So this may be a dumb question but let’s take work stuff out of the equation. What are people doing in their personal lives that warrants the need to buy a personal printer for the home? Basically everything is digital…and if I need to print something which is very very rarely, I just do it at work and in one instance I went to the library. I don’t see any reason for me to buy a printer.
I play D&D and print all my character sheets, and make spell cards. Also I print photos that I have taken, to decorate my house or if a friend wants one.
Paper maps of places I hike (multiple pages and copies for friends)
I have also made custom cards (birthdays and the like) in the past.
Mostly for amazon return labels. I bought a used brother laser printer with an extra cartigdge for like $50, at the time it was a cost I could justify.
learn to print to pdf and save the file. can always print but even better you can email it etc. brother laser scanner is best I’ve owned. son bought me one of these, “Brother MFC-L2710DW series Printer” to replace a still working brother laser 2170w, 10 yo. I don’t print a lot but wife prints every receipt which end up in the trash
One of the authors of this paper is from the Chicago School and the Hoover Institution. Both are pro-business, anti-worker think-tanks that have been this way for decades. They also don't do any research of their own, but cite other papers that show the 5-20% reduction.
However, the methodology mentioned in the papers is suspect. First, they show that remote workers have the same productivity, but work longer hours. So the net output doesn't go down, they just spend more time working. Which raises the question: How many more breaks were they taking throughout the day? Being remote means a much more flexible schedule, so it's not uncommon to take longer breaks if you're a salaried worker.
Another study was IT professionals shifting to remote work at one company at the start of the pandemic. This one showed an 18% reduction in productivity. But considering the timing of this and that company culture and procedures can contribute to this, it doesn't seem to be a valid data point.
Then they bring up some common criticisms of WFH, which I've seen and refuted since I started working from home 2009: People can't communicate, working in groups is harder, and people can't control themselves. Yawn.
Honestly, the fact that they cherry picked hybrid work as being equally productive shows me this isn't about productivity, it's about keeping offices open. Which makes sense considering one of the authors is affiliated with groups that want to prop up the commercial rental business.
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Also, with both studies cited, the best argument is that workers are happy to work more than 8 hours a day. Does that mean you should expect workers to be on call for longer than an 8 hour day because they are working remote?
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Right, but you're no better than alt-right people on Facebook ignoring the research that's literally one click away because you're afraid it will disagree with you
I’ve been posting the Economist link in several comments. I left it as presented to show where the link came from in case people argued with the source.
This source just states that there is a disagreement over whether work from home is more or less productive and provides survey information to show the difference in opinion.
That isn’t making the argument that remote work is productive, just that workers view it as more productive and the study isn’t conclusive. The closest this study gets to saying if productivity increases is “In theory, both sides could be right[.]”
The source of the article is an economist at one of the most highly regarded economics programs in the world. Im less sure that the source is “suspect” and more that people do not like the conclusions they make.
Yeah. And it isn’t like there aren’t other reasons to maintain full remote work. It just happens to be that one of the reasons may not be accurate anymore based on further study.
I know in my line of work, employee retention is the main reason why full remote or hybrid is being maintained.
Exactly, Im not saying the conclusions are correct only that the program is one of the best and trying to portray it as biased because of that is inappropriate.
Yawn… even if it’s true, who give a shit. Even before the pandemic, when people had a lot to do, they stayed at home so they could focus undisturbed to meet deadlines.
Ignores salient points made, what-about-isms to reassert bad point, doubles down on the science is a competition thing while illustrating complete lack of knowledge of scientific process
I’ve said that, if you want to argue the studies presented, present other studies. The only one presented I had comments on and quoted the text.
doubles down on the science is a competition thing while illustrating complete lack of knowledge of scientific process
Science is about presenting data in a way that can be reviewed and verified. I’ve asked for studies that back up the assertions made while providing references to my assertions. Where is the data to back up the claim that remote work is more productive?
If the source of the article is suspect, where is the research by tech firms with a vested interest in cloud and communication platforms publishing counter studies?
Probably swimming in their Scrooge McDuck piles of cash since WFH became more widespread?
