Q: Is Working From Home More Productive?

Some of India’s leading female bosses, business leaders, and managers weigh in on the matter.

- Humra Afroz Khan

Even as India is seeing an impressive surge in vaccination rates, and the need for strict social distancing has been ebbing in many parts of the world, working from home still seems to be the order of the day—a phenomenon likely to continue. And most organisations, as well as employees, are maintaining the status-quo, with good reason(s). For one, there is unprecedented flexibility in the working hours and locales. And “for their part, many employees say they do not miss the stress and cost of the daily commute,” a YouGov survey by Barclays Research indicates. “This significantly increased flexibility is also likely to have wider social ramifications, including greater employee diversity, a better work-life balance, and larger talent pools, as location and in-office presence become less important,” it adds. According to the survey, about 46 percent of the employers in the study also felt the WFH was also more productive.

Supporting that argument, a survey by ConnectSolutions found that “77 percent of those who work remotely at least a few times per month show increased productivity—with 30 percent doing more work in less time, and 24 percent doing more work in the same period of time.” A separate study by Standford University, of 16,000 workers over 9 months, concluded that working from home does increase productivity by as much as 13 percent, “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.”

Turns out, how you decorate your work station, the way you plan your day, and the tools you use to adapt and function in this ‘new normal’ play a huge role, too, and can immensely add to—or take away from—how productive you end up being.