I was shuffling through my browser tabs and discovered an item that I meant to write about but had forgotten. It’s dated September 29 so it’s not that old and it’s still germane to the remote work discussion. It’s an article from The Hill entitled Does working from home damage productivity? Just look at the data. The TL;DR is that although there is much discussion on the effects of remote work on worker productivity, almost all of it is anecdotal and lacking evidence.
The article is by Nick Bloom, a professor of Economics at Stanford. He set out to study worker productivity in the face of remote work. He anticipated that they would discover that workers goofed off when not in the office but was surprised to discover that they actually worked longer and were more productive per minute worked than when they were in the office.
Leaving aside the irony of a professor—who, after all, does his research wherever he pleases—being surprised that “ordinary” workers also don’t require constant supervision to be productive, there’s a lesson here: Rather than listen to so called experts bloviate on the matter, it pays to take a look at the data. Bloom captures this idea nicely with the quote:
The work-from-home conversation needs to shift from big-name CEO anecdotes and stories to data and research. When it comes to making decisions impacting millions of employees and firms, we deserve better. The data and research show well-managed work from home can raise and maintain productivity, while cutting costs and raising profits.
The micromanagers will hate that message, of course, but it’s still what the data tells us. Take a look at the article and share it with your management if they’re making noises about getting people back in the office. The data simply doesn’t support their prejudices, no matter how strongly held.