* 18-24 year old workers are much less likely to think that they’re more productive at home (32% vs 60% average).
* Female workers are more likely to think that they’re more productive at home (66% vs 54%)
For for bosses:
* Bosses at large companies are much more likely to think they’re more productive at home than micro businesses (50% vs 28%)
* They’re also much more likely to think that their teams are more productive at home (40% vs 20%) and their wider companies (40% vs 19%).
* Female bosses are more likely to think they are more productive working from home (50% vs 42%), and for their team (37% vs 32%) and wider company (29% vs 24%)
* Bosses generally think that their companies are about the same as other companies in terms of productivity at work vs home.
The headline doesn’t quite really reflect the findings of the survey. The survey doesn’t seem to find a difference between the bosses and the workers (the bosses also think that they’ve been more productive), it finds a difference between what people say when you ask them about themselves versus asking them about other people.
The bosses surveyed think that *they themselves* have been more productive since they’ve been working from home. They just think that *other people* haven’t.
Most interestingly, they think that their own staff have been roughly as productive (33% say more productive, 35% say less productive) but they think that other people within their company have been less productive.
I wonder whether you’d see something similar if you asked similar questions to the workers rather than just asking them about themselves? Would they also say that they’ve been more productive, that the people who they work most closely with have been roughly the same and that “other people” have been less productive?
Moving your mouse every couple of minutes isn’t work.
So by every metric, people are more productive/the same compared to being in the office. Even decision makers talking about others in the company (outside their teams) think 25% are more productive and 26% are the same. So overall people are more productive working from home even in the lowest scoring scenario.
I’ve been wfh for 2 and a half years and I’m definitely more productive than when I was in an office environment. I can focus more easily as my office room is nice and quiet. Nothing worse than trying to do a task or phone call and people are yelling across the office floor.
In agricultural work there is no such thing 😁
It is always going to be unique to each person’s set-up and how that matches up to their preferred environment. Bosses are more likely to have a spare room with a proper desk, chair and screen to work from compared to junior employees. They are also more likely to own their own homes too. Plenty of employees are productive from home but those who are working on their bed, while their four housemates all do the same, are going to struggle more.
I’m less productive wfh currently as back in the days when I worked in the office I was the senior in a team of two and had a consistently busy to do list.
Since then I’m now permanently wfh and following a major re-org last summer I’m now 1 in a team of 8 and am on 3rd manager during that same time. I often feel like now I don’t always have enough work. I’m keen to take initiative and teach myself stuff to keep myself busy though.
Honestly at my old job I worked really well from home, at my new one I can barely get anything done unless I’m in the office so I go 4/5 days a week.
Clearly it’s not a one size fits all and flexibility is good
Funny story, because I work in a digital enviroment we have very easy to track productivity…
Since working from home every metric has essentially increased in what gets done, from release deployments to issues cleared, every metric shows a sustained increase.
At multiple points senior managers have argued that people should return to the office due to the negative effect on productivity, multiple times they have been given these stats and have gone away grumbling.
In one meeting the “BEST” example they came up with is that they could no longer bump into someone outside the tea room and find out about other projects from other commands, that’s it… that was their best example and even better this is what has been used to drag us back into hybrid working where I waste 3 hours to get into the office so I can sit in a meeting I don’t need to be in and then eat lunch, go on a phone meeting I could of taken from home and then pack up for the day…
No wonder productivity was up, I got to actually work at home.
5 years working from home. Never been happier in a job, more successful (promotions every 18months along with good pay rises) and genuinely looking at the next 5years with the same firm. Can’t say this would’ve been the case if I was still office based!
Thankfully I have a boss that does not care what hours I do, how long my lunch is, what I do during the day, as long as I am hitting my targets that is all he is interested in.
For the vast majority of companies, location is the not the primary bottleneck to productivity.
Even if it were the case (as it might be) that people in general are, on balance a little less productive working from home as they would be from the office, unless your organisation is a finely oiled machine of the likes that are basically never seen, there are almost always bigger, easier and less consequential fish to fry if you really care about productivity.
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Interestingly the bosses have said that *they* work better from home but everyone else they work with doesn’t.