It’s the landlords losing money and the owner/C-suites not being able to see their minions in one place that are pumping out these articles.
So I go back to my original question, is there a study that says remote work is more productive? Where is the science to back it up? The science should be out there if it is true.
And are you honestly telling me that major companies wouldn’t love to sell all their real estate and go full virtual? Why not cut that business expense to save money? Major companies have cut everything else, why not cut this too? Why wouldn’t an activist investor start pushing to release this capital as a dividend?
Hell, you can start depressing wages, since you can source your staff from lower QoL places and use those places as your bench mark for pay.
First off, thank you for providing. This was the most thorough list of sources given by anyone.
The buisness.com article is based on a survey of remote workers. The survey states that remote workers feel more productive at home and that they work longer hours. This correlates with anecdotal evidence presented here, but it isn’t a measure of actual productivity.
The Monitask.com article refers to two studies that make the claim that remote work is more productive, but one study is blocked by a paywall and the other study isn’t even linked. There is one article about a call center in China, which the Economist article I’ve posted notes that later data shows that the work was not as efficient as previously stated.
The ApolloTechnical.com has a lot of good articles, but there are some self reporting surveys. The article does note that not all research indicates increases in productivity, including one study in 2012 and reported in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization that found that creative tasks see increases in productivity at home while dull tasks see decreases in productivity; I like this study the most as it seems to do more academic rigor of creating an experiment to study against.
The businessnewsdaily.com article is another survey of remote workers, so no objective study on productivity.
There is some good science in the articles you posted, but there are also a lot of self reported surveys. Given what you presented, I can see someone believing that remote working is always more productive.
That said, there seems to be additional studies being performed that are making the claim more disputed. However, the articles you provide also give other very good reasons why remote work should still be allowed.
Just saw that I have responses to things! New Sync user, don’t mind me.
Looks like you got your sources, but wanted to address major companies and real estate. Commercial real estate has way longer leases than residential. And their landlords don’t have any incentive to let them break lease early. Who else is going to come rent that space?
Of course these companies want to “make use” of those wasted dollars. Even major companies aren’t immune to sunk cost fallacy.
Corporate leases are longer than residential ones, but they only go for 3 to 5 years generally. We are seeing a shrinking of leases because of this, which is causing office occupancy rates to plummet. We’re seeing companies shift to a hybrid model, but few companies seem to want to go full remote.
Then they bring up some common criticisms of WFH, which I’ve seen and refuted since I started working from home 2009: People can’t communicate, working in groups is harder, and people can’t control themselves. Yawn.
Exactly. I work for a global company, so the way I communicate with the people I work with everyday is via zoom. What’s the point of commuting to an office just to get on zoom anyway to talk to people?
Don't forget that Forbes and The Economist were all in favor of outsourcing jobs, which leads to me having meetings with people all over the world even when I'm in an office.
So if working remotely hurts group work, a lot of it is their fault for sending jobs overseas. Unless they also want those jobs to eventually move back here so we can have happy group work fun time.
They want whatever keeps their property value highest and overhead lowest, they’ll claim they want onsite workers and then turn around and hire remote people in India because it saves money.
Everything that falls out of their mouths is a piece of shit intended to save some 7 figure earner enough money to buy another vacation home.
You can criticize the study without engaging in ad hominem attacks. The University of Chicago’s economics department is one of the best schools for economics in the world. You might not like the fact that they are not advocating your political bias but that does not change the overall quality of that program.
Saying that a conservative economic school is pro-business and anti-labor is not what I'd call an ad hominem, but a statement of fact. Saying they want to prop up the commercial real estate business isn't ad hominem either.
It is not a conservative school. The clearest sign someone has never studied or understood academic economics is when they attempt to assign a partisan bias to the institution.
This. Economics is a social science where every theory or opinion aims to achieve different varying desired outcomes for different people and in achieved in different ways, with spectrums for every step along the process. The entire field is on a spectrum, that also generally aligns with the political spectrum because politics, like economics, strives to achieve a certain outcome for a certain group of people, in a certain way. Trying to disentangle the field of economics from people. and the politics that people create, is a red flag for not actually knowing what economics is.
