Microsoft’s work from home study raises concerns but doesn’t answer all questions
Before the pandemic, there was debate in some corners of the corporate world about the value of working from home versus being in the office full-time. As the pandemic gained momentum, many of us, including me, moved to full-time work from home because of our companies’ COVID work location policies.
Now companies are developing new policies and the debate is raging again.
In the midst of this, Microsoft conducted a study of 61,182 workers to determine how their sudden move to work from home impacted networks and collaboration for these workers. At a high-level, some of their findings showed that workers’ “synchronous communications”, like group meetings, decreased, and “asynchronous communications”, like messaging and emailing, increased. Their concern?
“These changes in communication media may have made it more difficult for workers to convey and process complex information.”
They were also concerned about decreases in collaboration as some of their other findings showed that workers didn’t make as many new connections in their networks and spent less time communicating with people who are “weaker ties” after switching to work from home.
I can’t cover the full findings, here, but the paper certainly surfaces some legitimate concerns that companies should think about when developing work location policies for the future.
At the same time, here are some examples of questions that come to my mind that the paper didn’t answer:
Since so many meetings are ineffective, is it possible that a reduction in group meetings has some benefits?
Are there potential benefits to shifting more communication to texting and emailing? In my experience, these are just in-time communications that tend to be brief and action-oriented. There can be productivity benefits to using these tools when it makes sense rather than scheduling meetings.
Since full-time work from home is new for most people, how many of the effects will be reversed as people get used to working from home?
Could training or systems counter some of the effects and how do the costs and ROI compare to leasing office space?
This is a complex issue, and while there are certainly benefits to employees working full-time in offices, companies must consider all factors when designing their work location policies.