Showerthought: Why do we still act like remote work kills productivity when a Stanford study found it actually boosts output by 13%?

I found this stat in a Harvard Business Review article last month, and it makes me wonder if the push to get people back in the office is more about control than performance, so what side are you on, the data or the gut feeling?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahbaker16d ago

Notice how the same companies that push for open offices to boost collaboration are the ones forcing everyone back to their cubicles now. I've watched managers say they trust their teams but then install keystroke trackers and demand Zoom cameras stay on all day, kind of defeats the whole trust argument. Its like when your phone company says unlimited data but then slows your speed after 10 gigs, the fine print always tells the real story. If performance really went down, these CEOs would be the first ones screaming about their quarterly numbers, not just posting vague memos about company culture.

skyler_white9516d ago

Has anyone at @noahbaker's company actually bothered to ask the employees what they want? I keep seeing these top-down mandates with zero input from the people who actually do the work. My own office tried the open layout a few years back and it was chaos - people couldn't concentrate, meetings were constantly interrupted, and everyone was just counting the days until they could work from home again. Now they're dragging us back to cubicles like that'll fix anything, when really they should be asking why productivity dropped in the first place instead of assuming it's a location problem.

juliawalker16d ago

That trust argument is a good point but here's the thing nobody's talking about - the commercial real estate these companies are locked into. They've got these huge leases they signed before covid that they're trying to justify by filling seats again. Pure money math over actual productivity.