Half of Tech Workers Say Work Hours Increased during WFH, Blind Reports

Nearly half of respondents to a Blind poll of technology industry workers said their work hours had increased during the enforced “work from home” policies put into place because of Covid-19. About 10 percent of respondents say their work hours have decreased.

If you quantify “productivity” as output compared to input, and if the output remains the same, while hours worked increase, productivity arguably has dropped. There is some evidence that productivity has not changed. 

There is some evidence that workers believe they are just as productive, or more productive. A survey of 365 U.S. workers by The Manifest found that 30 percent of respondents think they are more productive working from home. 

Fully 45 percent believe they are more productive working in an office, and 24 percent say they’re equally productive working from home and in an office. Keep in mind those are examples of what people think about their productivity. It is not an actual measure of whether they are, or are not, more productive in home or office settings. 

source: Agility PR 

Some have argued that even if productivity can be sustained for a brief period, it might well not sustain itself over the long term. A survey of the heads of nearly 50 U.S. businesses employing 443,895 people in industries that include technology, legal services, advertising and the finance, insurance and real estate sector found that 40 percent of them have started to see decreases in productivity as staff work remotely. 

J.P. Morgan also seems concerned that WFH productivity is slipping, while others note growing evidence of mental health issues caused by enforced WFH. 

At least, that might be true for the 25 percent of workers who can work from home.  

Also, there is a growing sense among professionals that WFH is hurting their career progression. Others might point out that WFH has positives and negatives, not including burn out or work-life balance, even if WFH once was viewed as a perk. 

One might think less commuting time “has to improve productivity.”

Reviewing time-use diaries of 1,300 U.S.-based knowledge workers, collected in the summers of 2019 and 2020, professors Andrew Kun, Raffaella Sadun, Orit Shaer, and Thomaz Teodorovicz found a reduction in commuting time to work of about 41 minutes, on average, because of extensive work-from-home rules. 

Intuitively, you might guess that has led to an increase of productivity. The study is far more nuanced. 

“Independent employees (i.e., those without managerial responsibilities) reallocated much of it to personal activities, whereas managers just worked longer hours and spent more time in meetings,” the researchers note. 

Independent contractors simply used the extra free time for non-work activities. Managers had to spend more time in meetings. 

“For managers, the increase in work hours more than offset the loss in commuting time: Their work day increased on average by 56 minutes, and the time they spent replying to emails increased by 13 minutes,” the researchers say.