Home Sweet Home: Working from Home and Employee Performance during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK

Abstract

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced governments in many countries to ask employees to work from home (WFH) where possible. Using representative data of the employed respondents from the UK, we find that the pandemic-led increases in WFH frequency are associated with a higher self-perceived hourly productivity, notably among female employees working in occupations conducive to WFH. Interestingly, changes in WFH frequency are unrelated to the respondents' weekly working hours (and weekly wages) during the same period. We then perform effect heterogeneity analysis by separately focusing on males and females working in WFH feasible occupations. For males, we find that the WFH-productivity correlation is stronger among those who commuted larger distances (and spent longer commuting time) to the office before the pandemic. For females, while we observe a stronger WFH-productivity correlation among those with higher autonomy over work pace, a weaker correlation is found among mothers with school-age children, mainly due to increased homeschooling needs during the pandemic. Finally, looking at the future of WFH, we show that employees' recent WFH experience and subsequent hourly productivity are intimately associated with their desire to undertake WFH in the future.