Some workers weren\u2019t fully enthusiastic about the work-from-home concept even before the pandemic. About 29% of respondents to a poll of full-time U.S. employees taken in 2019 by outsourcing marketplace platform Airtasker said they experienced difficulty maintaining a healthy work-life balance; 23% of office workers reported the same problem.\u00a0Remote workers also reported higher levels of stress, anxiety and procrastination. (Telecommuting respondents did appreciate eliminating their commutes and reported putting in longer workdays than their office-based counterparts.)![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/08\/WFH-blog-image-dad-and-daughter-at-home.jpg?w=300\")
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The initial stages of the pandemic amplified those issues. \u201cThe scale and scope of what we\u2019re seeing, with organizations of 5,000 or 10,000 employees asking people to work from home very quickly, is unprecedented. So, no, organizations are not set up for this,\u201d Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, said in March, citing concerns about ensuring employee access to hardware, software and other resources. Neeley also addressed the social aspects of work: \u201cPeople lose the unplanned watercooler or cappuccino conversations with colleagues in remote work. These are actually big and important parts of the workday that have a direct impact on performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t the only one bemoaning the loss of in-person collaboration. \u201cI fear this collapse in office face time will lead to a slump in innovation,\u201d says Nicholas Bloom, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research. \u201cThe new ideas we are losing today could show up as fewer new products in 2021 and beyond, lowering long-run growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even after three months, some continued to regard working from home as detrimental to efficiency. Elysa Nelson, a vice president in public relations firm Pierpont Communications\u2019 Houston office, thought the transition would free her to devote more time to client needs. But that hasn\u2019t worked out, according to a New York Times<\/em> article published June 23. \u201cI was hopeful that I would become more productive because [my employees] wouldn\u2019t barge into my office all the time. But they\u2019re still finding ways, through calls and texts and Slack,\u201d said Nelson (no relation to this writer).<\/p>\n The Times<\/em> also quoted Douglas Merritt, chief executive of San Francisco-based IT operations management software provider Splunk: \u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between activity and productivity. There\u2019s no doubt that our employee population is not performing at the same level they were.\u201d<\/p>\n Polls spotlight benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n But there have been positive outcomes as well. Fran Katsoudas, chief people officer for Cisco, reported in the Times<\/em> article that his company has seen improvements in productivity as measured by increased calls to customer service and improved customer satisfaction from the resulting service.<\/p>\n A survey of people working from home in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, conducted by Boston research and advisory services firm Valoir and published in May, indicated an average productivity reduction of just 1%, with those working alone actually losing more productivity than those with children in the home. Social media was a bigger distraction than kids. Survey participants also said their companies were doing a good job of supporting remote work; four of five gave their company a grade of A or B, with fewer than 5% giving a failing grade.<\/p>\n Gallup reports that three in five U.S. workers who have been doing their jobs from home during the pandemic would prefer to continue to work remotely as much as possible, even when public health restrictions are lifted, with 41% preferring to return to their workplace.<\/p>\n Stanching productivity loss<\/strong><\/p>\n Even some with misgivings about the sudden transition to remote work see positive aspects of the practice. Bloom, the Stanford economist, notes that \u201cthe average working American spends 100 minutes a day commuting, so the potential impact on all our lives is massive,\u201d as is the potential, he says, to eliminate cross-state doctor-patient care restrictions and a host of other regulations that some consider unnecessary.<\/p>\n Moreover, if working from home is thoughtfully implemented, \u201cproductivity does not have to go down at all. It can be maintained, even enhanced, because commutes and office distractions are gone. There\u2019s robust evidence showing that it shouldn\u2019t change,\u201d Harvard\u2019s Neeley says.<\/p>\n Steps organizations can take to maintain productivity include regular check-ins between managers and team members, schedules that separate work from family obligations, and favoring video calls over phone calls as their medium of choice.<\/p>\n