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New research fromHarvard Business Schoolreveals that coming into the office just one or two days a week may be ideal for many workers.
In the paper published last month, Harvard researchers revealed the results of a study they conducted in 2020 involving 130 administrative employees.
The workers were split into three different groups over nine weeks, with one group heading into their office between zero and eight days; another between nine and 14 days; and the third group spending more than two weeks in their office.
Of everyone who participated, the group that came into their office one or two days a week ended up creating higher quality work compared to the others, their managers told researchers.
While mentioning that past research has shown that full-time remote work can lead to isolation from colleagues, Harvard researchers said that “intermediate hybrid work” could be a “sweet spot” for workers.
“Intermediate hybrid work is plausibly the sweet spot, where workers enjoy flexibility and yet are not as isolated compared to peers who are predominantly working from home,” researchers said in the paper.
“We report findings using worker surveys conducted at the end of the experiment that suggest that workers in the intermediate-WFH category reported greater satisfaction with working from home, greater work-life balance, and lower isolation compared to workers in the high- and low-WFH categories,” they added.
But with COVID-19 numbers in the U.S. remaining comparatively low over the last few months, companies are reopening their doors.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced last year that it would allow its full-time employees to work from home if their jobs could be done remotely, according toCNBC.
As of March, Google required employees to work at least three days in the office, with certain options available for workers who request a location switch or want to continue working remotely,Deadlinereported.
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Twitter, on the other hand, reopened its office in March butallows its employees to choosewhether they would like to come in.
“There will be lots of challenges in the coming months, and we’ll need to be proactive, intentional, learn, and adapt,” CEO Parag Agrawal said in apost. “We’re in this together, and we each play a role in the open, inclusive, and productive culture we want to create.”
source: people.com
