They can all fuck right off. Here’s the article if anyone’s interested: https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminlaker/2023/08/02/working-from-home-leads-to-decreased-productivity-research-reveals/
Here is a link to the actual study (PDF via GDrive)
One of the authors of this paper is from the Chicago School and the Hoover Institution. Both are pro-business, anti-worker think-tanks that have been this way for decades. They also don’t do any research of their own, but cite other papers that show the 5-20% reduction.
However, the methodology mentioned in the papers is suspect. First, they show that remote workers have the same productivity, but work longer hours. So the net output doesn’t go down, they just spend more time working. Which raises the question: How many more breaks were they taking throughout the day? Being remote means a much more flexible schedule, so it’s not uncommon to take longer breaks if you’re a salaried worker.
Another study was IT professionals shifting to remote work at one company at the start of the pandemic. This one showed an 18% reduction in productivity. But considering the timing of this and that company culture and procedures can contribute to this, it doesn’t seem to be a valid data point.
Then they bring up some common criticisms of WFH, which I’ve seen and refuted since I started working from home 2009: People can’t communicate, working in groups is harder, and people can’t control themselves. Yawn.
Honestly, the fact that they cherry picked hybrid work as being equally productive shows me this isn’t about productivity, it’s about keeping offices open. Which makes sense considering one of the authors is affiliated with groups that want to prop up the commercial rental business.
Then they bring up some common criticisms of WFH, which I’ve seen and refuted since I started working from home 2009: People can’t communicate, working in groups is harder, and people can’t control themselves. Yawn.
Exactly. I work for a global company, so the way I communicate with the people I work with everyday is via zoom. What’s the point of commuting to an office just to get on zoom anyway to talk to people?
Don’t forget that Forbes and The Economist were all in favor of outsourcing jobs, which leads to me having meetings with people all over the world even when I’m in an office.
So if working remotely hurts group work, a lot of it is their fault for sending jobs overseas. Unless they also want those jobs to eventually move back here so we can have happy group work fun time.
Thank you for the summary! This is the investigation I was looking for.
Disallowing remote with when it’s possible is anti-worker.
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Also, with both studies cited, the best argument is that workers are happy to work more than 8 hours a day. Does that mean you should expect workers to be on call for longer than an 8 hour day because they are working remote?
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Pick one. Otherwise you aren’t better than alt-right people on Facebook that say to “do your own research”.
Right, but you’re no better than alt-right people on Facebook ignoring the research that’s literally one click away because you’re afraid it will disagree with you
I’ve provided sources from reputable sources of journalism, you haven’t.
FYI, none of your posts in this thread have any links
And because jfc you’re lazy: Here is a study by the Harvard Business Review showing increased productivity.
It took three clicks from Google so I can see why you’d have trouble getting to it.
I’ve been posting the Economist link in several comments. I left it as presented to show where the link came from in case people argued with the source.
This source just states that there is a disagreement over whether work from home is more or less productive and provides survey information to show the difference in opinion.
That isn’t making the argument that remote work is productive, just that workers view it as more productive and the study isn’t conclusive. The closest this study gets to saying if productivity increases is “In theory, both sides could be right[.]”
Science. Is not about winning. Fuckface.
You and people like you are literally inhibiting the progress of the human race for personal gain. Congratulations.
So there is no scientific evidence that remote work leads to more productivity?
Ignores salient points made, what-about-isms to reassert bad point, doubles down on the science is a competition thing while illustrating complete lack of knowledge of scientific process
At least you are consistent.
Ignores salient points made
I’ve responded to them, not ignored them.
what-about-isms to reassert bad point
I’ve said that, if you want to argue the studies presented, present other studies. The only one presented I had comments on and quoted the text.
doubles down on the science is a competition thing while illustrating complete lack of knowledge of scientific process
Science is about presenting data in a way that can be reviewed and verified. I’ve asked for studies that back up the assertions made while providing references to my assertions. Where is the data to back up the claim that remote work is more productive?
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Yawn… even if it’s true, who give a shit. Even before the pandemic, when people had a lot to do, they stayed at home so they could focus undisturbed to meet deadlines.
Yeah. And it isn’t like there aren’t other reasons to maintain full remote work. It just happens to be that one of the reasons may not be accurate anymore based on further study.
