More people than ever are working from home, whether they want to or not. This, of course, presents never-before-anticipated challenges as we all try to figure out how to be productive and navigate distractions—like say our kids—that we might not have if we were working at a regular place of business instead of our home. Well, a new study conducted by workplace research and advisory firm Valoir has some good news for everyone working from home and even better news for parents working from home because it turns out that according to the study, parents working from home are more productive than those without kids.
More from MamásLatinas: How to stay focused and work from home when you have kids
Can I just say that as someone who has been working from home for years and who currently has to juggle having the kids at home while I’m trying to work that I am not surprised by the study’s findings? My productivity has not suffered since my kids have been at home because I’ve had to force myself to be stricter than ever and I’m not talking about being stricter with my kids. I’m stricter with myself. My kids are really the only distraction from work that I currently allow and I know I don’t have time to waste, so I don’t waste time on things like social media or trying to get a load of laundry in while I’m working anymore.
But enough about me. Let’s get back to what the study found by polling 327 workers throughout North America. We’ll start off with the part about parents being more productive than non-parents. Then we’ll share some other fascinating findings from the study that might inform how we approach working from home in the future.
There's good news for everyone about working from home.
According to the study, “Moving to remote work has a negligible negative impact on productivity, even for those working at home with children, who reported only a 2 percent productivity decrease.” The reported productivity decrease for those working at home without kids was 3%. That’s only a 1% difference as compared to those with kids, but still the decrease for parents is lower and as parents we can’t help but notice. So, go on with your bad selves mamas and papas working from home. We see you and we applaud you.
The average work day is longer when you work from home.
Given that there do tend to be more distractions when you work from home, those polled compensate by working longer hours to make up the difference. The study found that workers are “spending an average of 9.75 hours a day on the clock.”
The biggest distraction that workers face is still the same.
The biggest distraction that workers face at home is no different than the biggest distraction they faced before working from home: It’s social media. Almost a third of “respondents ranked it as their biggest distraction, devoting an average of nearly 2 hours a day to it.” What’s the takeaway? Get off and stay off social media during your work hours.
The tech challenge struggle is real.
“Reliable broadband access is by far the biggest tech challenge for all. Workers are spending 3% of their work time on tech-related issues.” Who can’t relate to that finding? It’s so frustrating when things go wrong on the tech side.
When and if things go back to normal, a lot of workers would sill rather work from home.
Over 40% of those surveyed would like to keep working from home full time in the future. Makes sense. You certainly can’t beat the commute and as we get better at dealing with technical problems, working from home will only get easier. It will be interesting to see if more employers decide to make working from home a regular option in the future.
