Work from home is popular but its productivity isn’t settled yet

Source: The post is based on an article “Work from home is popular but its productivity isn’t settled yet” published in The Live Mint on 21^st September 2022.

Syllabus: GS 3

Relevance: demand for work from home in India and in other countries.

News:  

There is a report on Work Form Home published by National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recently.

The survey was based on teleworking industries (information technology, finance, professions such as law, education, public administration, etc.)

The report has taken the surveys of 27 countries of which India is also the part. The report provides the attitude of the individual towards work from home.

What are the highlights of the report?

Number of working days: According to the survey Indians were working 2.6 days in a week from home compared to 1.5 days of the countries across the world.

No. of days offered to by the employers: An average of 1.8 days in a week WFH was offered by the employers in India compared to global average of 0.7 days.

No. of days desired by employees: Indians want to WFH on an average of 2.1 days in a week whereas the average of people around the world is 1.7 days in a week.

The gap between employee hopes and employer intentions about WFH was the lowest in India.

Giving income: Indians are ready to give up 6.9% of their income in order to get two or three days of WFH whereas the global average is 5%.

Mostly women were ready to give up their income for WFH because of the responsibilities of the household work that they have to take in most countries.

Travelling time: One of the advantages of WFH is that it saves the travelling time. The average travelling time for the employees across the world is 65 minutes.

Chinese employees spend the highest time in travelling with 96 minutes while Indian employees spend around 65 minutes travelling time.

Productivity: The productivity of the employees went up by 6.7% while working from home at the global level while the productivity in India increased by 9.8%.