The COVID-19 pandemic has upended lives around the world. And for an organization made up of generally more professional and better-paid labor personnel in industries such as IT, marketing, accounting, and finance, it meant an almost overnight revolution in artistic practices. Working from home, once considered a rarity or an advantage, is the norm for millions of people.
Today, many employers need to reverse the work-from-home revolution, fearing that remote work will hurt productivity, creativity, and collaboration. In some cases, it is not easy for painters to return to work fully in person, in person. of strong protests from its painters.
As a result, it’s a hot topic of study which mode of painting (remote, in-person, or a hybrid of the two) produces the most productive effects. Previous paintings have shown that completely remote paintings have negative effects, such as making collaboration difficult. between companies1 and reduce the generation of innovative ideas2. The most recent study3, published this week in Nature, builds on existing knowledge to imply that employers have at least less to worry about when it comes to hybrid paints. However, as always, in such a complex environment, more studies are needed.
Hybrid work has become more common in many parts of the world since the pandemic. Between April and May 2023, the third wave of the Global Work Arrangements Survey, a U. S. -founded collaboration of foreign educational studios, surveyed more than 42,000 people in 34 countries about where they painted (see go. nature. com/4elh7h5). % work completely from home. Work-from-home rates are the highest among graduates, and particularly the highest in the English-speaking world. The most common hybrid work style is 3 days a week in the workplace and two days at home.
The latest study is the first randomized controlled trial on the benefits of this type of hybrid work, according to its authors: economists Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University in California and Ruobing Han of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China, and James Liang. . , president and co-founder of the online company Trip. com in Shanghai, China. More than 1,600 workers who graduated from Trip. com were randomly assigned to one of two teams over a six-month period, with members of one organization leading five days a week at one worksite and the other running 3 days a week at the workplace and two at home.
The authors found that hybrid staff had higher task satisfaction and lower attrition rates, and were just as productive as those who worked independently in person, as measured through functionality reviews. The relief in quitting rates was pronounced especially for those traveling longer distances. and for women. No reduced attrition rates were observed among managers, who made up a quarter of the test pattern, perhaps because managers rely more than non-managers on coordinating other people and building social connections, which tends to be less difficult to achieve. do in person.
This confirms that hybrid paints offer more advantages than running in the office. But many questions remain. The effects would possibly differ between other countries and cultures, for example, and it’s unclear whether other hybrid painting arrangements, such as 3 days a week at home and two days at the office, have effects. Possible outcomes for painting venues that require other collaborative and creative degrees are also up for debate.
Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for finding answers. More employers deserve to be willing to collaborate with researchers and test other office policies in other contexts. Even if it turns out that hybrid operation is not a panacea in offices that can do it, such studies can also identify teams that could gain benefits, namely from a more flexible approach. They could, for example, simply provide information about how other people in everyday jobs can better join companies, stay in their jobs longer, and be satisfied in their roles, thus promoting greater equity and inclusion.
Ultimately, it’s in the employers’ best interest to pay attention to what the studies say about creating happier, more productive workplaces. Loss of staff is costly: Trip. com estimated hiring and education costs to be $20,000 for each new painter. While the company previously required its employees to work on-site for the entire week unless they were traveling for business purposes, Han says that as a result of the trial, it expanded its hybrid work policy to all employees.
But it’s not just about employers and employees. There is a broader and understudied social context that should also be considered (e. g. , the sustainability implications of maintaining less populated workplace buildings compared to fewer commutes, and having a smaller effect on the economy as a whole and the livelihoods of others). Other people pay in the service sector if fewer people go to urban centers to work.
For many, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a large, out-of-control experiment in adapting to other artistic practices. It’s not too late to put some science into this.
Nature 630, 270 (2024)
It’s me: https://doi. org/10. 1038/d41586-024-01713-1
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