We have, quite possibly, reached the most massive work-from-home trial in history in the year 2020. Now, as countries re-open, but a significant threat remains in the form of Covid-19, employers must decide whether and how to allow their employees to return to the office. To make these decisions, business leaders must be able to answer various questions. An issue that particularly applies to “What impact has working from home had on productivity and creativity?” is “How has working from home impacted productivity and creativity?
To address that concern, we decided to conduct an in-depth investigation into how employees have done since they began working virtually. Our survey of more than 600 white-collar workers in the United States ended in March, and we have since continued to survey these workers every two weeks. The facts presented in this article are based on results collected between the month of May. Females and males comprise approximately half of our respondents, with 43 states represented, over half of our respondents are married, and approximately a third have children. Forty percent of those employed in management occupations hold these positions. Many questions we have asked them include how satisfied they are with their jobs, how engaged they are with their work, how they perceive their own performance, how much conflict they have with colleagues, how stressed they are, how negatively they feel, and how they currently live. Please read the following more in-depth information to learn more about the survey participants.
Some participants also submitted written comments. This analysis further collected data on interactions (based on email and calendars) that occurred automatically (that is, without the intervention of a person) for employees from a separate group of selected organizations before and after they began working from home. While this project is ongoing, we examined the interpersonal interactions prior to the beginning of work-from-home and throughout the duration of the lockdown. Through in-depth interviews with executives at other organizations, we could confirm our findings: working from home had a significant impact on productivity and creativity.
These facts have some limitations. The majority of it is only relevant for a brief period of time, and we have no pre-pandemic survey data to use as a baseline. However, according to our research, our initial findings were anything but expected.
The Positive Aspects
When the decision was made to interview people for this project, a number of leaders who we interviewed or who were quoted in the media had predicted that employee performance would diminish significantly. Workers actually adjust much faster to working virtually, according to the survey results. In many cases, workers think they are just as productive when working virtually. Another employee posted a comment that read, “I'm able to complete everything that I was doing previously, and I believe everyone else is able to do the same.
I didn't see this coming. There have been numerous past studies that found that productivity declines after any significant change. Based on these studies, we predicted that productivity would drop this time around. It is truly remarkable that employees managed to thrive while experiencing the tremendous shift during a pandemic with no productivity loss.
Not surprisingly, the switch to working remotely didn't go smoothly. A drop in job satisfaction and engagement occurred immediately after two weeks of working remotely. But by the end of the second month, their gains had greatly improved. Things didn't go well at first, but with patience things improved." "We're only at the beginning of the process," one employee noted. It was described as “finding a rhythm.”