2023-06-08 17:30:47
On-site work? Remote work? Hybrid mode? (Photo: The 9th Coworking for Unsplash)
DAMNED JOB! is a section where Olivier Schmouker answers your toughest questions [et les plus pertinentes] on the modern business world… and, of course, its quirks. An appointment to read tuesdays and the thursdays. Do you want to participate? Send us your question at mauditejob@groupecontex.ca
Q. – “Our company board has asked us to provide an update on onsite work, remote work and hybrid mode. The objective is to identify the best way to work from a purely productive point of view (well-being being difficult to quantify, this will be taken into account later in our report). Are there already studies on the subject? – Jeremy
A. – Dear Jérémy, I understand the logic behind the request from your board of directors: it is normal to want to optimize the work, because it can affect the sustainability, even the simple survival, of the company. However, it seems to me illusory to want a clear-cut answer to such a complex question. A fortiori by dismissing from the outset a data as important as the well-being of employees: for your information, know that many studies show that a good part of productivity stems precisely from the well-being of employees; in other words, to ignore it from the start is to prevent you from giving a valid answer to your question.
Good. Now that I’ve told you that, I know that your board of directors would surely not be satisfied with what I have just told you in response. Telling them that their question is badly phrased would just piss them off, I guess. So I’m going to give you part of an answer which, moreover, will underline how complex it is to identify the best way to work when you only have pure productivity in mind.
Natalia Emmanuel is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And Emma Harington is a professor of economics at the University of Iowa, Iowa City (USA). Together, they analyzed the productivity of call center employees of a large company listed in the Fortune 500, the list of the 500 largest American companies established by Fortune magazine. And this, by comparing the productivity of those who work on site compared to that of those who work remotely, before and following the COVID-19 pandemic, knowing that this has led many companies to generalize telework, which was rarely the case before.
Results? Here are the main four:
– Before the pandemic, teleworkers generally answered 12% fewer calls than on-site workers, in a day.
– After the pandemic, the productivity gap narrowed by 4 percentage points. It was therefore only 8%, to the advantage of the workers on site.
– In general, the quality of the answers given to calls by teleworkers is “significantly inferior” to that of the answers given by on-site workers. And this is especially true for inexperienced workers.
– In general, teleworkers receive fewer promotions than on-site workers.
In view of these raw results, one might quickly conclude that telework is less productive than on-site work. We would say to ourselves: “It is clear, the figures speak for themselves. Everyone in the office now. Period.”
But here it is, the two economists had the intelligence to emphasize points that might pass for details, but which, in truth, are of paramount importance:
– They looked at why the productivity gap narrowed following the pandemic. They looked for what it was, exactly. And that’s how they discovered two important things. On the one hand, before the pandemic, teleworking was imposed on certain workers, mainly for the sake of savings, and this, basically, did not appeal to them. It doesn’t help to be productive.
On the other hand, most of those who have made the switch from on-site to remote work have found it to be good for them, they’ve taken a liking to it, and they’ve shown up at least as much, if not more. , productive than before. That, on the other hand, helps to be productive.
In other words, telework by choice makes it possible to express productivity similar to, or even greater than, that of on-site work. The key word, I take the liberty of emphasizing, is “by choice”.
– They also noted that the overall gap was, despite everything, 8% following the pandemic. Which is a lot. So they dug into their data, only to find something there that, casually, is important, even if it doesn’t explain everything. It turns out that the “drop” in productivity stemmed largely from “inexperienced” workers, namely new recruits, the number of whom was particularly large (which is common in call centers, known to register high staff turnover). It’s already difficult to be as productive as the others when you start a new job, especially if you find yourself at a distance from the team and the boss from the outset.
In other words, involuntary telecommuting downright undermines productivity, sometimes even to the point of undermining the overall productivity of teleworkers. The key word here is “suffered”.
In short, Jérémy, it is dangerous to judge the productivity of a category of workers just on the basis of a few figures. And this, even if these may lead one to believe at first glance that there is no doubt regarding the most productive category among all those considered.
To have the right time, or almost, it is necessary in particular to take into account non-quantified data such as whether the work is chosen or suffered, or even whether the number of inexperienced workers is high, or not. Because from then on the figures change all of a sudden, they “speak” and lead to draw a conclusion contrary to that which one had drawn at the mere sight of the raw, “dumb” figures.
Now, are you more advanced with all of these? Maybe you think not. But in truth, yes, you are much more so: have the members of your board of directors read this column, and, without you having to tell them expressly, I am ready to bet that they will come back from themselves on the request they made of you. At the very least, they will formulate it differently, perhaps by inviting you to take into account from the outset well-being or any other unquantifiable element which, however, makes all the difference in terms of productivity.
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