I know in my line of work, employee retention is the main reason why full remote or hybrid is being maintained.
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Saying that a conservative economic school is pro-business and anti-labor is not what I’d call an ad hominem, but a statement of fact. Saying they want to prop up the commercial real estate business isn’t ad hominem either.
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The Chicago School itself says:
Conservative politicians like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher championed Friedman’s ideas
So maybe the school itself holds to some kind of political neutrality, but conservatives love their theories.
This. Economics is a social science where every theory or opinion aims to achieve different varying desired outcomes for different people and in achieved in different ways, with spectrums for every step along the process. The entire field is on a spectrum, that also generally aligns with the political spectrum because politics, like economics, strives to achieve a certain outcome for a certain group of people, in a certain way. Trying to disentangle the field of economics from people. and the politics that people create, is a red flag for not actually knowing what economics is.
Ah, so it’s not that they’re conservative, it’s that they desire the same things conservatives want. But they’re totally apolitical, and it’s just a happy coincidence.
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I swear, when I’m called into the office I get fuck all nothing done. Like once in a while there’s a reason for me to be on site, and I do that thing and nothing else all day.
Distractions, interruptions, noise, general discomfort. Seems every time I actually start making progress on something, a person stops by my desk and that basically erases whatever I did. So it always ends with “I’ll do it tomorrow when I’m at home”.
I recognise that I’m probably a minority here, but I have a much harder time staying focused at home. At my office I share a room with a couple others, on a floor with a couple dozen more. Pretty much everything I do (outside 1-3 meetings a week) is individual work.
For me, something about physically “going to work” helps me “switch on” much more. Taking breaks with other people, rather than alone, also helps me structure the breaks, and it’s not uncommon that we get good ideas or resolve something that’s been bugging someone during a break. Lastly, I really appreciate the option of “just dropping by” when I want to ask someone about something, and the fact that they can do the same to me. In my experience it’s never gotten to the point that it happens more than maybe once or twice a day, so it’s not really that disturbing either.
Same for me. I found having my workspace be outside my home is better for both my productivity and mood. But I will fight for whatever method of work people find works for them individually.
The trick for me is having a dedicated home office. I wake up, shower, dress in work clothes, and “go to the office”.
Only things in there are my work desk, and some excercise equipment.
The company is currently hybrid, with a couple days required in office every week. From everything I’ve heard, productivity is up, and there is no talk from management that we’re changing things.
That is great and you should have that option. Some of us work best from home and want that option. The idea that we all work the same is the problem, flexible is the solution. The ability to allow people to work in whatever way they think is best and trust them to get stuff done would solve this issue. Except it isn’t about that it is about office real estate and management thinking the only way people are working is if they are watched.
I absolutely agree that flexibility is the way to go. I also have to admit that a large part of what makes me function better in the office is that my coworkers are there as well. As such, I think a compromise that everyone can be as happy as possible with is the best thing.
Remember: Some people would prefer to work from home everyday, and function best when the do. People like me would prefer that as many as possible people are in the office as often as possible, and function best when that is the case. The optimum (both regarding satisfaction and productivity) is clearly somewhere in-between.
That means flexibility is very important, but “full flexibility”, i.e. everyone always working from where they would prefer, is probably not the global optimum.
That’s me too. Sure it’s useful once a week to sit down with my team but the rest of our work is solo or on an ad hoc debugging call where sharing screens actually makes things easier.
Even worse my office doesn’t even have enough desks for everyone, and even fewer of them are properly setup with a monitor from this decade. Each of I ur 3 mandatory office days is a complete crapshoot on whether you’ll actually get a proper workstation or will you be stuck at a table with your laptop all day.
They’re write offs where fuck all gets done. Some of my colleagues who are in meetings all day seem to be okay with the office but if you actually need to do work there’s little point in being there.
I must be in like some weird alternate reality because my boss recognises that the office is a distraction, and doesn’t go there often himself. We go there very seldomly, primarily to catch up with colleagues, but not to work on our tasks.
I get maybe 15-20% of my normal work done at the office.
Granted this might increase over time if I came in regularly but it’d never touch how productive I am at home. This rhetoric about losing productivity working from home is dangerous and bullshit.
