How Can Working At Home Make You More Productive

Some of the recent research done on productivity has discovered that anything from flexible schedules to frequent breaks for naps or work out sessions as well as many other things can bring many benefits for both employees and employers.

Working from home could be the next big thing on productivity. Some people think that remote work is all about lounging in your pajamas, watching Netflix and occasionally doing some work. But, it is all but those things. Studies have actually shown that excessive commutes lead to quicker burnout and annoyance while working from home can encourage growth and more engagement.

Many people disagree that working from home can change anything because they believe in misconceptions people have that the most productive work is done in the office. Triggered by this, Stanford professors and scholars have started an experiment which suggests that people who work from home are more than 13% more efficient than people who work in the office. This is a great piece of data for remote workers to use when naysayers start attacking them.

One of the authors of this study has claimed that the work from home saved the companies over $1900 per employee over the period of nine months which is how long the experiment lasted. There were factors in saving up the office space, better performance of employees and better retention as well.

Another experiment done by the Chinese travel website Ctrip divided their workers into two groups, one of which worked at home. Of course, these experiments can be a bit tricky because some people are simply not made for remote work. They don’t like working at home, they are always distracted and they like being among people.

“Some people are perfectly suited for remote work. And it’s up to companies to conduct studies which would show them who of their employees would benefit more from remote work”, says Rose McCallister, a recruiter at Paper Fellows.

At Ctrip, people chose whether they wanted to work from home or not so they were all motivated to do this experiment. Some people opted out after nine months. These people performed the worst out of the group, most likely because they thought that remote work was best for them but it wasn't. People who stayed actually performed better by some measures than the people in the office. In fact, Ctrip allowed people to work where they feel comfortable and the people who chose remote work were more productive by 22%.

Findings get more interesting as you dive in deeper. The reasons behind the trend of people being more productive at home are even better. Many critics say that working from home is bad because of all of those distractions, research says that the office is much worse when it comes to this than the home office. There are many people talking, stopping by to chat and so on. There are also many meetings and the casual conversations that distract people from the work. Home work environment is quiet, peaceful and allows people to concentrate on the work that they are doing. People also work more hours from home than they do in an office., They take less sick time, start working earlier, take less and shorter breaks and sometimes work until the end of the day.

Some people are asking if it’s really increased productivity if it has to do with more hours but scientists say that it’s impossible to know for sure. What might be crucial is the self-selection part where people get to choose whether they will work at home or in the office.

This is important because this way, only the people that are really ready for home office work apply for these positions and stay on them. They are also more productive in their homes than they would be in the office. It’s very important not to select people to work from home on your own because this way, you can make someone less productive. Let them choose where to work. People will go where they feel comfortable working.

For some people, working from home is a blessing and a way to be more productive, for some people it’s a curse. So, let your employees choose on their own and keep monitoring their productivity.