Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bloom, Nicholas; Liang, James; Roberts, John; Ying, Zhichun Jenny
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; National Bureau of Economic Research; Peking University; Stanford University; Cornerstone Research
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qju032
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 165-218
• 关键词: management; PRODUCTIVITY; EFFICIENCY; ECONOMICS

摘要

A rising share of employees now regularly engage in working from home (WFH), but there are concerns this can lead to shirking from home. We report the results of a WFH experiment at Ctrip, a 16,000-employee, NASDAQ-listed Chinese travel agency. Call center employees who volunteered to WFH were randomly assigned either to work from home or in the office for nine months. Home working led to a 13% performance increase, of which 9% was from working more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick days) and 4% from more calls per minute (attributed to a quieter and more convenient working environment). Home workers also reported improved work satisfaction, and their attrition rate halved, but their promotion rate conditional on performance fell. Due to the success of the experiment, Ctrip rolled out the option to WFH to the whole firm and allowed the experimental employees to reselect between the home and office. Interestingly, over half of them switched, which led to the gains from WFH almost doubling to 22%. This highlights the benefits of learning and selection effects when adopting modern management practices like WFH. JEL Codes: D24, L23, L84, M11, M54, O31.