Working from Home Increases Performance
Working from Home Increases Performance by UCStrategies Staff
Working at your office could actually be slowing you down.
There are also several promising reasons to celebrate working from home. First of all, it saves gasoline and eliminates travel time for car or bus commuters. On the company’s side, employees who work from home also mean that less office space is necessary. Finally, a new study from Stanford University shows that people working from home are actually more productive than those who work in the office.
In fact, one company took this realization to a whole new level by designing an office space intended to make employees want to work from a home office.
This most recent telecommuting talking point originates from a randomized study of 250 employees at a Chinese call center company, CTrip. This study designated some employees to telecommute four days a week while requiring the others to work from the office every workday over the course of nine months. The reason for this was based on a consideration by CTrip, China’s biggest travel agency, which would make a company-wide work from home policy. The company is considering this policy is order to lessen attrition rates and lower overall office costs.
At the end of the study, researchers determined that it was the telecommuting employees who increased their work performance by 13 percent. Of this 13 percent, 9.5 was attributed to taking fewer breaks and sick days and working more minutes during the shift period. The other 3.5 percent was due to the workers taking more calls per minute within the quieter environment. Among the telecommuters, job attrition rates dropped by half and more reported work satisfaction as well. CTrip reported to saving about $2,000 per employee who worked from home during this study.
After the experiment was completed, CTrip proceeded to apply a company-wide program to encourage employees to work from home. Despite this program, two-thirds of the control group opted to stay working in the office setting, while half of the telecommuting group also chose to stay in the office. Understandably, those who chose to stay working away from the office were the telecommuters who showed an increase in performance.
Granted, the work of a call center is relatively straightforward and able to be easily tracked, so although the study did not reveal the promotion ability of the telecommuters, the results may not be applicable across other professions with less clear methods of moving up. Regardless, the study results give a solid boost to anyone attempting to convince their employers that working from home makes good sense in the business realm. (RP) Link