If you’re a U.S. worker, there’s a 10 percent chance that you work from home at least once a week, and a 4.3 percent chance that you work from home most of the time. And if you’re one of those working from home, you’re likely a more productive worker, at least according to a study recently published by Stanford.
During the 9-month study they found:
• A 12 percent increase in productivity for the at-home workers. Of that increase, 8.5 percent came from working more hours (due to shorter breaks and fewer sick days) and 3.5 percent came from more performance per minute. The researchers speculate this was due to quieter working conditions.
• No negative spill-overs to the control group stuck in the office even though they had communicated that they wanted to work from home.
• A 50 percent decrease in attrition among the work-from-home group.
• Substantially higher work satisfaction as measured by a survey among the home group.
The results might not map perfectly to other types of knowledge work. Call centers not only provide an easy way to monitor productivity, but a steady flow of tasks. More fluid or self-directed forms of work, such as software development, are more difficult to measure and may present more opportunities for distraction.
From personal experience, doing software development at home has several benefits:
- more control of working environment, especially background noise;
- no meetings can be scheduled to interrupt flow;
- no office politics to deal with;
- greater flexibility regarding work hours.
On the other hand, minuses include:
- as suggested in the article, there is a greater range of distractions available;
- lack of physical contact with colleagues increases sense of isolation.