How Hybrid Working From Home Works Out
August 17, 2022 Nicholas Bloom

Follow Us

Nicholas Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University. His research focuses on working from home, management practices and uncertainty. He previously worked at the UK Treasury and McKinsey & Company and the IFS. He has a BA from Cambridge, an MPhil from Oxford, and a PhD from University College London.


Website: https://nbloom.people.stanford.edu/

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07500-2


Abstract:

Working from home has become standard for employees with a university degree. The most common scheme, which has been adopted by around 100 million employees in Europe and North America, is a hybrid schedule, in which individuals spend a mix of days at home and at work each week. However, the effects of hybrid working on employees and firms have been debated, and some executives argue that it damages productivity, innovation and career development. Here we ran a six-month randomized control trial investigating the effects of hybrid working from home on 1,612 employees in a Chinese technology company in 20212022. We found that hybrid working improved job satisfaction and reduced quit rates by one-third. The reduction in quit rates was significant for non-managers, female employees and those with long commutes. Null equivalence tests showed that hybrid working did not affect performance grades over the next two years of reviews. We found no evidence for a difference in promotions over the next two years overall, or for any major employee subgroup. Finally, null equivalence tests showed that hybrid working had no effect on the lines of code written by computer-engineer employees. We also found that the 395 managers in the experiment revised their surveyed views about the effect of hybrid working on productivity, from a perceived negative effect (2.6% on average) before the experiment to a perceived positive one (+1.0%) after the experiment. These results indicate that a hybrid schedule with two days a week working from home does not damage performance.


If you would like to give a presentation in a future webinar, contact our Senior Economist Dr. Wen Chen (wen.chen@luohanacademy.com). For other inquiries, please contact: events@luohanacademy.com.


 

 

Subscribe to our news
SUBMIT

    Alibaba Digital Ecosystem Innovation Park, No. 1 Ai Cheng Street, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, China.


    events@luohanacademy.com


Luohan Academy    ©  2024《Luohan Academy Service Agreement》 浙ICP备2024120373号-1