Work Flexibility, Popular With Employees, Is Hardly a Holy Grail

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Humanyze’s president and co-founder, Ben Waber in an article on work flexibility. Here are some excerpts…

The most recent jobs report from the Labor Department showed that four million people quit their jobs in April, taking the quits rate, or quits as a share of employment, to a record 2.7%. But luring workers with more flexibility isn’t without downside. As president and co-founder of behavioral analytics company Humanyze, Ben Waber has studied team dynamics and work patterns for over a
decade. He cautions that companies are taking big swings on remote work based on little to no data. Major effects take many innings to play out.

 

Mr. Waber’s research highlights how communication is often sacrificed in a fully remote workforce, and the deficit isn’t always perceived. In one survey he ran, the vast majority of employees said connectivity improved or stayed the same through remote work, even while he found a 21% reduction in connections outside of an employee’s core contacts. Among one of his Fortune 500 clients, he notes communication went up by 20% when employees worked in person just one day a week.

To read the full article follow this link.

Last Updated 29 June 2021