• Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
    175·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • scytale@lemmy.worldEnglish
      55·
      1 year ago

      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?

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
        39·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          They want whatever keeps their property value highest and overhead lowest, they’ll claim they want onsite workers and then turn around and hire remote people in India because it saves money.

          Everything that falls out of their mouths is a piece of shit intended to save some 7 figure earner enough money to buy another vacation home.

    • RagnarokOnline@reddthat.comEnglish
      18·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for the summary! This is the investigation I was looking for.

      Disallowing remote with when it’s possible is anti-worker.

    • JollyG@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 year ago

      This really isn’t a study, so much as a lit review. Sort of. Anyway, in the fully remote section they cite three studies that argue show a fall in productivity. The first (Emmanuel and Harrington (2023)) found an 8% drop in call volume as a call center shifted to fully remote work at the onset of the pandemic. But their comparison group was a group of call center employees who were always remote. So even if you buy the argument that the change call volume is solely attributable to a drop in productivity, you cannot conclude that the productivity shift was caused by working from home, the group that shifted from on-location to remote work did 8% worse than the group than the always remote work!

      The second study (Gibbs, Mengel and Siemroth (2022)) is, again, an analysis of call-center employees (this time in India) who shifted to remote work at the onset of the pandemic. They find no change in productivity, but that employees are working longer hours at home, which they argue means a real 8-19% drop in productivity.

      The final study (Atkin, Schoar, and Shinde (2023)) is another firm from India which involved a randomized controlled study which finds an 18% drop in productivity for data entry work.

      So, just taking their lit review at face value, one of their studies directly contradicts their argument, yet they somehow present it as if it is evidence of a causal relationship between working from home and productivity. Another study shows no effect, so they break out some razamataz math to try to turn no effect into a negative effect. Only one of the three studies shows a plausible effect.

      Since these are the only three papers they cite to support their argument that fully remote work causes a drop in firm productivity, let’s look at them in more depth.

      If you go to their references section, you find that there is not a Emmanuel and Harrington (2023) cited. Hey, that a bad sign. There is an Emmanuel and Harrington 2021, but its an unpublished paper. Maybe it got published and they just forgot to update the cite? I plugged the title into google scholar, and find one result, with no copy of the working paper, and no evidence of any sort of publication record from any journal. Plugging the title into regular google returns a “Staff Report” of the federal reserve bank of NY. So not a peer reviewed article. They employ whats known as a difference-in-difference design to compare employees who shifted from fully in person to fully remote. They report a 4% reduction in productivity for these workers, not the 8% reported in the original article. I just skimmed the article, so maybe they get their 8% figure someplace else. What is interesting to me though is that their DID models seem to show there is not any difference between the different groups for most of the periods of observation. IDK. I’d have to read more in-depth to make up my mind.

      It seems like these conclusions, whatever you make of them should really only be applied to call-center work during the pandemic.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      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?

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Pick one. Otherwise you aren’t better than alt-right people on Facebook that say to “do your own research”.

          • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
            17·
            1 year ago

            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

              • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
                14·
                1 year ago

                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.

                • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  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.

                • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  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[.]”

      • Pinklink@lemm.ee
        8·
        1 year ago

        Science. Is not about winning. Fuckface.

        You and people like you are literally inhibiting the progress of the human race for personal gain. Congratulations.

          • Pinklink@lemm.ee
            8·
            1 year ago

            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.

            • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              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?

      • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.world
        6·
        1 year ago

        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?

        Probably swimming in their Scrooge McDuck piles of cash since WFH became more widespread?

        It’s the landlords losing money and the owner/C-suites not being able to see their minions in one place that are pumping out these articles.

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          So I go back to my original question, is there a study that says remote work is more productive? Where is the science to back it up? The science should be out there if it is true.

          And are you honestly telling me that major companies wouldn’t love to sell all their real estate and go full virtual? Why not cut that business expense to save money? Major companies have cut everything else, why not cut this too? Why wouldn’t an activist investor start pushing to release this capital as a dividend?

          Hell, you can start depressing wages, since you can source your staff from lower QoL places and use those places as your bench mark for pay.

        • MaximumPower@lemmy.world
          8·
          1 year ago

          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.

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          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.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
        21·
        1 year ago

        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.

            • ElegantBiscuit@lemmy.world
              5·
              1 year ago

              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.