The Productivity of Remote Work
Being in an office does not necessarily make you productive and working from home does not necessarily mean you will get less done.
My mother has been managing teams in India from the comfort of her home for the last 15 years. She has worked for the same employer, through mergers and acquisitions for nearly 20. I have watched her do laundry and help my sister with homework when she was technically “on the clock” and I have seen her work all day, and then through midnight when the job demands it. America has a strange relationship with employment and productivity. We demand both from every citizen, and despite massive gains in productivity over the past 3 decades the average workers wage has not risen, and employers are still skeptical that employees will do their jobs if allowed to work at home. I am not here to argue for a higher minimum wage, but to point out that being in an office does not necessarily make you productive and working from home does not necessarily mean you will get less done. In fact, the opposite may very well be true.
A 2-Year Stanford study found telecommuters were 13% more productive than employees working in an office, worked 8.5% more hours, took shorter breaks and called in sick less. Maybe most importantly researchers discovered a 50% decrease in attrition rate among those telecommuting when compared to office workers. These results conflict somewhat with a survey done by Airtasker which showed that remote workers took slightly longer breaks (4 minutes longer) but had 10 fewer minutes of unproductive time each day. The survey still showed remote workers, on average, worked an additional 1.4 days per month when compared to office workers. Remote workers also save time and money by not having a commute, thus reducing transportation, and vehicle maintenance costs. Employers also benefited when down-sizing office space after instituting work-at-home policies. The Airtasker survey showed 1 in 4 employees had quit a job because of a long commute, and since remote employees save an average of $4,523 and 408 hours per year, it’s no wonder millennials seek out jobs that offer telecommuting. Remote office workers were found to be healthier in terms of exercise but were also found to be 6% more likely to report a struggle to maintain a work-life balance when compared to office workers.
Where does this incredible boost in productivity come from, despite the greater potential for distraction, and the lack of oversight? As it turns out taking longer breaks boosts productivity and managers can be a distraction. Nearly 25% of office workers said their boss distracted them from doing work compared to 15% of remote workers, 52% of office workers said their boss stressed them out, and 65% said their boss was too talkative. This doesn’t mean managers shouldn’t maintain good interpersonal relationships with their employees, 28% of employees had quit a job due to a toxic relationship with co-workers, but a chatty boss can eat up a workers time a lot easier in the office.
Despite the distractions and struggling with work-life balance, what are some effective ways to stay productive as a remote worker? Don’t forget to take breaks and have set working hours. If you would normally get into the office at 8AM and leave at 5PM there’s no reason to mess with what works, keep this schedule when working from home – minus the dreary morning commutes. Work in the same location every day, keep a to-do list, and plan your next workday. It’s a lot easier to get things done when you have a simple list to follow, even easier if yesterday you already made that list. You’ll notice these are the same kinds of tips an office worker should follow, and that’s because remote work is pretty darn similar to office work. The setting may be different, there might not be as many smiling faces to greet you, you may be wearing sweatpants instead of khakis. The tasks are all the same and leveraging technology should continue to bring our companies productivity gains whether we’re working from home in our pajamas or riding the train into work wearing a three-piece suit.
-Peter T. Belies