DEAR READER: When you’re heading into the office, are you making the most of your time there?
Sure, working from home in your sweats during frigid winter months has its perks, but at what cost to your productivity?
According to experts, from home can be beneficial when it’s task-oriented, but when it comes to collaboration, nothing beats in-person face time. Emma Harrington, Ph.D., professor of economics at the University of Virginia and co-author of “In Person: How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth,” said, “Experienced workers often find that working from home allows them to complete more solo tasks in less time. They can do their own tasks blindfolded and backward with little input from others.”
Let’s press pause. While that can be a boon, for less experienced workers or more collaborative work, remote work can hit roadblocks. Natalia Emanuel, Ph.D., research economist and “In Person” co-author, said, “We tracked Fortune 500 workers and found that when people sat next to their teammates, they got around 20% more feedback on their work, which then translated into higher-quality work. These returns were particularly pronounced for young workers and those new to the company, exactly the people who had the most to learn from their colleagues. Similarly, for more collaborative tasks, remote work can be a challenge because we are less likely to give input and engage with others’ ideas remotely.”
Even though you may be a Slack message or email away from your colleagues, the authors said our worlds actually shrink. Emanuel said, “Within companies, remote work causes people’s networks to become more static and siloed. Remote workers are also around 75% less likely to encounter people from other companies and this diminished contact translates directly into less knowledge of other people’s new ideas and thus less capacity to build on others’ breakthroughs.”
About those breakthroughs, Harrington said, “Companies need to focus on making sure that commuting feels worth it to employees: ensure that any in-office policy coordinates not only when people will come in, but also where they come to. That will help reduce the number of days when people commute in just to sit on zoom calls.”
Work should feel like a “worthwhile destination,” Emanuel said, “Matching up colleagues to grab lunch together and share how their weeks have gone, discuss what they could have done better and set reach-goals for the upcoming week can help foster a workplace that celebrates learning. And that learning, in turn, boosts productivity.”
In addition to employers fostering a gathering space in the middle of a workspace to facilitate opportunities for interactions (like a main kitchen area for mid-morning coffee breaks), employees can coordinate with colleagues “to help ensure that when one person makes the commute, everyone else does too is the first step. That way, everyone gets to experience the benefit of being in the office, together,” said Harrington. “The other piece, then, is to make sure that you’re actually encountering people. This means having the time to have a casual chat. If meetings are booked back to back to back, there likely isn’t the chance to have one of those encounters that would be so productive.”
Don’t forget about clients and external collaborators. “Just as meetings with peers do better in-person, so too do meetings with those we serve,” said Harrington. “Making the schlep can yield real dividends. When the commute yields face-to-face connection, the shlep ends up being worth it.”
