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In a world of information overload and filter-failure, I focus on helping HR students and young professionals by curating insights about what matters in the world of work, the new talent agenda and fueling curiosity. Welcome to smarter!

HRHeadStart #38: Evidence for Hybrid Work Effectiveness; Success Principles

Aug 2, 2022

If you are a new subscriber, welcome to HRHeadStart! Be sure to check out the most popular editions from the first half of 2022 and feel free to reply to this email with HR topics you are most curious about.

The Talent Agenda

There are tons of surveys covering employers’ ability/willingness to offer remote/hybrid work, employees’ preferences regarding hybrid/remote work, the “right” number of days in the office etc. What I have been looking forward to is research based on randomized control trials.

In a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research by a Stanford professor, the authors randomly assigned 1600+ workers at a tech firm (functions covered included engineering, marketing and finance) to hybrid or full-time onsite work based on their birthdays falling on even or odd numbers. The findings showed:

Hybrid work reduced attrition by 35% and increased employees’ self-reported satisfaction with work - thus highlighting how they value this benefit.
Hybrid work led to reduced number of hours worked on at-home days, but increased it on other days and weekends - thus indicating how hybrid work alters the structure of the working week.
The amount of messaging and video communications increased, showing how work tools are changing.
Hybrid employees self-reported a 1.8% productivity gain (the lines of code written jumped 8% but that may or may not be a good thing).

Dive into the detailed research here.

Working Better

Many readers of this newsletter are starting out in their careers at this time of the year or moving into new jobs. The first few months in a new organization can be overwhelming for some - way too many things to figure out, new relationships to build, new topics to master and ensuring you are on the right track. Some simple principles that might be helpful:

All jobs are temporary - it is how you show up and make others feel that’s remembered.
Embrace mistakes - they are inevitable when you are learning.
While formal education may be over, the real education begins now and never stops.

Tiny Thought

The opportunities to learn are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.