Hybrid working arrangements where employees spend three days in the office and two at home are just as productive as full-time office attendance, a study has found.
The research by Stanford University and Shenzhen Finance Institute involved more than 1,600 graduate workers at Chinese travel agency Trip.com. It found that people who worked from home two days per week were just as likely to be promoted as those who were fully office-based.
Hybrid workers were also much less likely to quit their jobs, especially women, non-managers and people with long commutes. Resignations fell by 33% among the hybrid working cohort.
Hybrid working
Hybrid workers more productive and less stressed
Nicholas Bloom, professor of economics at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, said: “The results are clear: hybrid work is a win-win-win for employee productivity, performance, and retention.
“This study offers powerful evidence for why 80% of US companies now offer some form of remote work, and for why the remaining 20% of firms that don’t are likely paying a price.”
The study, which Stanford claimed was the largest research project into hybrid working to date, investigated the effects of hybrid working over a six-month period in 2021-2022.
It involved 1,612 engineering, marketing and finance employees in its airfare and IT divisions, including 395 managers, half of whom were invited to work from home on Wednesdays and Fridays.
It found hybrid working did not affect performance grades over the next two years of reviews, and no evidence of a difference in the rate of promotions overall or for any major employee subgroup.
The cohort of staff who worked from home two days a week recorded a 4.8% attrition rate, compared with 7.2% for exclusively office-based workers. This was even more pronounced for women (4.2% hybrid, 9.2% office) and employees with a commute of more than 90 minutes (2.9% hybrid, 6.0% office).
The 395 managers who were surveyed about hybrid working changed their views. Before hybrid working was enacted managers perceived it would harm productivity, but once the experiment concluded their views were much more positive.
Employees reported benefits for their work-life balance, work satisfaction, and life satisfaction, and suggested they were more likely to recommend the company to friends.
The findings complement the results of a study by International Workplace Group, which found hybrid workers were more productive and motivated, and were less likely to feel burnt out.
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