The remote work trend has its roots in the pandemic. Over the last two years, employees have adapted to remote working, and now they prefer it and in some cases demand it from their employers. Now that the pandemic is behind us, the debate over remote work and in-office mandates continue to rage between employers and employees. Working from home has become the preference of many employees across nearly all businesses, and although several early studies supported that trend, more recent research questions whether remote work is as productive as we previously thought.
To Return Or Not To Return? That Is The Question
After a long period of remote and hybrid work, CEOs are summoning employees back to the office with return-to-office mandates (RTO). After more than three years of offering hybrid work, Zoom, once a leader in the remote work trend, is asking all of its employees to return to the office for the first time since the pandemic began. Some say the new mandate seems to go against what the company is all about. Although Zoom believes interacting with teams in-person is most effective, others say they need to rethink their RTO policy as data says otherwise.
I spoke by email with Cameron Yarbrough, co-founder and CEO of Torch. “By insisting on a five-day-a-week office commitment, these old-style leaders are ignoring the downside of returning to the office: increased commute time, work/life balance issues, loss of inclusivity, and economic impact as workers must move back to expensive metropolitan areas rather than working from cheaper geographies of their choice,” he told me.
Yarbrough’s position is that even amid layoffs and a tightening economy, employers should resist knee-jerk demands to bring employees back to the “9 to 5, five days a week” that many find stultifying. “While there is clear data over the past several quarters that worker productivity is going down, attributing it to WFH is so far an assumption,” Yarbrough says. “In fact, there are many studies that show that productivity has in fact been enhanced by hybrid work rather than the opposite being the case. Even more interesting is how WFH has contributed to a more inclusive work environment, especially for women. One economist estimates it may have grown the labor force by 1.3 million extra workers, providing ‘a magic gift for the labor supply,’ which we really need right now.” Data scientists at Ladders insist that remote work is here to stay. According to their projections, 25% of all professional jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022, and remote opportunities will continue to increase through 2023.
Not So Fast: New Research Shows Something Different
But hold on. An Owl Labs study of 2,050 full-time American workers found that 60% of managers are concerned that workers are less productive when working remotely, while 62% of workers say they feel more productive when working remotely. The survey found 55% of employees said they put in more hours while working remotely than at the office. Plus, 83% of remote workers said they “feel” they operate at the same or higher level than when in the office. Now, hard science offers fresh ammunition over subjective opinions from these earlier surveys on the debate between remote versus in-office work, supporting what many employers have claimed all along.
A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that remote working might not be as productive as once thought. Workers who were randomly assigned to work from home full time were 18% less productive than in-office employees, either taking longer to complete tasks or getting less done. This contradicts previous reports showing a nine percent increase, adding to the ongoing debate about the return to the office, with business leaders disagreeing with the long-term benefits of remote working. “The results of this study shouldn’t be weighted as heavily in a decision about whether to return to in-person work or not, as other inputs like employee sentiment and the unique demands of a given workplace,” according to John Morgan, president of LHH’s career mobility and leadership development businesses. Morgan shared his thoughts by email with me.“One of the major lessons we learned over the pandemic is that productivity can’t come at the cost of well-being,” he emphasized. “If your team’s burnt out, you’re still losing out on productivity.” Still, he cites optics as a factor in the findings. “A large factor here is the optics, with workers valuing the opportunity and claiming it helps more than it might actually.”
In another study, Stanford scientists at the Institute for Economic Policy Research found that remote work productivity depends on the mode of remote work. Fully remote work is associated with about 10% lower productivity than fully in-person work. Challenges with communicating remotely, barriers to mentoring, building culture and issues with self-motivation appear to be factors, according to the scientists. Fully remote work can generate even larger cost reductions from space savings and global hiring, making it a popular option for firms.
A Final Takeaway
So where does the remote work debate go from here? The majority of surveys on remote working are based on remote employees “feelings” that they are more productive. Or managers “believing” they are less productive. Yet, subjective feelings and beliefs are not objective facts. Many managers and remote employees might have different versions about productivity at-home work. “But the research has found, on average, those working in the office at least some of the time are more productive,” argues Jacob Zinkula in the Insider. “It strengthens the rationale for calling employees back to the office as Salesforce and Meta have done. Even Zoom, which is synonymous with remote work, recently called some employees back to the office for at least two days a week.”
The final answer might not be an “either-or-solution,” given the overall findings that fully remote work is less productive than fully in-office or hybrid work. Plus, Stanford scientists conclude that hybrid work so far has no impact on productivity one way or another. As those scientists point out, it’s popular with firms because it improves employee recruitment and retention. Morgan agrees, admitting it’s hard to strike a balance between in-office and remote work. “The strategy most employers are taking is to implement a little bit of both through a hybrid schedule. This allows workers some flexible days to work from their homes and stay disconnected from the office, but also provides critical in-office days that the NBER’s research shows are more productive.” So, based on the latest research and expert opinion to date, hybrid work might end up being the best work mode and settle the heated debate once and for all.
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