By-Barirahma Martinasia
Since 2020, offices has shift their way of working due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is due to humans discovering alternative ways to work without any human contact, hence remote working is born (Bradshaw, 2022). Until the beginning of this year, a lot of start-ups even conventional companies have to struggle back and forth deciding which one is better, either it’s working directly from the office or from home or remotely. This topic has raised some debate among some researcher on its efficiency. Does it effect productivity by decreasing it or boost it?
By its definition, productivity itself is a “ratio between the output volume and the volume of inputs” (Krugman, 1994). High in productivity is determine by several factors which incude motivation, personality, natural talent, training or education, environment, support from others, time management, and even luck (Psychology Today, 2020). In this case, environment such as working at an office said to be less productive then working remotely from home based on a study conducted by Standford of 16,000 workers over 9 months. They found that working from home increase productivity by 13% due to more calls per minute attributed to a quieter more convenient working environment and working more minutes per shift because of fewer breaks and sick days (Bradshaw, 2022). This causal is related to time management and environment that might determine productivity level.
Contradict to this statement, working at an office comes with other perks that working form home did not. Though working at home sounds like nice and pleasant, it can actually disrupt your work-life balance. “Your home should never become a place of stress, but rather a source of rest, relaxation, and family-building. When the line between work and home becomes blurry, it can become more difficult to leave the frustrations of your work life behind you at 5pm” (Merwin, 2017). Other major concern is that it is easy to get distracted, procrastinate, or put in less work than those working in the office (Bradshaw, 2022). Something the office do have is actually networking (Merwin, 2017). Bonding with your co-workers while on the office is more deep then just through online meetings platform because you did not get to meet them.
This is also dependable and not applicable for all companies. Tech related companies might have advantage by this situation. Tech companies may develop further their technologies by utilizing and implementing their own tech to remote working. Other benefits on industries that privileged by remote working is that “most remote workers report that they are more satisfied working from home. Retention rates are higher, HR costs are lower, and businesses that expand their remote work policies tend to experience more growth” (Vize, 2021).
In additional to the dependancy of advantage regarding remote working, remote work has socioeconomical benefits when it comes to having corporate offices located in capital cities. It can provide widespread opportunities to rural areas and benefits the talents of remote locations, hence some what we can minimize the migration to cities and reduce overcrowdednes.
In other words, working remotely have some benefits, if you willing to organize and maintain your self-discipline tightly. It certainly does increase productivity based on a lot of research but it is also up to the employee to maximize their working space, even at home. It is also may cut other operational cost since the work was done at home and reach untouchable talents from across the country even abroad.
Reference:
Bradshaw, R. (2022, January 17). Surprising Working From Home Productivity Statistics (2022). Apollo Technical LLC. Retrieved from https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity- statistics/#:%7E:text=Several%20studies%20over%20the%20past,and%20ar e%2047%25%20more%20productive.
Krugman, P. (1994). Defining and measuring productivity. The Age of Diminishing
Expectations.
Merwin, C. (2017, October 17). Four Step Tango for Counseling a Deficient Team Member. Advisorpedia. Retrieved from https://www.advisorpedia.com/advisor- tools/four-step-tango-for-counseling-a-deficient-team-member/
Psychology Today (2020, November 9). What Is Productivity? Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/productivity
Vize, S. (2021, November 13). Why Remote Work is The Future of IT. Mondo National
Staffing Agency. Retrieved from https://mondo.com/remote-work-future-of-tech/
