Work from home or go to an office: Which kind of workers are happier and more efficient?
For the first time--surprisingly--there's some solid academic research on the subject, led by a Stanford economics professor.
We won't hide the ball. Yes, the study found that workers who were allowed to work from home reported higher satisfaction, and they did their jobs more efficiently. But there's also a big asterisk on that conclusion--one that might make you hesitate before going to a 100 percent work-from-home model.
Below: the study, the results, the caveat--and what it means for you and your work.
First, get 500 volunteer workers
First, the research, which was reported recently in a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, and led by Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom and his graduate student James Liang (more on Liang in a minute).
Their paper was born from a big hole Bloom had found in previous research.
"Everything I saw was 'pro working from home,' and put out by people who were for it from the outset. The people against it have stayed quiet," Bloom told the TED Ideas blog recently.
(Bloom also has a TEDx Stanford talk called "Go Ahead, Tell Your Boss You Are Working From Home." It's embedded at the end of this article.)
So Bloom set out to conduct his own, rigorous study. Challenge number one was how hard it was to find a large number of research subjects working in similar jobs, who could divide into work-at-home and work-at-the-office cohorts, and who were willing to cooperate with the researchers over a long enough period of time.
But the solution was sitting right in front of him: Bloom's graduate student Liang, who was also CEO and co-founder of China's biggest travel agency. He recruited 500 volunteers from his company's call center in Shanghai for the study, half of whom were accepted.
Work at home wins*
Here's how the research worked. Accepted volunteers had to have been with Liang's company, CTrip, for more than six months, and they had to have a private room at home to work from, with decent broadband internet. Then, the volunteers were randomly divided into two groups--the ones who would work from home four days a week, and the ones who would remain behind, working in the company's offices.