How Much Does Where We Work Impact Our Productivity?

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This is a question that, while important, wouldn’t have often been asked pre-pandemic. Where most people worked was set in stone, with little thought of different options. A virus and the subsequent public health decisions that were made changed that forever.?

The short answer to the question is that our environment can have a huge impact on our productivity. This was just as true pre-pandemic as it is now. And it goes far beyond working at home vs. in the office, which is the hot topic these days.?

Add to that the results of the latest time use survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to their results, employees in the office full-time work 2.5 hours more per day than those working solely from home. One LinkedIn article concluded, “These new findings are causing some to argue that a return to the office could lead to economic gains.”

I don’t doubt the findings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But I definitely can quarrel with how people interpret and use the data. Here are three issues:

• Do we really, in the big picture, want people working that much more if they are in the office than if not?
• Does it matter? Counting hours is easy – we’ve been using time clocks for over a century. But more hours doesn’t mean greater productivity. Productivity is output per hour. Is it possible those working from home are getting more done than their in-office counterparts in less time? It is possible. And so is the opposite. And it will vary person to person, which makes it hard to measure accurately and regulate.
• Macro numbers have little to do with your situation. To what exactly is that 2.5 variance attributable? Perhaps at-home employees don’t work a full 8-hour workday. Or perhaps in-office employees stay longer in the office. Are either of those scenarios what you want? Does that translate to greater productivity?

By all means, we should pay attention to studies and surveys. But we should use them as data points, not as arbiters of our decisions in our specific situations. Make sure you are interpreting them carefully and not applying them without that analysis.

As for this particular survey, it would be worth seeing if it matches your team’s experience. If you have this inequity, talk about what your situation needs to make things work better for your team and the results.

It’s Your Turn

Please share your thoughts in the comments.? Does this data match your experience?? What are you and your team finding when considering working location and productivity?

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A version of this article first appeared in our Creating Remarkable Organizational Results newsletter on Tuesday.? You can subscribe here.

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