Snow day? For some, the office comes home

With many businesses adopting remote-working policies, less productivity can be lost during severe winter weather outbreaks.

Last week’s weather led to widespread school closings, lots of flight delays or cancellations and unusually empty highways as people followed officials’ advice to stay off the roads. For Deanna Peters of Smyrna, it led to a boost in getting stuff done. She works in supply chain technology and accomplished more during the days she worked from home than she would have otherwise.

“I didn’t miss a beat,” said Peters, who worked from home two days last week due to the weather. “I participated in several conference calls and conducted web-based training with plants in other states. Both days were highly productive.”

Getting “back to business” lessened her efficiency.

“Returning to the office sucked the soul right out of me,” she said. “Between the lack of quiet and the folks ‘stopping by,’ I was there 30 minutes before I actually got started on my day.”

Sadly, working remotely for her is an option only when weather forces it.

“I think our bosses still put too much value on ‘butts in a chair’ as an indicator of productivity,” she said. “Seems that having us sitting in cubicles is some kind of security blanket for managers.”

A 2015 report by the The Quarterly Journal of Economics studied what happened when a firm of 16,000 employees embraced remote options. Among the findings: a 13 percent performance increase, improved work satisfaction and an attrition rate cut in half.

More recently, Gallup’s 2017 State of the American Workplace study, which used data from more than 195,600 U.S. employees, “found that flexible scheduling and work-from-home opportunities play a major role in an employee’s decision to take or leave a job. Employees are pushing companies to break down the long-established structures and policies that traditionally have influenced their workdays.”

But despite empirical and anecdotal evidence in support of remote options, there’s been high-profile resistance to the trend. Former Yahoo CEO’s Marissa Mayer’s decision to abruptly cancel telecommute options so infuriated employees that the memo announcing the remote-option ban, labeled “PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION — DO NOT FORWARD,” was immediately leaked.

“It’s outrageous and a morale killer,” an anonymous Yahooer told Kara Swisher, then at All Things D, who broke the story. Swisher is now executive editor of Recode, host of the “Recode Decode” podcast and co-executive producer of the Code Conference. Mayer exited Yahoo after five years of “slowing growth and internal dissent, leading to plummeting employee morale and calls for her resignation,” Business Insider reported.

There’s no official accounting of how many in metro Atlanta worked remotely due to weather last week, but the temporary lull in traffic suggests many did. Ahead of and during the frosty precipitation, Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Natalie Dale repeatedly urged motorists to stay off the roads — “My advice is to take my advice” and stay put, she said during a radio interview with WSB. Although area police and fire departments responded to hundreds of incidents, it seems like many residents decided to take Dale’s words to heart.

“While there were numerous wrecks out there, people seemed to quickly realize the roads were bad,” WSB radio traffic reporter Doug Turnbull said. “Multiple jackknifed trucks blocked I-85 in Braselton and I-20 in Covington (the morning of Jan. 17). The traffic volume was extremely light, however, allowing crews to better treat the interstates and side roads. All that said, first responders would not have had their hands nearly as full if people had heeded the warnings.”

Georgia Commute Options marketing director Malika Reed Wilkins hopes the temporary traffic respite signaled an embrace of remote working options that employers can embrace even when the weather is fine.

“Inclement weather (events) are times you can test teleworking. It’s great for employers who don’t have a formal program in place to test out teleworking,” she said. “The more we can get people trying transit, carpooling, teleworking — the better for all of us.”

She did raise a caution flag for remote workers: Without the structural mechanics of driving to an office, it’s easy for working off-site to drift into working-all-the-time.

“Set up your environment, establish office hours, set some boundaries around that telework,” Wilkins said. Her agency, part of the Georgia Department of Transportation, works with 600 employers, 33 percent of whom have a formal telecommuting policy in place. She’s hopeful others, perhaps those forced by the recent weather to test-drive the option, will consider joining them.

“This is an opportunity,” she said, “one of those change moments.”

SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM JOHN Atlanta’s roads were unusually empty for a few days last week.