Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data [pdf]

Post by reportingsjr » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

geodel wrote: post #19

I hope people do not much from this study done in a single IT Service company based in India. One critically important thing to remember is they are "Outlay based" instead of "Outcome based". So things measured are hours billed, time-sheets filled and reports generated. What work got done and was it even half useful to client is of secondary importance at these companies. I interviewed few years back so thing they as…

Post by ipaddr » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

taneq wrote: post #8

> Employees with children living at home increased hours workedmore than those without children at home, and suffered a bigger decline in productivity than thosewithout children. This tells you all you need to know about the study. You can't analyse the relative effectiveness of working from home and working in the office when you're conflating "remote work" with "trying to get something done on your laptop on the ki…

I managed mixed in-office and WFH teams before the pandemic. There was a stark productivity drop every summer when kids were out on summer break. This includes parents with dedicated home offices who had been WFH for many years. The effect was so predictable that we planned for lower velocity during summer months. It was also common practice for WFH employees to spend more time in the office for more focus during sum…

Post by reportingsjr » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

nmstoker wrote: post #40

tetranomiga wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The result is pretty clear with over 10,000 participants in the study. They're all from the same Asian company, it's far from clear.

Yes, this was my concern with applying the lessons more broadly. I would love to see a similar assessment for a company that was substantially staffed from other locations to see how much this is a universal picture or not.

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 3:07 AM UTC

reportingsjr wrote: post #51

geodel wrote: post #19

I hope people do not much from this study done in a single IT Service company based in India. One critically important thing to remember is they are "Outlay based" instead of "Outcome based". So things measured are hours billed, time-sheets filled and reports generated. What work got done and was it even half useful to client is of secondary importance at these companies. I interviewed few years back so thing they as…

This study matches what I've heard from other companies, for what it's worth. About a month ago I discussed productivity with someone at one of the large financial companies. They do pretty heavy tracking of employee productivity and noted a pretty significant decrease since everyone's gone WFH. I don't think it's some other factor that caused this decrease for the company in the study. I'm pretty sure it's consisten…

Post by yoloyoloyoloa » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #23

_jal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This tells you all you need to know about the study. Your comment only tells me you wanted a different study than the one they did. Asking what happened in the real world, including in a range of work situations, is a very interesting question to ask. Looking for/at the delta between optimal work-at-home and the office would also be interesting, for different reasons.

A study of unprepared people being locked at home without childcare or schooling, without time to setup an office and in companies in dissarray is about as representative of home working as people falling overboard the titanic are representatice of health benefits of swimming. Similarly if a group of tourists gets lost in the jungle we don't call that a study of prehistoric tribal life.