Remote workers are taking cues from college students. Instead of working 9 to 5 hours, they are breaking the work into overtime. That means late afternoons, for example, are fair game to do something fun. After all, if you’re planning to work that night, why not?
It seems like one person benefiting from the move to remote working are the golf courses. According to Stanford researchers, working from home “has created a huge boom in golf.”
The researchers, Nick Bloom and Alex Finan, studied data from the company Inrix for more than 3,400 golf courses and shared their findings in a recent paper. research paper titled “How working from home promotes golf.”
Comparing Wednesday 2022 with the same date in 2019, they found that the number of golfers playing more golf that day increased by 143% and increased by 278% when they played mid-afternoon that day.
The most likely explanation, they wrote, is that “employees are playing golf during a break from working from home.”
But that doesn’t mean productivity is affected, they note. “If the employee makes up the clock later,” this does not reduce productivity. Indeed, national productivity during/after the pandemic was strong.”
And, they note, this change is also helping golf courses: “Golf courses are being used more by playing scattered throughout the day and week, avoiding overcrowding on weekends and before/ after working hours. This will increase ‘golf productivity’—the number of golf courses played (and increased revenue) per course.”
But, Bloom noted in a tweet On March 11, completely remote working from home “is tapering off. Some jobs are getting mixed as bosses pull employees back two or three days a week.”
EQUAL Luck reported in January, more CEOs, including at Disney And Starbucksis asking for it workers begin to return to the office.
Bloom estimates that over the long term, a hybrid work-from-home arrangement will account for 50% of the work, 40% in-person, and 10% entirely remotely.
Due to the change, he said, the economy has been “twisted” in a number of ways. He noted in a tweet on Thursday: “Center for office usage, public transport, and retail activity shrunk Tuesday-Thursday, causing peak load issues . Suburban entertainment, sports and shopping have lasted all week, helping to reduce peak traffic from Saturday to Sunday before the pandemic.”
Not all bosses are opposed to the idea of allowing remote employees to take time off for recreation during work hours.
Stephanie Cunningham, a 27-year-old marketer, speak the The New York Times, that her employer favors her logging in earlier or later in the day to have time during work hours for other things, such as doing her hair or running errands: “My boss lets me have time for yourself. As long as I get my job done.”
Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary recently told CNN that managers need to change their strategies when it comes to teleworking, noting that a “new generation of employees” never worked in an office.
He said 44% of the employees in his venture portfolio work remotely but that “doesn’t change anything” in terms of productivity.
“You say to someone, ‘Listen, you have to get this done by noon next Friday.’ You don’t really care when they do it… as long as it’s done.”
