Are 99.8% of Indian IT Workers Really Unable to Work from Home at a High Level?

Skepticism is likely called for whenever any survey, on any subject, produces highly-unusual conclusions. That probably is the case for a study by Scikey MindMatch that estimates only 0.2 percent of the Indian IT workforce actually is capable of working from home at high levels of productivity.

That finding might run counter to what many observers would expect for remote work productivity, but Scikey describes itself as a firm supporting firm efforts to attract personnel that drive “high-performing teams.” 

Since talent, skills, intelligence and ability to perform work at a high level remotely  are bell-shaped curves (a normal distribution), people who might be described as “high performing” would be expected to be a minority of all workers. 

The Scikey study seems to be operating out at three standard deviations, which would represent 0.3 percent of people. 

source: Researchgate

Reports about the study indicate that  99.8 percent of the workforce in the information technology sector is incapable of working from home, at least with very-high productivity arguably matching what happens at the workplace, the study claims. 

The reason so many are “incapable” of working from home is that they lack at least one quality deemed essential for success, including resistance to learning and exploring (95 percent), lack in practical communication skills (65 percent) and lack in planning and execution (71 percent).

Some 17 percent of the employees are instruction-driven and therefore they need clear and direct instructions to work their best. about 12.7 percent of the employees are very much dependent on their social interactions, and working from home comes as a real challenge for them. Work is not difficult for them, but social interactions are necessary for them to function, Scikey suggests. 

What the study likely indicates is simply that the human characteristics Mind Match associates with the highest-performing individuals in a remote work setting are three standards deviations from the mean. 

You can make your own assessment of whether that is a functionally valid test of worker suitability for remote work.