, for 40 hours per week. That's what a data entry job in India looks like: what western have traditionally consider punishment to teach kids a lesson is going to be the measurement of productivity?

You might as well try to measure productivity from convicts in jail because that's what it amounts to: of course the people doing those jobs will have to be constantly watched and pressured to keep typing, stop taking breaks, etc.

But of course incompetent managers want to push this study to justify how most office workers like programmers should just STFU and come back to the office because someone typing endlessly for a living did 18% worst from home that is "Proof" that you'll be more productive developing software in office somehow as if those were remotely comparable tasks.

 

[kira setsu]

You actually have to peel that onion to understand how and why productivity increased (or perhaps, didn't increase). From a couple of research papers:

"The COVID-19 recession, which started in March of 2020, saw unprecedented job losses. In a
span of just a few weeks, around 20 million jobs were lost—most of them in low-wage services sectors.
As a result, labor quality as measured by the labor composition index increased sharply. This increase in
the labor composition index accounted for about 64 percent of the 11.2 percent increase in labor
productivity in 2020q2. Of the 7.2 percentage point growth attributable to labor composition, about 75
percent (5.4 percentage points) is due to within-sector changes and 25 percent (1.8 percentage points)
due to changes in the distribution of workers across sectors."

"They conclude that the official data substantially overstate aggregate productivity growth in the second quarter of 2020, when the recession occurred, and understate it in the third quarter because pandemic-driven lockdowns skewed the data by dramatically shifting the industry mix away from low-productivity contact services, like restaurants and hotels, and toward high-productivity work-from-home industries, such as information technology and financial services. Over the nine quarters between 2020 and early 2022, productivity growth in the goods industries was negligible, productivity in contact services declined at an average annual rate of 2.6 percent, and work-from-home industries accounted for all of the economy’s overall positive productivity growth achievement, posting a strong 3.3 percent growth rate."

In other words, laying off all those restaurant workers made productivity look better because low productivity workers weren't part of the calculations. Productivity increases were not universal across all industries and sectors. And, as I mentioned in another post, many of these "productivity increased" studies were based on employee self-reporting and should be treated as unverifiable. Just because I think I'm more productive, doesn't mean it's true.

Can I chime in too?

when covid popped off I was working as a jr system admin for a decent sized company, the company I worked for didnt really have a plan when things hit go home mode so they so they just sent everyone "home" with their laptops and were like do your best, 2 months or so later I was let go because the program we used to track usage/tickets/info was showing I wasnt doing much.

Why? because I couldnt track people down anymore, in office a problem came up I could just go to a desk/office and fix it or troubleshoot it, simple. But these folks werent at home, they were on trips, the beach, lakehouses, out shopping, heck, some of them didnt even have decent internet or internet at all in one womans case, they would ping me about a problem then just sorta vanish.

when I lost that job I honestly wasnt even mad, I just knew wherever I went next had to be on site, not everyone was like that though, alot of people were working fine(the older ones it seemed). but I found out later that place is pretty much a shell of itself now, lost so many people. but im not blaming them, it was a mix of management, employees and pure panic really.

but people really need to understand WFH has 3 sides actually, those who thrive, those who abuse it, and those who consider it a prison(thats where I stand).

just because your an online techie who loves it doesnt mean everyone is built for it or should be forced into it.

 

[Rock Dirty]

"in Chennai, India"...

SERIOUSLY???!!!!

You are trying to draw inferences on US/western work behavior from a place ONE THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET (from the US) with different culture and infrastructure than the US?

This "study" is bullsheet.

 

[letsgoiowa]

Based on net typing speed as your measure of productivity? Opinion rejected.

 

[ragreeen2646]

I'm retired now. I worked in IT enterprise support. We started working from home as a cost saving measure (less office space $$$). I found myself working more than the normal 8 hours that I would have when in the office.
I might be working a problem and would wake up with a thought and would go to the PC in the middle of the night. I would say it depends on the job as to whether you are more or less productive at home. If you have small kids around, you have to find a way to isolate yourself during the work hours.

 

[hover389]

Wow ya dont say.... This is common sense that on average people are less productive at home than at work. Some may be better at home but thats definitely not the norm.

 

[SiJiL]

Well there goes the objectivity of the study out of the window: This is the worst, most grueling and sisyphean job possible that can still technically be done from 'Home Office' probably tied with being a call center employee abroad working for US customers (Which is basically getting paid for being verbally abused for 8 to 10 hours per day)

Exactly what I came here to say! Using data entry as the basis for the study is just not reflective of most jobs that people working from home do!

I have a 38" 3840x1600 main monitor, a 27" 1440p secondary monitor, a full size keyboard, comfortable mouse and studio speakers that I can play music on as loud as I like (I find it easier to focus with music on) at home.
If I go into the office, I get 2x 24" 1080p monitors and have to use my 13" laptop keyboard and trackpad (or start carrying my personal keyboard and mouse with me).
I am without a doubt more productive at home because I've invested in a decent set up, and there is no way 99% of companies would buy the equipment to parallel what I have...

 

[stewi0001]

Doesn't make a difference for me.

 

[McMurdeR]

They chose Data Entry? You've got to be kidding me!

