Employee Innovation During Office Work, Work from Home and Hybrid Work

38 Pages Posted: 31 Jul 2024

See all articles by Michael Gibbs

Michael Gibbs

University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Friederike Mengel

University of Essex - Department of Economics

Christoph Siemroth

University of Essex - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 29, 2024

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic forced firms globally to shift workforces to working from home [WFH]. Firms are now struggling to implement a return to working from the office [WFO], as employees enjoy the significant benefits of WFH for their work-life balance. Therefore many firms are adopting a hybrid model in which employees work partly from the office and partly from home. We use unique and detailed data from an Indian IT services firm which contains a precise measure of innovation activity of over 48,000 employees in these three work environments. Our key outcomes are the quantity and quality of ideas submitted by employees. Based on an event study design, the quantity of ideas did not change during the WFH period as compared to WFO, but the quality of ideas suffered. During the later hybrid period, the quantity of submitted ideas fell. In the hybrid phase innovation suffered particularly in teams which were not well coordinated in terms of when they worked at the office or from home. Our findings suggest that remote and hybrid work modes may inhibit collaboration and innovation.

Keywords: Collaboration, Coordination, Innovation, Working From Home, Hybrid Work, Telecommuting

Suggested Citation

Gibbs, Michael and Mengel, Friederike and Siemroth, Christoph, Employee Innovation During Office Work, Work from Home and Hybrid Work (July 29, 2024). University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2024-89, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4909536 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4909536

Michael Gibbs (Contact Author)

University of Chicago Booth School of Business ( email )

5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Friederike Mengel

University of Essex - Department of Economics ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

Christoph Siemroth

University of Essex - Department of Economics ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/site/csiemroth/

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