So my question: Is there any published data or research on WFH vs Remote productivity?
(2021) "developer productivity was stable or increasing at Microsoft and elsewhere post-COVID.” (Still, 30 percent of the company’s workers who were surveyed reported lower productivity during the pandemic.) More recently, however, Microsoft researchers concluded that “firm-wide remote work caused the collaboration network of workers to become more static and siloed, with fewer bridges between disparate parts.” . . . In the case study of the Chinese company, published in 2015, productivity went up 13 percent among those who worked at home. In the U.S. case study, employees who went remote — this, too, happened before the pandemic — saw their calls per hour increase by 7.5 percent, a healthy boost to short-run productivity. . . . But in both studies, the probability of being promoted for the remote workers roughly halved relative to people who worked in person — suggesting serious long-term consequences of remote work. In the U.S. study, for example, 23 percent of on-site workers were promoted within their first 12 months of work, while the remote promotion rate was 10 percent. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/24/working-ho...
(2023) WFH makes newbies 18% less productive: https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515
Everything I see is it's either a slight increase or a more significant decrease. You could argue everyone's in cahoots with commercial real estate barons, but it seems like the data backs RTO, from a "productivity" standpoint.
My interns (for some reason) are eligible to work from home, which they do regularly. But without in person interaction they do almost nothing and have no motivation because they don't feel like they are part of something.
With just two days of in person collaboration they have achieved a week's worth of progress, not because they are being watched but because they feel like they have direction and the work has value.
For people new to thev work and the company tools and processes its hard to get that feeling working remotely.
Also, I wonder how many of those studies took children into account. Now that COVID lockdowns are over people can work at home without the family present which definitely leads to fewer interruptions.