 

[passwordistaco]

This study is brought to you by Salesforce.

 

[someOtherGuy]

They chose Data Entry? You've got to be kidding me!

It is a good one, though, you have a well defined single focus job, which makes productivity calculations simple: the one with the most entries is doing better than the one with less, that's it. There's no "special project" or "complicated case", you only need to input stuff into the system. It would be REALLY hard to do this with IT workers, for example, other than tier 1 support, you'd have all kind of requests extremely hard to quantify and weight (is closing 10 tickets better or worse than closing "that" critical ticket?).

And if your job is to "generate ideas" then is game over: how the h*ll can you quantify/weight productivity there? Is one idea worse than 3? How much productivity "is" an idea? Who measures that? Did you remove the cost of the measurer from the value of the idea?

 

[Endymio]

If it was true then the pandemic would have shown a drop in productivity for the last 2-3 years, and it didn't...

It did. The US saw two quarters of nominal GDP decline, and if one factors in the anticipated GDP growth occurring before the pandemic, it took 7 full quarters to recover -- nearly two years.

To be fair (cue the Letterkenny clip), many of those "studies" about work-at-home productivity are nothing more than employee surveys, so you have to take them with a grain of salt as well.

A salient point. Would any worker enjoying a work-from-home break claim it was making them "less" productive?

That being said, the best studies I've seen bear out my own personal experience here. Workers performing repetitive drone-like tasks (such as the data-entry of this particular study) tend to be less productive at home, whereas those performing creative and/or self-motivated tasks more productive. You can't lump both categories of jobs together.

 

[PanfiloTexas]

Ill use my office for an example, I have 9 employees. 50% of our job is hands on so, work from home is not really an option for us. But during Covid we were forced to work from home and join our IT Help Desk. out of the 9 employee I have 1 that is always disappearing at work. He is a social butterfly, and would pass his work off to our student workers. During our work from home phase, he was even worse, but no student workers to pass his work off to. The other 8 employees actually did better at working from home as 50% of job we could not do, but the other 50% they increased their speed an accuracy on it. I believe if they are a problem in the office, they will continue to be a problem at WFH, if they are good in the office, they will be even better at home.

 

[waclark]

Can I chime in too?

when covid popped off I was working as a jr system admin for a decent sized company, the company I worked for didnt really have a plan when things hit go home mode so they so they just sent everyone "home" with their laptops and were like do your best, 2 months or so later I was let go because the program we used to track usage/tickets/info was showing I wasnt doing much.

Why? because I couldnt track people down anymore, in office a problem came up I could just go to a desk/office and fix it or troubleshoot it, simple. But these folks werent at home, they were on trips, the beach, lakehouses, out shopping, heck, some of them didnt even have decent internet or internet at all in one womans case, they would ping me about a problem then just sorta vanish.

when I lost that job I honestly wasnt even mad, I just knew wherever I went next had to be on site, not everyone was like that though, alot of people were working fine(the older ones it seemed). but I found out later that place is pretty much a shell of itself now, lost so many people. but im not blaming them, it was a mix of management, employees and pure panic really.

but people really need to understand WFH has 3 sides actually, those who thrive, those who abuse it, and those who consider it a prison(thats where I stand).

just because your an online techie who loves it doesnt mean everyone is built for it or should be forced into it.

I appreciate the feedback. I'm sure there are lots of good and bad stories around WFH. I've been doing it since before Covid and it has its perks, to be sure. Also, in years past, I had jobs where I didn't go to my office but to my customer's office for meetings. Mostly driving to and from meetings all day. In that regard, I am more productive. In other ways, less productive.

For me, WFH has the downside of being home all the time, work, leisure, it's all the same. My wife works at our restaurant, she wants to come home every night and I want to go out. LOL

 

[waclark]

It did. The US saw two quarters of nominal GDP decline, and if one factors in the anticipated GDP growth occurring before the pandemic, it took 7 full quarters to recover -- nearly two years.


A salient point. Would any worker enjoying a work-from-home break claim it was making them "less" productive?

That being said, the best studies I've seen bear out my own personal experience here. Workers performing repetitive drone-like tasks (such as the data-entry of this particular study) tend to be less productive at home, whereas those performing creative and/or self-motivated tasks more productive. You can't lump both categories of jobs together.

Understood, there are many ways to WFH, and some jobs are better suited to it. I've had jobs in the past 20 years that have definitive success goals, mostly revenue generation. So, my productivity was easily measured.

 

[Rocky4040]

I don't care what anyone says most jobs are meant to be done away from home & meant to be done form the job site of the company you work for. Sure, there may be a few jobs you can do from home, but it is human nature for most people always wanting to stick it to the man or do as little as possible and still get paid for it.

My own job is manager at a carwash & Liquor store. So, I have to be there. Before Covid I used to have my own computer store with full repair shop as well. When they locked us down it also killed my 15-year-old computer business that I built with lots of hard work. I am only stating what the effects of Covid had on myself and family. Before someone says well you chose your current job so live with it and the choices.

After the promotion I actually make pretty decent money again, but I do miss being my own boss. I do not miss the stress though lol.

In my opinion most people saying they can be just as productive are either kidding themselves or outright lying.