From & To Sathish #5 - Page 127

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The working-from-home illusion fades

The Economist, June 28, 2023

It is not more productive than being in an office, after all

A gradual reverse migration is underway, from Zoom to the conference room. Wall Street firms have been among the most forceful in summoning workers to their offices, but in recent months even many tech titans—Apple, Google, Meta, and more—have demanded staff show up to the office at least three days a week. For work-from-home believers, it looks like the revenge of corporate curmudgeons. Didn’t a spate of studies during the covid-19 pandemic demonstrate that remote work was often more productive than toiling in the office?

Unfortunately for the believers, new research mostly runs counter to this, showing that offices, for all their flaws, remain essential. A good starting point is a working paper that received much attention when it was published in 2020 by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington, then both doctoral students at Harvard University. They found an 8% increase in the number of calls handled per hour by employees of an online retailer that had shifted from offices to homes. Far less noticed was a revised version of their paper, published in May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The boost to efficiency had instead become a 4% decline.

The researchers had not made a mistake. Rather, they received more precise data, including detailed work schedules. Not only did employees answer fewer calls when remote, but the quality of their interactions also suffered. They put customers on hold for longer. More also phoned back, an indication of unresolved problems.

The revision comes hot on the tails of other studies that have reached similar conclusions. David Atkin and Antoinette Schoar, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sumit Shinde of the University of California, Los Angeles, randomly assigned data-entry workers in India to labor either from home or the office. Those working at home were 18% less productive than their peers in the office. Michael Gibbs of the University of Chicago and Friederike Mengel and Christoph Siemroth, both of the University of Essex, found a productivity shortfall, relative to prior in-office performance, of as much as 19% for the remote employees of a large Asian it firm. Another study determined that even chess professionals play less well in online matches than in face-to-face tilts. Yet another used a laboratory experiment to show that video conferences inhibit creative thinking.

The reasons for the findings will probably not surprise anyone who has spent much of the past few years working from a dining-room table. It is harder for people to collaborate from home. Workers in the Fed study spoke of missing their “neighbors to turn to for assistance”. Other researchers who looked at the communication records of nearly 62,000 employees at Microsoft observed that professional networks within the company become more static and isolated. Teleconferencing is a pale imitation of in-the-flesh meetings: researchers at Harvard Business School, for example, concluded that “virtual water coolers”—rolled out by many companies during the pandemic—often encroached on crowded schedules with limited benefits. To use the terminology of Ronald Coase, an economist who focused on the structure of companies, all these problems represent an increase in coordination costs, making the collective enterprise more unwieldy.

Some of the coordination costs of remote work might reasonably be expected to fall as people get used to it. Since 2020, many will have become adept at using Zoom, Webex, Teams or Slack. But another cost may rise over time: the underdevelopment of human capital. In a study of software engineers published in April, Drs Emanuel and Harrington, along with Amanda Pallais, also of Harvard, found that feedback exchanged between colleagues dropped sharply after the move to remote work. Drs Atkin, Schoar, and Shinde documented a relative decline in learning for workers at home. Those in offices picked up skills more quickly.

The origins of the view that contrary to the above, remote working boosts productivity can be traced to an experiment nearly a decade before the pandemic, which was reported by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford and others in 2013. Call-center workers for a Chinese online travel agency now known as Trip.com increased their performance by 13% when remote—a figure that continues to appear in media coverage today. But two big wrinkles are often neglected: first, more than two-thirds of the improved performance came from employees working longer hours, not more efficiently; second, the Chinese firm eventually halted remote work because off-site employees struggled to get promoted. In 2022 Dr. Bloom visited Trip.com again, this time to investigate the effects of a hybrid-working trial. The outcomes of this experiment were less striking: it had a negligible impact on productivity, though workers put in longer days and wrote more code when in the office.

The price of happiness

There is more to work (and life) than productivity. Perhaps the greatest virtue of remote work is that it leads to happier employees. People spend less time commuting, which from their vantage point might feel like an increase in productivity, even if conventional measures fail to detect it. They can more easily fit in school pickups and doctor appointments, not to mention the occasional lie-in or midmorning jog. And some tasks—notably, those requiring unbroken concentration for long periods—can often be done more smoothly from home than in open-plan offices. All this explains why so many workers have become so office-shy.

Indeed, several surveys have found employees are willing to accept pay cuts for the option of working from home. Having satisfied employees on slightly lower pay, in turn, might be a good deal for corporate managers. For many people, then, the future of work will remain hybrid. Nevertheless, the balance of the work week is likely to tilt back to the office and away from home—not because bosses are sadomasochists with a kink for rush-hour traffic, but because better productivity lies in that direction

Avan, Aval Adhu 412

“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” Pascal Mercier

Daksha could not help it and in a sardonic tone observed loudly, ' Lord help us in these dire times!' and all of them looked at her, hoping to understand her loud thoughts.

Madhurima smiled uneasily and turning to Ravi questioned his mind with silent eyes and he replied by closing his eyelids once in a deliberate manner thus signaling her to remain quiet.

