Remote work myths

By many accounts, remote work looks promising.

At Mercer, an HR and workplace benefits consulting firm, for example, 94% of employers surveyed said that productivity was on par or higher when working remotely compared to before the pandemic.

Yet while many focus on productivity as the metric of remote work success, this clouds the true realities. If leaders don’t recognize the paradoxes and misconceptions that are at play in remote work environments, these short-term boons in productivity are likely to become longterm busts.

Here’s a look at some work-from-home myths and what you should do to correct them:

1. Productivity does not equal hours worked.

It’s easy to mistake productivity for time spent working, but a minute worked is rarely a productive minute. Recent research by Asana, where I work, found that in this remote work environment, 60% of workers’ time is spent on “work about work” — sitting in unproductive meetings, checking email and prioritizing work, for example.

Twitter’s shift to allowing most of its employees to work remotely indefinitely began with an “off-the-cuff email” from CEO Jack Dorsey that encouraged employees to work from home after he’d been “productive” doing so. Yet most senior executives have help to schedule their meetings, prioritize their time and respond to emails, as well as subordinates to search for information for them. Executives often don’t realize how much time their workers spend on “work about work” — work that employees typically don’t have the luxury of offloading to others.

So when executives look at how productive their employees have been during this past year, they often don’t consider the crippling “work about work” that impedes productivity.

To succeed post-pandemic, leaders need to commit to focus on the work that matters most. One strategy for achieving this, which is especially effective for remote teams, involves setting clear goals around your team’s most important tasks. Dr. Sahar Yousef, a cognitive neuroscientist who runs the Becoming Superhuman Lab at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, has pioneered research on daily most important task (“MIT”) setting that involves each team member committing to one to three core priorities at the start of each day.

2. Access does not equal connection.

Zoom fatigue has impacted us all this year. Most businesses have used Zoom in an attempt to replicate many in-office practices; Zooms have become surrogates for in-person meetings, quick check-ins, happy hours and more. But it’s dangerous to assume that greater access to our co-workers — through Zoom and Slack, for example — equates to increased connection. It doesn’t.

We haven’t yet found a way to meaningfully replicate the serendipitous watercooler conversations that transpire in the office. One recent study looked at the impact of those casual face-to-face interactions on performance and found that lunch meetings between two salespeople, during which they discussed sales approaches, boosted revenues for both by 24%. Clearly, these casual face-to-face interactions pack big punches that matter for the top line and should not be overlooked.

3. Less commute time does not equal more sleep.

One of the biggest boons associated with remote work is a shorter — or nonexistent

— commute. Yet we can’t assume that time saved commuting is reallocated to sleep. According to the Asana research, 26 % of workers get fewer than six hours of sleep per night.

Lack of sleep often goes hand in hand with burnout. According to Asana’s study, 7 in 10 workers experienced burnout at least once in the past year.

Sleep is the foundation of all performance. It is not a luxury but a necessity that improves the quality of every waking minute the next day.

Many are calling this shift to remote work an “experiment.” But it’s really not. This is real, and the changes leaders are making right now will leave lasting impacts on remote work practices moving forward. Only by shining light on the common misconceptions and pitfalls can leaders effectively assess whether remote or hybrid work can work for their businesses.

LIDERINA/DREAMSTIME