Im the exact opposite. At home there are way too many distractions and temptations than in an office environment.
It’s both decreasing productivity AND saving the economy!!!
https://fortune.com/2023/08/01/remote-work-preventing-economy-from-recession/
Such an incredible paradox 🤯
Reminds me of the headlines trend a few years ago when Millenials were killing everything.
That’s a pay site
“Please send the planet further into its end with global warming by heating it with transportation needs just so I can talk to your face in real”
These people should be fired. Also they should be penalized by never being permitted to have a warm shower ever again. Reused water all the way down. They can do double time when it comes to mending the planet.
just so I can talk to your face in realJust so we can keep the value of our office buildings high
It’s funny how these kinds of articles always read exactly the same. I honestly want to know what offices they are using for these supposed metrics because it seems like people are doing everything they can to just endure and waste time while in actual offices.
They looked at the stats of two companies. That’s the extent of their “research”.
It’s a garbage article from the type of people that are responsible for 85% of what is wrong with the planet.
Clearly they’re analyzing offices with fat commercial real estate bills going unpaid month after month. Think anyone at Forbes magazine is invested in that stuff?
I’m shocked people still read: Forbes, fortune and business insider.
What ever legitimacy they once held in the business world is long gone. All three of them went click bait long before COVID (BI was always a click bait outfit) and I find their content to be on par with UK gossip rags or the National Enquirer.
Suggestion, start filtering out these three sites from your news gathering and stop sharing articles on social media from them. It’ll make the world a better place!
I had to chuckle after I saw that Forbes now reports on League of Legends patch notes. Wtf bruh.
Is this real? Thats awsome, just because league needs more recognition. And more people addicted :D
Once Forbes realized they could influence a stock price, it was over for any journalistic integrity they had. I don’t know how anyone can take them seriously, when literally all they write can be condensed down to “Ultra-capitalism”
Yeah, but The Economist has reported the same and it is considered to be a decent source of journalism.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/06/28/the-working-from-home-delusion-fades
Linking the paper “cited” in this article here. It’s almost like the author didn’t even read the executive summary…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kqbngD8pemqxAkZmWCOQ32Yk6PXK9eVA/view
I am exactly as unproductive at home as I am at the office. I’m just more comfortable.
Something I’ve just realised going into the office is how much more unproductive I make everyone else.
If I’m not working at home, everyone else is free to keep working. But if I’m not working in the office I’m going to drag everyone in my team down to my level.
I am at the opposite end. When I’m at the office, I put on noise cancelling headphones and don’t talk to anyone unless it’s necessary. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s that I just want to get my shit done and not have to deal with their shit.
Look I work from home, I think everyone who can (and wants to) work from home should work from home most of the time. But people are definitely less productive working from home, and I think the people who say that most people are more productive are delusional.
There are more important things than just raw productivity numbers, western workers have been working far too hard and far too long for the last half century, and I think we should return to a more humane approach to working.
Also froma purely selfish capitalist perspective I don’t neccesarily think the productivity boost of being in person is worth all the costs of a bigger office, cleaning staff etc.
But how do you define “productive”?
I work from home and I get the same amount of work done. However if you define it as, “Doing X amount of work in Y amount of time,” then yeah I’m less productive because nowadays instead of getting that work done in an 8-hour shift I take about 10–12 hours to do it.
Same work, same day, so my productivity hasn’t changed. I just take longer to do it by taking breaks, going out to long lunches with friends, and my stress level is almost non-existent!
I find that to be a very equitable trade-off: Almost no job-related stress for a slightly longer working day.
There’s also to take into consideration the fact that people experience dips of productivity throughout the day. Like, I’d never be able to start something that requires most of my brain power after 3.
For others it’s early morning.
So, when I was in the office I would just kill time, go on coffee breaks or just do fucking nothing until it was time to go home, and I know for a fact that it was like that for most of my colleagues.
No one works 8 hours straight out of an 8 hours work day. Working from home just removes the torture of sticking around looking busy.
I actually complete from home the same amount of tasks I used to at the office, really, because my productivity (and that of others) wasn’t constant there either.
