Research from Microsoft shows that working from home reduces productivity and creativity

The researchers concluded that the shift to working from home disrupted interactions and reduced communication between departmental employees, 25% less than before. ” Without remedial action, these negative effects can adversely affect the ability to gather and share information across teams and reduce creativity and productivity, ” according to Microsoft.

In addition, the report shows a decrease in asynchronous communication including email, SMS, calendar, text messages, phone calls, video calls or easily missed meetings. ” Based on previous studies, we believe that the shift to less effective communication tools has made it difficult for employees to process complex information .”

While some would argue that employees will work less from home, research has shown increased working hours. It’s not surprising to see an increase in email and text messages, but a decrease in meeting hours. Another study from last year also found that while people were less likely to attend longer meetings, the frequency of short meetings increased.

The study concluded that companies need to do more research on adopting long-term work-from-home policies.

In contrast, Microsoft employees who responded to a survey in another study reported that they felt an increase in executive support and that they did not feel any less productive. But not everyone realizes that working remotely allows them to do better work as well as balance time alone with time to interact with a group.

Microsoft received the research results just in time for the company to announce that it had abandoned conjecture about how long it would take to reopen its US offices. Microsoft originally planned to reopen on October 4, but due to many events such as the Delta mutation, the plan fell through.

Apple also had to rethink its plans for employees to return to the office. Apple originally wanted the majority of employees to go to work three days a week this month, but had to move the schedule to October, then to January 2022. It is likely that the plan will have to be rescheduled further due to employee objections. opposite to.

The Microsoft study, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, surveyed 61,000 employees. Work data was collected from December 2019 before social distancing to July 2020.