If You Want To Get Something Done, Get Out Of The Office « Annie Murphy Paul
Case study on how allowing employees to work from home increased productivity
<p>“The results we saw at Ctrip blew me away. Ctrip was thinking that it could save money on space and furniture if people worked from home and that the savings would outweigh the productivity hit it would take when employees left the discipline of the office environment.</p>
<p>“Instead, we found that people working from home completed 13.5% more calls than the staff in the office did—meaning that Ctrip got almost an extra workday a week out of them. They also quit at half the rate of people in the office—way beyond what we anticipated. And predictably, at-home workers reported much higher job satisfaction.”</p>
<p>One other fascinating insight from the interview: Bloom notes that those who liked the work-at-home option most were people:</p>
<p>” . . . who have established social lives—older workers, married workers, parents. We found that the younger workers whose social lives are more connected to the office tend to not want to work from home as much.</p>