Productivity in the home office: A question of mentality
The productivity of employees in home offices during the COVID-19 pandemic correlates strongly with the mentality ("mindset") and the resulting feelings of the employees, as a study by the University of Zurich, the ZHAW and the company atwork shows.
What is the basic attitude of employees to the topic of home office? What emotions did they feel when they had to work from home? And what about their productivity in the home office? These topics were investigated during five weeks from mid-April to mid-May 2020, during which many employees worked from home for the first time due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
Study confirms: Positive attitude promotes productivity in the home office
In terms of mindset, the individuals studied were differentiated according to whether they believe that the skills for working at home are innate (fixed mindset) or whether they believe that this new skill can be learned (growth mindset). Those individuals who assume innate ability in this regard (Fixed Mindset) viewed home office like a new challenge that they are not up to. They experienced more negative emotions such as frustration, guilt, or anxiety and few positive emotions, which directly affected their perceived productivity: individuals with strong negative emotions accomplished 31% fewer goals in the same week and 19% fewer goals in the following week than individuals with weak negative emotions. On the other hand, individuals with a Growth Mindset were significantly more motivated and productive in the home office, according to the study. Employees with the strongest positive feelings had achieved an average of 43% more goals in the same week than those with no positive feelings.
Companies can improve competitiveness
"If home office is going to last in the long term, companies need to be aware of what makes their employees happy and productive when they do so. Our study suggests that a certain personal attitude toward working from home is a crucial factor," says the study's lead author Dr. Lauren Howe of the University of Zurich. "If employees are happy, then their productivity measurably increases. So companies have a big incentive to support their employees as much as possible in the new work environment," says Marco Meister, Co-Founder & CEO of atwork. "In the future, the companies that will be successful will be those that know best about the difficulties and challenges their employees face and respond with targeted measures. This will enable them to increase productivity within the company and improve their competitiveness."
The study was conducted by Lauren Howe and Jochen Menges from the University of Zurich and co-developed by ZHAW and atwork. In the process, 113 home office employees were surveyed with four surveys each.
Source: atwork
