Can employees be more productive from home?

Working remotely or “shirking remotely?” Working remotely or “remotely working?” These are the common sentiments of many companies that are hesitant to adopt work from home policies. Lack of oversight for employees is one of the most common reasons businesses are hesitant to embrace working remotely, and it’s easy to see why. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there about if remote workers are more productive or not.

The answer might surprise you. You would think that when you can see and speak with employees in the office all day, it’s easier to keep track of what they are doing, but there’s a flip side to this managerial method: offices provide many distractions, from chatty coworkers to long lunches and frequent trips to the break room.

Before COVID-19, work from home policies were starting to become the new normal. With the novel coronavirus’s onset, many companies have transitioned to working from home full-time to keep employees safe. This begs the question: will productivity be affected? And if so, how?

Well, there’s good news: in fact, remote workers are more productive! Let’s explore why.

Studies repeatedly prove that remote employees get more done. They perform better, get work done faster, and take less sick time.

Employees also love remote work. Remote teams are happier, and people who regularly work from home report higher job satisfaction. That leads to higher engagement and better productivity.

These claims are based on research from Jabra among employees who are working from home during the pandemic. The study suggests that this pandemic has increased the appetite for flexible working environments. Seven in ten (70 percent) workers who don’t usually work from home say that the current climate has shown that a physical workplace is not necessary to be productive. For over half of them (53 percent) not having to commute allows them more time to do work.

Continuing to work from home is particularly popular among the younger (18-34 years) workforce (52 percent), as well as those with children under 18 (53 percent) who want to continue working from home. Employees are demanding clarity on future arrangements as a majority (51 percent) wish their employer would be clearer about possible working patterns going forward.

Less than a third of workers (30 percent) says they’ve been given the right accessories to be productive, but almost half (46 percent) say they wished their employer offered more tech support. For a third of home workers, headphones and audio video devices (31 percent respectively) are essential to their productivity. Other tech considered paramount are (mobile)phones (45 percent) and dual screens (34 percent).

Previous Jabra research from 2019 claimed that a large proportion of office workers are distracted by the noise of phone calls or colleagues talking. A huge 45 percent of respondents say they feel more productive at home simply because of the lack of colleague distractions. But many workers feel less productive because they are not able to easily talk to their teammates (44 percent), proving the need for the right software and hardware tech for all workers in order to improve collaboration and productivity. Having access to the right collaboration platforms like Teams and Zoom can also help those feeling lonely (23 percent) to interact with colleagues.

See the whole study at https://www.jabra.com/