Had a summer job as a customer service agent for a big company, and pretty much did work 8 hours non stop, the phones were ringing constantly. I had two 5 minute breaks that I could take whenever and one 20 minute break that I had to take at a set time. The break time wasn’t payed, so you ended up having to be there for 8.5 hours. It was very stressful, but it kinda helped that every customer had a new problem, so it wasn’t very repetitive.
Now I some days take longer and other days shorter, to accomplish from home what I could’ve gotten done working from the office.
I think people leave out the fact that their commute should also be considered time working. If you’ve got an hour commute and an eight hour shift, you really have a ten hour shift.
So you are taking ten hours to do eight hours of work, because part of it means dragging your brain through meatspace to be there. Since you don’t have to do that, you can take longer doing the actual job.
nowadays instead of getting that work done in an 8-hour shift I take about 10–12 hours to do it.
“For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the 8 hours supposedly left after 8 hour of work and 8 hours of sleep” – Doug Larson.
An 8-hour shift quickly turns into 10-12 clock-hours when you factor in all the extraneous crap that goes along with it. I mean, just lunch and a commute easily adds 60-90 unpaid minutes per day. Add the time spent getting ready for work and settling down after work, and you’re easily up to 10 hours a day.
But how do you define “productive”?
Studies that I’ve seen have seen both an increase in time to perform work and a decrease in quality of work.
You are noting that you take more time, but you work that additional time. Not everyone does that.
Increased employee happiness/retention and reduced office rent may be good reasons why to pick full remote over the increased productivity of the office, but the idea that people are more productive at home isn’t proving itself to be true.
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But people are definitely less productive working from home, and I think the people who say that most people are more productive are delusional
Except pretty much every study done on this has said the exact opposite. I am much more productive when I’m home. My team is much more productive when working from home and hard data backs it up. I literally cannot think of one thing about the office that I miss or made me more productive.
I miss distracting coworkers with conversations instead of working! /s
What about the ice cold AC in the winter?
My last office job involved my desk being 7 feet from the entry door to the building. We had codes to get in so anyone not employed there had to knock and it was on me to get up and figure out who they are and decide if I could let them in. Half the time this also involved me tracking down someone else in the building to see if they were expecting said individual OR I had to have the back and forth discussion with said individual that no we don’t want your services and point to the No Soliciting sticker right on front of them on the door. This definitely took away from my productivity.
My ability to close a door and sit, focus, and develop in silence makes me not only more productive, but also happier. I’ve done some of the best work of my career over these past 3+ years. I used to wear headphones 50+ hours a week, now it’s only when i go for a walk every morning.
There’s really nothing like sitting in a darkened room with music blasting, code pouring out of your fingers while you have an out of body experience from caffeine overdose and lack of sleep. I’ve spent my entire career chasing that high.
What studies?
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The article provides sources and the commenter is refuting that claim.
Also: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/06/28/the-working-from-home-delusion-fades
So, sources.
The few people I know who are against remote working are the type of persons that don’t have any non-family social life outside workplace and are freeking out, because their coffee break chit-chats disappeared.
They still base their view on the idea that people are spineless and sooner or later start slacking off.
The ones I see who are against WFH the hardest have pretty awful family lives and don’t want to admit it to themselves. They need the break from the shitty family they can’t face or deal with more than is absolutely necessary.
Yep. Either that or they’re just older and used to the way things were. Go to the office if you want but leave me out of it.
As a work from homer who gets twice as much done in half the time, I’m eyeballing your own delusion xD
And this isn’t a self assessment, it comes from my boss, who is fighting tooth and nail to keep us from having to go back into the office with numbers and spreadsheets proving it.
These decisions are top down and have very little to do with what’s actually happening on the front line.
All the studies show literally the opposite. Maybe you’re less productive, but that makes you the outlier.
Long term burnout also kills productivity.
And having to hire someone new and train them because the freedom they enjoyed is no longer available.
Just fire them and hire fresh people!
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Edit: As u/Semi-Hemi-Demigod pointed out, one of the authors of this paper has his own connections to pro-business/anti-worker groups, which may have biased the conclusions of this review.
