Remote Work Doesn't Harm Productivity, Says Study

The researchers used data not from the coronavirus pandemic, but from 2017 and 2018, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. In late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey dropped over 12 trillion liters of water on Texas and Louisiana, damaging more than 100,000 homes and forcing an estimated 32,000 people into shelters.

The oil and gas company's office was closed from August 24, 2017. And while some workers started returning on September 24, the office was not fully reopened until April 1, 2018.

Before the hurricane, the company had installed software that collected data on how its employees' computers were being used.

The researchers were able to use this data to look at things like the total number of hours worked per employee, total active work time, words typed per hour, and the number of mistakes made per word typed — and do this for the periods before, during and after the hurricane.

The total number of hours worked was based on when employees logged on and when they logged off their work computers. Active work was the amount of time spent actively using the computer — typing, mouse-scrolling and clicking.

The researchers found that while total work hours did not change during the hurricane itself, active work time did decline as people suddenly transitioned to working from home. However, as employees got used to working remotely, work hours and active work time actually increased.

It was also found that people typed more words per active hour, and made fewer typing errors.

Then, when people started coming back to the office a month later, work hours and active time began to decline to their old levels.

Study co-author Mark Benden called the results "a huge message" to employers as companies now debate whether staff should continue to be allowed to work remotely after the coronavirus pandemic.

Exercise 3

Discussion

What are your thoughts on the findings of this study?

Why do you think people are more productive at home than the office?

Have you worked from home a lot during the pandemic? How have you found it?

How does your company track or monitor people's productivity?

Do you think companies should allow people to continue working remotely?

Exercise 4

Further Discussion

Who are the most productive people at your workplace?

What would you say are the biggest drains on productivity at your workplace?

Have you taken any steps recently to increase efficiency at work?

How often do you have slow days at work?

What is generally the busiest time of year at your company?

Source

This lesson is based on an article by Jenny Whelan.