Ah, so it's not that they're conservative, it's that they desire the same things conservatives want. But they're totally apolitical, and it's just a happy coincidence.
Unless you are one of those people that only learned political philosophy from the internet or are so Euro-centric/racist that you think the binary European democracies use for European democracies applies to all political ideologies, and it absolutely does not, then you would have to clarify what you mean by “conservative”. For example if you think both major parties in the USA are “conservative” then the above likely applies to you.
Just because the two options you have to choose from are shit doesn’t mean they are still both shit - it is hilarious watching you Americans cry socialism about policies that in most of the civilised world would be considered right or centre-right.
Google the definition of conservative and tell me how that changes based on what country we are talking about.
“ favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.”
I’d love you to try and convince me that neoliberalism doesn’t fit under the above.
You really need to take a second to ask yourself why you are using “the civilized world” to mean Western Europe because the history of that specific perspective is problematic and is the root of a ton of racism.
Conservative means different things in different societies. A conservative Iranian, Chinese mainlander, American and Austrian are going to have very different perspectives. If you have any education in political philosophy this would not need to be explained.
You literally use the term “civilized countries” as the positive part of a negative comparison. I assumed nothing it is exactly what you wrote.
Don’t feel bad about this though as it is common if you only learned about political philosophy from reddit/internet forums rather than a formal educational setting. A typical into to poli sci 101 class talks about binaries and a responsible instructor demonstrates their limits. You clearly did not learn that.
The point of comparison was to the “civilized nations” that whose views WOULD make the USA’s parties right leaning. For that to make any sense “civilized nations” has to be Europe as they are the pretty much the only nations that are inarguably to the left of the USA. Your language makes you intention clear.
If course there was the much more likely option that you have no formal education in political philosophy. I suspect that is the actual case as it is much more likely that you are mistaken in your understandings of the binaries , as most are, than being racist.
This really isn’t a study, so much as a lit review. Sort of. Anyway, in the fully remote section they cite three studies that argue show a fall in productivity. The first (Emmanuel and Harrington (2023)) found an 8% drop in call volume as a call center shifted to fully remote work at the onset of the pandemic. But their comparison group was a group of call center employees who were always remote. So even if you buy the argument that the change call volume is solely attributable to a drop in productivity, you cannot conclude that the productivity shift was caused by working from home, the group that shifted from on-location to remote work did 8% worse than the group than the always remote work!
The second study (Gibbs, Mengel and Siemroth (2022)) is, again, an analysis of call-center employees (this time in India) who shifted to remote work at the onset of the pandemic. They find no change in productivity, but that employees are working longer hours at home, which they argue means a real 8-19% drop in productivity.
The final study (Atkin, Schoar, and Shinde (2023)) is another firm from India which involved a randomized controlled study which finds an 18% drop in productivity for data entry work.
So, just taking their lit review at face value, one of their studies directly contradicts their argument, yet they somehow present it as if it is evidence of a causal relationship between working from home and productivity. Another study shows no effect, so they break out some razamataz math to try to turn no effect into a negative effect. Only one of the three studies shows a plausible effect.
Since these are the only three papers they cite to support their argument that fully remote work causes a drop in firm productivity, let’s look at them in more depth.
If you go to their references section, you find that there is not a Emmanuel and Harrington (2023) cited. Hey, that a bad sign. There is an Emmanuel and Harrington 2021, but its an unpublished paper. Maybe it got published and they just forgot to update the cite? I plugged the title into google scholar, and find one result, with no copy of the working paper, and no evidence of any sort of publication record from any journal. Plugging the title into regular google returns a “Staff Report” of the federal reserve bank of NY. So not a peer reviewed article. They employ whats known as a difference-in-difference design to compare employees who shifted from fully in person to fully remote. They report a 4% reduction in productivity for these workers, not the 8% reported in the original article. I just skimmed the article, so maybe they get their 8% figure someplace else. What is interesting to me though is that their DID models seem to show there is not any difference between the different groups for most of the periods of observation. IDK. I’d have to read more in-depth to make up my mind.
It seems like these conclusions, whatever you make of them should really only be applied to call-center work during the pandemic.
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