I’m definitely no specialist on this topic, but to me it seems questionable to generalize the conclusions of that review to all remote workers. From section 3.a, where they analyze the productivity of fully remote workers:
[…] Emmanuel and Harrington (2023) use data from a Fortune 500 firm which had both in-person and remote call centers pre-pandemic. […] Using the always remote call-centers as the control group they find an 8% reduction in call volumes among employees who shifted from fully in-person to fully remote work.
Extending the results of one call-center to all other companies would be very shortsighted, and the fact that this shift to remote work happened quickly during the COVID pandemic is very likely to affect the results. Still, it could be evidence that for this type of industry specifically fully-remote work may have a negative effect. Nonetheless, the authors of the paper offer a more nuanced analysis, finding that remote work actually increased the productivity of workers who were already in the company:
[…] We find that working remotely increased call-center workers’ productivity. When previously on-site workers took up opportunities to go remote in 2018, their hourly calls rose by 7.5%. Similarly, when COVID-19 closed on-site call centers, a difference-in-difference suggests that the productivity of workers who switched to remote work rose by 7.6% relative to their already remote peers.
What their results suggest instead is that people who are overall less productive are more likely to seek remote work:
Despite these positive productivity effects, remote workers were 12pp less likely to be promoted. If better workers are more concerned about being overlooked in remote jobs, remote workers will be adversely selected. Consistent with this theory, we find evidence that remote work attracted latently less productive workers. When all workers were remote due to COVID-19, those who were hired into remote jobs were 18% less productive than those who were hired into on-site jobs.
Going back to the main review, the next study they cite didn’t actually find a decrease in productivity, only finding that workers spent more hours working to do the same job:
Gibbs, Mengel and Siemroth (2022) examine IT professionals in a large Indian technology company who shifted to fully remote work at the onset of the pandemic. Measured performance among these workers remained constant while remote but they worked longer hours, implying a drop in employee productivity of 8% to 19%.
Indeed, working more hours doesn’t mean productivity will increase, but to frame this as a drop in productivity because workers can simply do their jobs at a more calm pace seems rather disingenuous to me.
Atkin, Schoar, and Shinde (2023) run a randomized control trial of data-entry workers in India, randomizing between working fully in the office and fully at home. They find home-workers are 18% less productive.
Similar to the first study they found that the workers who prefer to work from home are less productive when doing so, which partially explained the lower productivity:
[…] We find negative selection effects for office-based work: workers who prefer home-based work are 12% faster and more accurate at baseline. We also find a negative selection on treatment: workers who prefer home work are much less productive at home than at the office (27% less compared to 13% less for workers who prefer the office).
Still, because this study focused specifically on one data-entry company and only included 234 workers in their final sample, we should be careful with generalizing their findings.
Ultimately even if we take the conclusions of the review at face value, the authors themselves point out that mixing remote and in-person work doesn’t seem to lower productivity, and remote work can still be an attractive option for companies because it reduces on-site costs:
[…] 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. But fully remote work can generate even larger cost reductions from space savings and global hiring, making it a popular option for firms. Hybrid working appears to have no impact on productivity but is also popular with firms because it improves employee recruitment and retention. Looking ahead we predict working from home will continue to grow because of the expansion in research and development into new technologies to improve remote working. Hence, the pandemic generated both a one-off jump and a longer-run growth acceleration in working from home.
There are a lot of other studies on remote working with conflicting results, with some finding an increase in worker productivity while others suggest the opposite, and as the section dedicated to COVID-19 states the effects of remote work can vary depending on the earnings and position of the worker.
As some of the previous studies point out the drop in productivity is in part due to less productive workers self-selecting into remote positions, and due to remote training at the start of the job being less adequate. Hence what seems like the most reasonable solution to me is in-person training for the first few weeks, then a mix of in-person and remote work for employees who want it - and even if there is some drop in productivity, I ultimately agree with you that the improved life-work balance and worker satisfaction that remote work gives to some people is worth the cost.
Your analysis is a lot better than mine. Thanks!
That needs to be backed up by data and not just what people think. And reliable data needs scientific study, with proper time and people for the answer to be minimally reliable. Working from home is different from the office, we can establish that - all the rest are just thoughts or delusions from both sides.
Having said that, I agree 100% with the conclusion. We don’t need more productivity to make more money for profit only. We need investment for our personal lives too.
Because showering, eating, driving are productive vs get up and get started?
