Stanford study: Hybrid work does not damage performance, ‘improves retention’
(KRON) — Despite the pandemic occurring nearly four years ago, approximately 11 million workers worldwide now spend a mix of days at home and in the office each week. Researchers at Stanford and their affiliates recently answered the question of whether or not that negatively affects an employee’s performance.
“The results are clear: Hybrid work is a win-win-win for employee productivity, performance, and retention,” said Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist and author of this study. According to Bloom, hybrid work not only doesn’t negatively affect a worker’s performance but also improves job satisfaction and reduces quit rates by one-third, the study published on June 12 states.
Gig-economy staffing agency sued for misclassifying workers: SF City Attorney
The experiment occurred at Trip.com, one of the largest global travel agents by sales in 2019. It was worth $20 billion at the time of the experiment and roughly 35,000 employees. In the summer of 2021, the Shanghai-based company experimented by getting approximately 1,600 employees in “engineering, marketing and finance positions,” with 395 employees in managerial positions, the study states.
To track employee performance, researchers required the company to conduct six monthly performance reviews for two years. When researchers compared a hybrid engineer’s line of code with one who works in person, “across all review periods, [research] found no difference in reviews between the treatment and control groups” and that it “did not affect performance grades over the next two years of reviews,” the study read.
Not only does hybrid work not negatively affect performance, but according to the study, it also “found no evidence for a difference in promotions over the next two years overall, or any major employee subgroup.”
One of the largest incentives behind remote work, according to the study, is having a larger work-life balance. With the incorporation of a hybrid schedule to select workers, employees in the treatment group showed “significantly higher scores on a scale from 0 to 10 in ‘work-life balance’, ‘work satisfaction’, ‘life satisfaction’ and ‘recommendation to friends’, and significantly lower scores in ‘intention to quit,’” the study reads.
The “intention to quit” section of the study was one of the most impactful sections of the experiment. According to the study, the experiment had an “especially strong effect” on managers, women, and those with longer commutes. There was a 54% reduction in quit rates for female employees and 16% for men, leading to a 33% cut in attrition overall, the study states.
Hybrid work has positively affected an employee’s work-life balance and changed a manager’s negative preconceived notions of remote work. According to the study, the experiment’s 395 managers went from a -2.6% perceived image of hybrid work to a perceived positive of +1% after the experiment, the study states.
One of the main cons that come with hybrid work, according to the study, is that employees had a nearly 13% decrease in volunteer rates, “matching the media sentiment that although non-managerial employees are enthusiastic about working from home, many managers are not.”
Per the study, researchers believe these results indicate that a hybrid schedule with two days a week working from home does not damage performance.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4.
