| I think there's always some skepticism that should be expressed around wild articles like this. At a core level, remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely to mirror remote work outside of the pandemic. It's one thing if you choose to work remotely and if your company willingly embraces remote work. It's an entirely different beast if your company is forced to transition to remote work while stay-at-home orders keep everyone locked indoors with minimal activities to do outside of work. The pandemic is challenging for many people, including people like me, who are full time remote workers. It's a poor time to evaluate the productivity differences of remote versus non-remote workers. This article states: > Operational improvements — like scientific experiments — shouldn't operate on guesses and hope. In our current mass experiment of remote work, we should form hypotheses, act deliberately, and measure results. One of the most critical things you must consider when designing an experiment is confounding variables. COVID-19 didn't just shift people to remote work. It created a lot of stress, anxiety, and changed society dramatically in more ways than simply moving people's office locations. It cannot be ignored in judging the efficacy of remote work as a subject. |
Kids at home for schooling is an addition. Many of the fun activities being closed is a removal. There’s no bar or restaurant to get together with friends, no club/rec level sports to play, etc.
I agree that there are a lot of confounding variables, but think many were pro-efficiency rather than all being detrimental.