My team was more productive at home, no open space telephoning, discussing, interruptions etc etc etc. no hours on a car or public transport, etc etc and it seems it’s the norm (or about the same productivity).
What are you smoking :-D
But people are definitely less productive working from home
How so? I personally think it’s a somewhat personal matter, but people who are less productive are home seem to be people who can’t focus in general. I am far more productive working from home, mostly because I don’t get distracted by others. I have colleagues who spend hours bantering only to then stay in the company until later to compensate for the banter - I’d rather get my work done so I can end my day on time and go home do the fun stuff. But I do have colleagues who say they get distracted easily when working at home and they’d rather work at the office.
Overall though, my company used to be very against working from home, but after the period of mandatory work from home, management admitted overall productivity had increased. They still insist people should come to the office every now and then to maintain the “friendly” environment the company is supposed to have, though, which is fair I guess.
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But people are definitely less productive working from home, and I think the people who say that most people are more productive are delusional.
Our productivity went up across the board according to my managers. We are letting our office go & finding a smaller space for our equipment.
You think thats going to stop the movement…? No one gives a fuck about your company.
B-but they care so much about you!
Productivity has a long way to fall before it gets back in line with wages, so I don’t think workers should be too concerned.
Mid-managers are being given extra allowances for ‘team outings’. Then there’s ‘free breakfast’ and other ‘free’ things. Finally, managers are also being evaluated for the number of people in their team that they can get to come to the office - the more people in their team they can get to come to office, the more pat on the back they get.
It’s no longer a debate of whether you are productive at home or in office. They just want you back in office. Simple as that. The why? I don’t know.
/Friend works in corporate real estate. “Employees in IT companies just don’t want to go back and it’s a HUGE headache for companies…” is what he told me (roughly).
The why is likely to justify office rent and also to more easily control workers. The place I work at was allowing me to 50/50 my work even before the pandemic (and they haven’t been forcing employees to come back after), and now with the war (I live and work in Ukraine) they had halved the office space rented in Kyiv but installed spare generators and stuff so that people can come work in case of power outages, as well as organized a shelter in the same building in case of air raids or other emergencies. Not once had I heard about there being not enough space in the new office, and people who prefer it still come there on the regular
I skimmed through it real quick, but I didn’t see anything where they defined how they measured productivity. Did I miss that part?
They asked middle managers what they thought about it.
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No need for the \s. That is literally how they did this “study”. I’d be interested to see who it was that paid for this bullshit, wouldn’t be surprised to see the money trail leading back to commercial real estate.
The article boasts the headline front and center % productivity loss, as though this was some years long extensive study. The section of the report discussing these results is less than two paragraphs long. I’ve seen high school students put together a more detailed a well researched study.
What bothers me the most is that people will readily reference this article and spread this bullshit everywhere, with basically no one having read the study or put any critical thinking into this at all.
Ouch you are right, people will see headlines and slowly stop being so sure…
And yeah, to find the criminal, follow the money.
I dig through the paper and the study literally looked at two sectors and job types. So let’s just extrapolate that too all workers right 🙄
“Remote working appears to lower average productivity by around 10% to 20%. Emmanuel and Harrington (2023) use data from a Fortune 500 firm which had both in-person and remote call centers pre-pandemic. The firm shifted all workers to fully remote in April 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the always remote call-centers as the control group they find an 8% reduction in call volumes among employees who shifted from fully in-person to fully remote work. Gibbs, Mengel and Siemroth (2022) examine IT professionals in a large Indian technology company who shifted to fully remote work at the onset of the pandemic. Measured performance among these workers remained constant while remote but they worked longer hours, implying a drop in employee productivity of 8% to 19%. Atkin, Schoar, and Shinde (2023) run a randomized control trial of data-entry workers in India, randomizing between working fully in the office and fully at home. They find home-workers are 18% less productive.”
Yea that’s still not indicating how they measure productivity. It actually does highlight an increase in efficiency though; if there’s an 8% decrease in call volumes, that is a correlation to end users not needing to call in multiple times.
How else will they justify spending money on these huge office buildings (monuments to capitalists) to their investors if you aren’t there pretending to be busy?
Productivity skyrocketed when we implemented work from home. Employee retention also improved. Keeping it was a no brainer.