There’s some interesting bits in the detailed results for [workers](https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/43yldor195/YouGov%20Results%20-%20Working%20from%20Home%20Workers%20sample.pdf) and [bosses](https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/glg4brm5zl/YouGov%20Results%20-%20Working%20from%20Home%20B2B%20sample.pdf).
For workers:
* 18-24 year old workers are much less likely to think that they’re more productive at home (32% vs 60% average).
* Female workers are more likely to think that they’re more productive at home (66% vs 54%)
For for bosses:
* Bosses at large companies are much more likely to think they’re more productive at home than micro businesses (50% vs 28%)
* They’re also much more likely to think that their teams are more productive at home (40% vs 20%) and their wider companies (40% vs 19%).
* Female bosses are more likely to think they are more productive working from home (50% vs 42%), and for their team (37% vs 32%) and wider company (29% vs 24%)
* Bosses generally think that their companies are about the same as other companies in terms of productivity at work vs home.
The headline doesn’t quite really reflect the findings of the survey. The survey doesn’t seem to find a difference between the bosses and the workers (the bosses also think that they’ve been more productive), it finds a difference between what people say when you ask them about themselves versus asking them about other people.
The bosses surveyed think that *they themselves* have been more productive since they’ve been working from home. They just think that *other people* haven’t.
Most interestingly, they think that their own staff have been roughly as productive (33% say more productive, 35% say less productive) but they think that other people within their company have been less productive.
I wonder whether you’d see something similar if you asked similar questions to the workers rather than just asking them about themselves? Would they also say that they’ve been more productive, that the people who they work most closely with have been roughly the same and that “other people” have been less productive?
Moving your mouse every couple of minutes isn’t work.
So by every metric, people are more productive/the same compared to being in the office. Even decision makers talking about others in the company (outside their teams) think 25% are more productive and 26% are the same. So overall people are more productive working from home even in the lowest scoring scenario.
I’ve been wfh for 2 and a half years and I’m definitely more productive than when I was in an office environment. I can focus more easily as my office room is nice and quiet. Nothing worse than trying to do a task or phone call and people are yelling across the office floor.
In agricultural work there is no such thing 😁
It is always going to be unique to each person’s set-up and how that matches up to their preferred environment. Bosses are more likely to have a spare room with a proper desk, chair and screen to work from compared to junior employees. They are also more likely to own their own homes too. Plenty of employees are productive from home but those who are working on their bed, while their four housemates all do the same, are going to struggle more.
I’m less productive wfh currently as back in the days when I worked in the office I was the senior in a team of two and had a consistently busy to do list.
Since then I’m now permanently wfh and following a major re-org last summer I’m now 1 in a team of 8 and am on 3rd manager during that same time. I often feel like now I don’t always have enough work. I’m keen to take initiative and teach myself stuff to keep myself busy though.
Honestly at my old job I worked really well from home, at my new one I can barely get anything done unless I’m in the office so I go 4/5 days a week.
Clearly it’s not a one size fits all and flexibility is good
Funny story, because I work in a digital enviroment we have very easy to track productivity…
Since working from home every metric has essentially increased in what gets done, from release deployments to issues cleared, every metric shows a sustained increase.
At multiple points senior managers have argued that people should return to the office due to the negative effect on productivity, multiple times they have been given these stats and have gone away grumbling.
In one meeting the “BEST” example they came up with is that they could no longer bump into someone outside the tea room and find out about other projects from other commands, that’s it… that was their best example and even better this is what has been used to drag us back into hybrid working where I waste 3 hours to get into the office so I can sit in a meeting I don’t need to be in and then eat lunch, go on a phone meeting I could of taken from home and then pack up for the day…
No wonder productivity was up, I got to actually work at home.
5 years working from home. Never been happier in a job, more successful (promotions every 18months along with good pay rises) and genuinely looking at the next 5years with the same firm. Can’t say this would’ve been the case if I was still office based!
Thankfully I have a boss that does not care what hours I do, how long my lunch is, what I do during the day, as long as I am hitting my targets that is all he is interested in.
For the vast majority of companies, location is the not the primary bottleneck to productivity.
Even if it were the case (as it might be) that people in general are, on balance a little less productive working from home as they would be from the office, unless your organisation is a finely oiled machine of the likes that are basically never seen, there are almost always bigger, easier and less consequential fish to fry if you really care about productivity.