Feb. 16, 2022 "Working from home is more productive than going to the office, U.K. data shows": Today I found this article by Courtney Greenberg on the Financial Post/ National Post:
Working from home can be more productive than going into the office, according to data released by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics.
A main point of the report revealed that October to December 2021 was the first quarter “in which output per worker was above pre-coronavirus pandemic levels” by 2.3 per cent.
During the same time period, output per hour worked was also higher than the 2019 average.
These findings indicate that productivity was not hugely impacted by working from home, even with the spread of the Omicron variant.
The report — which is an estimate based on U.K. gross domestic product and the most recent labour market statistics — is insightful but not final.
“I would say we have learned to work from home in a way that avoids significant productivity losses, but that’s as far as I would go,” Bart Van Ark, a professor of productivity studies at the University of Manchester, told the Daily Mail.
Researchers in Canada looked into the productivity of employees switching to remote work (or teleworking) after being in an office before the pandemic. The majority of them — 90 per cent — said they were “at least as productive at home,” in the Statistics Canada study released in April 2021.
“More than half (58%) reported accomplishing about the same amount of work per hour
while roughly one third (32%) reported accomplishing more work per hour,”
the report explained.
“The remaining 10% mentioned that they accomplished less work per hour while working at home than they did previously in their usual place of work.”
Despite the increased productivity working at home — as shown in the U.K. and Canada — some experts worry about burnout and stress.
“I don’t think it’s an expectation so much in terms of companies saying, ‘Well, now you can work 10 hours a day.’ I think the expectation is around the production,” Janet Candido, founder and principal of Candido Consulting Group, told CTV News. “They’re burning out. They’re exhausted.”
Output in the U.K. report was measured by
“gross value added (GVA)
in chained volume measures (CVM),
which is an estimate of the volume of goods and services produced for final use by an industry,
and in aggregate for the UK, after adjusting for price changes.
It is calculated as turnover (sales) minus purchases (intermediate consumption).”
Working from home is more productive than going to the office, U.K. data shows | National Post
I call bs. Maybe if you include cutting the grass and laundry as being.productive. At the office you're forced to focus and have symmetry. I like how the liberals even gave them a $500 tax rebate even though their saving on commuting and transportation. What a joke.
Jun. 10, 2022 "Workers in London don't hate the office, but they won't give up working from home either": Today I found this article by Damian Shepherd and Jo Constantz on the Financial Post:
The verdict is in: Londoners enjoy and value working from home and don’t see a future that includes a return to the old five-day office week, no matter what politicians, their bosses or the media say.
Almost 80 per cent of London-based staff who now work remotely at least once a week say the experience has been good for them, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Policy Institute at King’s College London.
Four out of five say working from home helps them
feel more in control
and that they’re happy to cut down on their daily commute.
Two-thirds say it’s helped them better manage home and family responsibilities.
YouGov surveyed 2,015 London workers for the King’s College report, a cohort that included people who live outside the city and travel into a place of work. King’s researchers say the study is the first of its kind to focus specifically on the impact of changing working patterns.
The findings back up the experiences of white-collar workers around the world, many of whom are continuing to work from home several times a week even as the threat of COVID-19 recedes.
The King’s study comes as employees across the U.K. begin an official six-month experiment working a four-day workweek.
More than 3,000 workers at 70 companies will take part in the trial with no loss of pay, in what organizers say is the biggest pilot of its type to take place anywhere in the world.
“For all the political and media focus on whether working from home means working less hard, most people disagree with this view, regardless of their politics, age or seniority,” said Mark Kleinman, professor of public policy at King’s.
Three in five respondents said they would react negatively if they were forced to come in to the office more often — despite the fact that they still feel positive about their offices and don’t find it difficult to get work done there.
Among the biggest benefits to working from home are avoiding the commute, managing home responsibilities and feeling a greater sense of control.
“Our society grew up with the expectation that there was one person at home running the home and one person earning the money,” said Christine Armstrong, a U.K.-based workplace researcher who was not involved in the King’s study.
Until the pandemic changed everything, “we got to a place where we didn’t know how it all fitted in with work,” she said.
Not all trends appear positive. Those surveyed were twice as likely to agree that widespread remote-work policies will disproportionately hurt young people’s careers.
Equally, 50 per cent of workers think senior managers work regularly from home while just 27 per cent feel their bosses encourage them to do the same.
“Elon Musk wanting people to go the office is no surprise. It’s not the world that he lives in,” said Armstrong.
“You have a disconnect in some organizations between senior leaders for whom it all used to work fine, and younger generations.”
Away from the daily grind there is less agreement on the future of London itself.
Respondents were split almost evenly on whether the quality of life in central London is at risk if workplaces don’t fill up to pre-pandemic levels. Older workers are much more likely to be pessimistic.
But the popularity of remote work doesn’t mean that workers dislike their London offices. The study shows almost two thirds of employees feel positive about attending the workplace, while only 15 per cent feel negative about being there.
It’s the volume of office days that plays the biggest part in staff satisfaction, according to Tara Reich, reader in organizational behaviour and resource management at King’s Business School.
“The opportunity to work from home has given many London workers a sense of control that they aren’t keen to give up,” she said.
London workers don't hate the office, but love working from home more | Financial Post
No comments:
Post a Comment