Want to make employees work better together? Let them work separately, from home.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but employees are apt to work more efficiently and collaboratively when operating remotely, a new study released Tuesday by video and voice collaboration technology company Polycom, Inc. and Human Resources executive network and research firm Future Workplace found. Modern employees are expressing a growing need for flexible workplaces, the survey of more than 24,000 workers concluded. Some 62% of people are already taking advantage of flexible working practices and 98% say “anywhere working” has a positive impact on productivity.
Remote work offers benefits that are rarely discussed, including better communication, improved work-life balance, and more flexibility with child care, said Jeanne Meister, a partner at Future Workplace. “There is a stigma that remote workers are disconnected from the rest of the team, yet this study proves that they are more sociable and proactively reach out to develop strong relationships,” she said. “The new technology tools that enable communication and collaboration are actually motivating workers to pick up the phone, seek face time and create lasting bonds.”
The research comes as open office plans face increasing backlash for their reported negative effects on productivity. Many workers are finding it easier (and quieter) to work from home. “Shared work environments, and in particular hot-desking, are associated with increases in distraction, negative relationships, uncooperative behaviors and distrust,” one study from the Auckland University of Technology found. Another found 50% of people with open-office floor plans were unsatisfied with their sound privacy compared with only 16% of people in private offices.
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And more millennials are demanding flexibility as an office perk, studies show. And not everyone believes it is because they want to sit at home in their pajamas, playing with their smartphones and watching daytime TV. “Employees in a flexible workplace are more engaged and have less intention to leave employers,” said Cassidy Solis, a workplace flexibility program specialist at the Society for Human Resource Management. “They appreciate the trust and pay it back to their employers 10-fold with loyalty.”
That said, working from home can get tired, and fast. Workers who don’t come into an office do miss out on a number of benefits that cannot be replicated by technology, including office cooler chitchat and after-work happy hours. Those components of office life aren’t trivial, either: Workers who are social at work are more productive, a separate study released in 2017 by market research group Gallup found, which found if employers increased the number of employees who have a best friend within the company from 20% to 60%, they would have 12% higher profit and 36% fewer safety incidents.
Still, Meister said with new technology remote work can create even closer bonds with co-workers than a traditional office environment. “You beam into someone’s personal space at home, and you see not only the person but what’s important to that person in their home office,” she said. That includes hobbies, personal aesthetic, and family members — as the world saw in a recent viral BBC interview in which a professor was bursted in upon by his adorable children, causing mayhem on camera.
Workplace flexibility isn’t just a benefit for employees, either: “We often talk about productivity and work life balance for employees, but it also offers employers access to global talent,” Meister said.