For all the optimism surrounding these tectonic shifts, some economists strike a note of caution. While recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco acknowledges that sweeping changes to the way people do business could boost efficiency, it warns against reading recent gains in productivity numbers as due to more home-working, citing data distortions.
Even the Bank of England accepts that hybrid meetings “may be more challenging.” A majority of managers worry about the impact of home-working on collaboration, company culture and wellbeing, according to the OECD, which also cited employers’ concerns about their diminished ability to observe employees at work.
A study led by the University of Chicago's Michael Gibbs found workers worked longer hours at home to perform the same task, as focused time was broken up by domestic distractions like childcare and online meetings. The report also noted that people working from home may exaggerate their productivity in surveys to encourage adoption of the practice.
Former U.K. government advisor Giles Wilkes is more bullish. “The ability to deliver products in different places, make more efficient uses of property, and so forth, that is productivity driving innovation,” said Wilkes, who recently published a report on Britain’s productivity woes.
“Hybrid working represents a change in the patterns of both demand and supply in a way that moves the economy forward.”
Yuri Suzuki does not miss his twice-daily 70-minute commutes. Suzuki, a partner at international design company Pentagram, used to travel on the “toxic” Central Line, a subway route bisecting London.
“After I came back home, I felt just exhausted—I couldn’t really think or create anything,” Suzuki said on a Zoom call from his home in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, where he has lived since the pandemic began.
Freed from the grind of travel, Suzuki finds he is able to “invest” time in creative thinking long after formal working hours. That has boosted productivity, with his team taking on double the number of projects than it did before the pandemic. To socialize with his team, Suzuki plans to return to the office around once a week.
At this point, with the delta variant spreading rapidly around the world, many corporate return-to-office plans are being put on hold. But evidence from almost 18 months of the pandemic is helping to inform C-suite decisions.
A glut of companies, new and old, want to marry the benefits of remote work with the efficiency of face-to-face meetings. Alphabet Inc.’s Google will let employees spend two days “wherever they work best.” Lazard Ltd., a 171-year-old financial advisory firm, is following suit for some staff. Asset manager State Street Corp. will close its two Manhattan offices, it said on Aug. 16. Even banking titans will allow some flexibility: Morgan Stanley’s Chief Executive Officer James Gorman sees office-working at “not 100% but not zero percent” of total hours.
“Both workers and managers tend to say that two to three days a week of working from home is ideal,” said Chiara Criscuolo, who researches productivity for the OECD. Communication and professional relationships can suffer after that, she says.