Productivity Declined with Work from Home. It doesn’t have to

Sep 03, 2021

A recent study [1] by the University of Chicago found that knowledge worker output remained constant with the shift to work from home (WFH). However it required an increase of 18% in average daily hours worked, a cost that was borne by the employees. It goes without saying that this added to stress and reduced wellbeing at what was already a difficult time. Focus time (i.e. the time when most work gets done) remained about the same. The extra time was all spent on communication and coordination.
The results reflect what many experienced at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – extended workdays, more time spent in meetings and increased pressure. Some managers organised meetings because they didn’t trust their teams to work without being watched. Others provided less one-one coaching for their team members. Let’s consider a different scenario. In an office environment, when one is stuck or has a question one can simply lift one’s heads and ask aloud. Whoever is best placed to answer will do so immediately. This is especially important for new hires who don’t know the environment and have lots of questions. With WFH they now they felt isolated and unsupported.

 People have worked in an office environment for decades and the approaches to being productive have been refined over the years and are well understood. We haven’t yet learnt how to optimally collaborate and communicate when not co-located. A prerequisite is, of course, that organisations provide employees with the digital tools they need to succeed. The good news is that these tools exist. As an example, let’s look at research [2] by Nemeretes published in April 2020 across 564 firms (12 countries, 5000+ average workers) who had adopted Team Collaboration applications such as Microsoft Teams or Webex Teams. Results indicated that nearly 40% had an average improvement in productivity of 24% and nearly a quarter reduced the need for meetings by an average of 30%.    

  Team Collaboration applications allow users to communicate and collaborate in their working context. This drives much of the improvement. In addition, let’s also revisit the scenario we used above.  When stuck, a user can ask a question of their team directly in their messaging area. When someone starts to answer then everyone can see that they are typing. This is a digital equivalent of lifting one’s head and asking. The alternatives, such as email and phone, can’t adequately do this.

 Team Collaboration also avoids long and unnecessary email trails, allows documents to be co-created, action items to be updated as soon as completed and much more. Gone are the days of needing to wait for a meeting to communicate changes in the status of a project or work item. In addition, asynchronous communication is valuable for remote work as it allows flexibility to work  at different times.

 There is a common consensus that hybrid work or flexible WFM working styles are here to stay and are the future of work. Team Collaboration applications have the potential to improve productivity in these scenarios.  However, an increase in productivity doesn’t happen automatically. It requires proficiency in using the tools and adaption of processes to take advantage of the capability. Adoption and Change Management is the foundation for this and will accelerate the journey.   

 

  1. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BFI_WP_2021-56.pdf
  2. https://nemertes.com/quantifying-the-benefits-of-team-collaboration-and-meeting-apps/
Outcome Engineering: The Key to Success

Outcome Engineering: The Key to Success

Feb 16, 2019

Organisations purchase and implement technology or cloud solutions on the assumption they will deliver a benefit. Much energy and effort is expended in getting the solution up and running. In contrast, the steps required to realise the business benefit were historically not given sufficient attention. In recent months we’ve seen organisations wanting to address this issue but not understanding how to go about it.

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