I am trying to get a 'feel' from the wide Gartner community for people's perspective on remote-worker efficiency/productivity. If you would add your selection and any notes, I would appreciate learning what others are observing?

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This cannot be generalised unfortunately. The productivity remote or in-office very much depends on the role itself AND the person.

I'd always take personality, circumstances, role & type of work to be done into consideration.

I have people working for me, who thrive remote and their productivity went up by miles, while others really like the office and thrive there.

Same for leaders: if the team they lead has the correct expectations, understanding and alignment on how they should work, it can work.

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I agree with Zsofia that we cannot generalized the outcome or effect.

However, for sure, the saving on commuting (from 30 minutes to 2 hours/day) has direct impact on the productivity. Instead of arriving at work already tired by the traffic or the long train ride, people are fresh when they open their computer.

Plus, if your child has an appointment at 2pm, instead of taking the whole day off, you'll manage through it.

On the minus side, you're lacking of the group sharing experience where everyone is helping out each other. You could no longer end up at someone desk overlooking his shoulder to find the answer to a problem.

But overall, I think it's only positive for "most" of the people depending of course of their role.

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I find it is highly dependent on the daily duties of the role and the personality and skills of the individual. It’s similar to all in office, some people are more successful than others. The location only has a little influence on a person’s productivity

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I agree with the other comments that the suitability of remote work largely depends on the individual and the situation. There's no denying that some people truly excel in a remote work environment.

However, my viewpoint may be seen as more controversial than most, but I'm open to sharing it. I am of the belief that remote work is a permanent fixture in our future. I postulate that many individuals will accept substantial pay reductions in order to have the flexibility to work remotely, mainly because employees greatly value this option for their mental well being and the many benefits it brings. As a leader who prioritizes mental health above all else, I maintain that if everyone is content and in good health, the quality of their work will improve, even if productivity diminishes. For these reasons, I stand by the notion of remote or hybrid work, despite the observations I am about to discuss below.

In my experience, remote work generally leads to diminished productivity. At the beginning of the lockdowns, it seemed that almost everyone was performing exceptionally well - whether this was to demonstrate that remote work could be just as effective as office work, I'm unsure. However, I and my colleagues have observed a significant decline in productivity levels as the years have gone by. This assertion is also supported by a growing body of recent literature. I believe we are starting to witness this trend more clearly. The initial year of remote work may have given us a somewhat distorted representation of its actual value. Admittedly, perhaps there are other factors involved. For example maybe there are better leadership styles that could be utilized to increase productivity. Either way, quality up is good enough when production is a bit down in my world.

On a related note, there have been some interesting peripheral observations. For instance, I am close with a few restaurant owners in town. The owners have mentioned to me that managing the lunch crowd became an immense challenge when people started working remotely post-pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, customers would typically take a relatively short lunch break and leave, but the onset of remote work led to people spending up to three hours at lunch, as opposed to the usual one to one-and-a-half hours. This wasn't an isolated incident, but a consistent pattern that continues today. I've also encountered numerous individuals in various places who openly admit to engaging in more non-work activities now that they have the flexibility provided by remote work.

I am trying to get a 'feel' from the wide Gartner community for people's perspective on remote-worker efficiency/productivity. If you would add your selection and any notes, I would appreciate learning what others are observing?

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