Are remote workers less productive when working from home?

Remote workers are less productive when working from home. This is the conclusion a recent study from researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Essex concluded from a comprehensive analysis of the digital work patterns of a large Indian IT company during an extended period pre and during the work from home (WFH) period due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. At SWOOP, we are naturally attracted to passive data-driven studies like our own benchmarking studies. Our studies tend to surface insights that run counter to the usual, more prolific and publicised survey-based studies. This is also the case with the Indian IT company study. While we have nothing against surveys, we see passive studies like these are essential to achieve a level of robustness required for key decisions regarding future of work environments.  

On balance, survey-based studies have shown that respondents felt more productive while WFH. Potential benefit from WFH, including reduced real estate costs, broader talent pool, improved productivity from loss of commute time, is often balanced by the recognition that we need to invent and improve on current remote working processes.  

This study drew only from a single organisation, albeit a highly educated one with a mix of job types. Significantly though, as an IT company specialising in automating business processes for its clients, it is perhaps not surprising that it has employed sophisticated monitoring tools from Sapient and Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics (WPA) to inform its workplace decision-making. The key input measure used was “time spent”. Additionally, the studied organisation had quite comprehensive measures for “outputs/goals met” across all of its staff categories, and were continuously monitored. Therefore, the productivity measure used was simply output divided by hours spent i.e. efficiency only; no attempts at measuring effectiveness.  

The key findings from the study is during WFH, staff were working longer hours to achieve the same objectives they were achieving pre-WFH. They found staff were spending more time in meetings and co-ordination activities and less time on “focus work”. The former finding was picked up on by the Economist publication and others, blaming too much time spent in meetings as the main culprit for reduced productivity. 

What insights do we at SWOOP find interesting? 

There are a number of interesting outcomes from the Indian IT company study that relate to SWOOP’s own workplace studies. Identifying a measurable ‘outcome measure’ has always been problematic. Other than work involving low level repetitive tasks, measuring the output from knowledge workers is elusive. While one could debate the accuracy of the outcome measures used in the Indian IT study, the consistency of measurement in the pre and during WFH periods across all staff by the organisation is somewhat unique. It therefore provided a robust “output” measure as its dependent “success” variable.   

Are we really spending too much time in meetings?  

Our recent Microsoft Teams Benchmarking study found the majority of staff were involved in less than one meeting every two days. Our study, however, was not looking at pre and during WFH, only during WFH. Processing a selection of our meetings data using time spent rather than meeting count we find: 

Of the 4,660 staff analysed across four different organisations we can see around 10% spend no time in meetings at all. We find about 48% spend less than an hour a day in meetings. These staff may have indeed spent less time in meetings pre-WFH, but the overall meeting load does not seem to be overwhelming.  

The sample analysed using WPA for the study was limited to a sample 914 staff, slightly younger, lower tenure and less experienced than the full sample. The average meeting time/week was found to be 10.20 pre-WFH and 11.07 during WFH. Our equivalent during WFH meeting time/week for a much larger sample of 4,660 staff across four organisations was 5.9 hours. The maximum for a single organisation was 7.99 hours, so lower than the IT company studied. Perhaps some of this difference could be accounted for by the stated younger and less experienced staff, potentially requiring more co-ordination. Alternatively, the results might simply not be generalisable across broader industry sectors; something not uncommon with single organisation academic studies.  

Despite the lower level of time spent in meetings found from our benchmarking data, we still support the perspective that too much time is being spent in meetings. We make this judgment not so much on the proportion of work time spent in meetings, but the proportion of time spent in meetings versus time collaborating asynchronously in discussion threads in Teams and Yammer. We identify this as one of the “deadly sins of digital work”. 

Focus Time  

A key inference from the Indian IT company study is that lower levels of focus time, as a consequence of too much time in meetings, is responsible for the loss in productivity during WFH. With WPA, “Focus Hours" is calculated by looking at how much calendar time you had available, minus your “collaboration” periods. A collaboration is counted as any call you make, email you send or meeting you participate in”. Importantly, WPA does not monitor time spent in asynchronous threaded discussions contained in Teams Channels or Yammer. We suspect time spent in these activities is being included in Focus Time, meaning “Focus Time” should therefore not be equated with “solo work”. Just how much of this Focus Time should be spent on asynchronous collaboration now becomes an important question.  

The Indian IT company study conclusion that a loss of Focus Time is potentially leading to productivity loss, still stands. But the important factor overlooked in this assessment is asynchronous collaboration time incorporated in the Focus Time calculation. The SWOOP 2021 Microsoft Teams Benchmarking study featured 11 case studies where high productivity teams excelled in the use of asynchronous communication in Teams Channels.  

Discussion and Conclusions  

We broadly support the key study finding that excess meeting and call time is responsible for a loss of productivity for remote workers. We believe, however, time spent outside of these synchronous collaboration activities deserves a more detailed assessment. We believe the loss in productivity during WFH is likely real but potentially due to immature digital workplace skills than simply a loss of “Focus Time”. To properly understand what “Focus Time” really means we need to break that down e.g. 

When we unpack the available time not spent in meetings, calls and email, there are many other places in the Microsoft M365 suite that people could be spending their time productively, or otherwise, as shown. Of this “Focus Time”, only working with files in a personal OneDrive space is “solo work”. All other activities are some form of sharing and/or collaboration.  

We have spent some 400 years learning to work in an office. We are only a little over 400 days into our learning journey during WFH. It won’t take 400 years to gain sufficient digital working skills though. Our Teams benchmarking case studies are evidence of this.  

We are regularly asked by clients if we can identify how people spend their time across the whole M365 suite. While WPA covers calendar activities, chat and email, this still leaves significant “white space” in fully understanding the M365 value proposition.  

SWOOP is currently working on a new SWOOP for M365 product which will hopefully help to answer these questions. As a teaser, here is an example of our own M365 report, which estimates where staff are spending their time across the key M365 product classes: 

Our early benchmarking studies show this portfolio picture can look quite different between organisations, but also between people within these organisations. Could it be that such variation is warranted? Or could it be an indication of the inconsistency in digital workplace skills? 

We think the latter; so watch this space for more about SWOOP Analytics for M365.