WeWork CEO says ‘least engaged’ people want to work from home. What do studies tell us?

WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani told a remote audience at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival that “least engaged” employees are very comfortable working from home.

The chief executive officer of communal work space company WeWork said that “uberly engaged” employees to come back to the office after the pandemic forced them to work from home. WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani’s statement triggered a backlash online as he told a remote audience at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival that “least engaged” employees are very comfortable working from home.

A survey found that individuals were facing a more difficult balance between home life and staying productive in their home offices.(Bloomberg)

“Those who are uberly engaged with the company want to go to the office two-thirds of the time, at least,” he said, adding that people are happier “when they come to work.”

According to Vox, critics questioned Mathrani’s motive behind his statement, pointing out that his livelihood depends on leasing office space. Amid uncertainty about demand for office space during the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19), WeWork announced in March that it would merge with special purposes acquisition company BowX Acquisition and seek a public listing for a second time. The company had reported about $750 million in debt in its old IPO filing.

What do various studies suggest?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, several studies have been conducted to gauge worker productivity while working from home. A survey conducted by Owl Labs found that individuals were facing a more difficult balance between home life and staying productive in their home offices. However, 77 per cent of respondents agreed that being able to work from home even after the pandemic would make them happier.

At the start of the pandemic, Microsoft published data on the number of times engineers submitted changes to the company’s computer code, a proxy for productivity. The tech giant said that they were “heartened by an early look at the numbers” relating to engineering productivity while working from a remote location. The graph showed that engineers were starting work earlier than usual and working later into the evenings. There wasn’t the typical lunchtime dip and only the mid-afternoon peaks were slightly lower than usual.

Another study by Harvard Business Review found that lockdown helped people focus on the work that “really matters” as they were spending 12% less time drawn into large meetings and 9% more time interacting with customers and external partners. “We do 50% more activities through personal choice — because we see them as important — and half as many because someone else asked us to,” the study said.

Eddy Ng, Smith professor of business at Queen’s University, told Vox that engagement and productivity, though correlated, aren’t necessarily equal. Ng, who studies remote work, said that engagement is a psychological state reflecting absorption and dedication at work while productivity refers to the quantitative output of a given job, per Vox. While she agreed that working from home could result in less engagement as employees have to juggle multiple demands, companies can get greater productivity out of working from home, reported Vox.

“At best, with the return to the office you can expect productivity to return to pre-pandemic levels, while you can actually get greater productivity out of working from home,” Ng was quoted as saying by Vox.