Parthiban grunted loudly and throwing an accusing look at all of them said, ' Cowards. None of you dare ask her for an explanation. But I will ' and turning to his wife, smiled a smile that was as long as a mile and asked in a whimpering voice, ' Ducks, why the words, dire and times, and that too on such a joyous occasion?'

' For a specific reason, hubby ' she replied cryptically and raising her arms to the heavens as if she was a devotee praying to the gods above, ' Our Lord in heaven, Ravi is all smart and intelligent but can be a bit of a bore and insufferable when he begins to preach about life and if he was impossible when he was supposedly only half-alive or half-dead without our Lady of health Madhurima, then imagine what a pain in the A.SE, he can be and will be now that he is fully alive and completely awake.'

Then her voice softened and quivered a bit as she said, ' Ravi, if you have done so much for yourself and this world and for all the people around you with a soul all broken and beaten, then I just can't imagine what you are going to do and achieve from now on after having been reunited with the other part of your missing soul. I can't wait for this world to see what you can create now that you are healed and whole.'

Madhurima who had been taken aback upon hearing Daksha's words, now looked at her with new eyes and realized that she really cared for Ravi a lot and maybe loved him as much as all of them did.

She looked at Ravi who smiled and through it expressed, ' I told you so ' and thanked Daksha.

' Ducks, I might have been half-dead but I was half-alive too and the reason for that are you, Partha, and my mother. Thank you.'

Then he looked at Madhu and asked, ' Madhuji, I want to marry you. Will you accept my proposal and marry me?'

Madhu's eyes went large in surprise and she sputtered, ' What? When, Jaanu?'

' After you have delivered your answer regarding my proposal.'

Madhurima kept staring at him for a few seconds and then smiling happily through her tears, ' Yes. I accept your proposal, Jaanu.'

Ravi nodded and quickly turned to his mother, ' Amma, the marriage is going to happen tomorrow. It is going to be a very simple and quick ceremony.'

Then he quickly told them what he had in mind and why he wanted the marriage to happen the very next day and looked at all of them and said, ' It is going to be a good day. Trust me.'

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Avan, Aval Adhu 413

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, But for the heart to conquer it. Rabindranath Tagore

' I should be feeling happy and ecstatic that I and Ravi are going to be united and our love solemnized in marriage. I should have died and gone to heaven when he proposed but I am still alive. Why?' Madhu thought with a smile of unknown quality stuck on her face for the outside world.

Then her train of thought was shattered and she was brought out of her reverie by the loud and commanding voice of Daksha who yelled, ' Attention everyone. Please, look at me while I talk ' and pointing to Ravi, ' sweetie, you, yes, master, look at Madhu and tell me what you see and make of her reactions when I talk to her.'

If these words had been spoken by someone else other than Daksha, it would not have had the desired effect as now it was not just Ravi who now looked at Madhu for he was joined by his mother, and Parthiban who looked intently at her.

Before Madhu could even muster and gather her thoughts, she was bombarded by Daksha's questions.

' Madhuji, are you really ready and willing to get married tomorrow or do you want some more time?'

The effect of the question was clearly visible on Madhu's face and she stood blinking like a deer caught in the glare of headlights.

But the question had an entirely different reaction on Ravi who clapped and said, ' Bravo Ducks, and thank you for that timely intervention ' and then looked at Madhu, ' Please answer the question and please do it without any reservations. We are all adults here and we all want the best for each of us. '

He looked and whispered in a gentle voice, ' Madhuji, most people think love is all about sex, desire, and family but we know better. For, first and foremost, love is about respect and trust. In the end, what remains in love is friendship and companionship and the desire to take care of each other.'

Stepping forward, he whispered, ' So, speak your mind and speak it freely.'

What Madhu did next took all of them by surprise and even the usually quick-thinking and quick-acting Ravi was caught unawares and he stood looking down at Madhu who had fallen to her knees and was touching his feet with both her hands.

She looked up at him and said, ' Touching one's feet is called " Charan Sparsh " and it is a very ancient practice that started in the Vedic periods. Younger people touch the feet of older people to get their blessings and both young and old will touch the feet of learned and wise souls to get their blessings. It is also a practice for a wife to touch the feet of her husband to get his blessings and to also show her love, faith, and devotion to him.'

She smiled and asked, ' Jaanu, I hope this answers your question.'

Ravi bent and gently gripped her shoulders, raised her, stood her up, and replied, ' Daksha's question was a good one and perfectly legitimate in its intent. But, our in-house legal expert was too quick with her question and should have instead framed it in a better way.'

Daksha smiled, ' Please, I take the cue and as an acting judge say, " Objection sustained". Now, correct me by framing my question in a better manner.'

Ravi nodded and turned to Madhu, ' Ducks saw your reactions to my proposal and misread them as doubts and hesitation on your part. But, little does she know that you exhibited those feelings because of your stepdaughter. Am I correct?'

Madhurima gasped in surprise and in admiration and her reaction was enough for Daksha and the others to realize that Ravi was right in his understanding.

Placing a gentle hand on her head, ' Go ahead and call her and invite her over. It will be good to meet your family for soon she will be my step-daughter and I her step-father.'

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