Working from home is one of the major changes that the coronavirus pandemic has brought in our lives, among others. And while we may not realise it, a study suggests that an average workday from home lasts 48.5 minutes longer than usual.
The study conducted on 3.1 million people at more than 21,000 companies across 16 cities in North America, Europe and the Middle East aimed at studying behaviour of employees working from home, over two 8 week periods, before and after Covid-19 lockdown.
The results suggest that while employees log in to work for longer hours, their meetings have also increased by about 13%. It was also observed that people sent an average of 1.4 more emails per day to their colleagues.
According to the same study, people have been logging in at odd hours and working till late. Some of the respondents have attributed this change to child care demands, blurring boundaries between work and home, and the stresses of an economic recession.
As a major part of the world population continues working from homes, more and more companies want to study its impact on productivity and morale of employees, along with the costs for employers.
Researchers involved in the study also said that it still needs to be seen if the pandemic has changed people’s habits permanently or not.