The working-from-home illusion fades

I can't read the whole thing but who published the original paper probably says it all:

>published in May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

is it just me or do they have an interest in people going back into office? How much do they have in commercial real estate that's probably in the toilet right now?

Here’s the research directly from the source, unadulterated by whatever angle the economist is pushing.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr1061

> Unfortunately for the believers, new research mostly runs counter to this, showing that offices, for all their flaws, remain essential. A good starting point is a working paper that received much attention when it was published in 2020 by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington, then both doctoral students at Harvard University. They found an 8% increase in the number of calls handled per hour by employees of an online retailer that had shifted from offices to homes. Far less noticed was a revised version of their paper, published in May by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The boost to efficiency had instead become a 4% decline. The researchers had not made a mistake. Rather, they received more precise data, including detailed work schedules. Not only did employees answer fewer calls when remote, the quality of their interactions suffered. They put customers on hold for longer. More also phoned back, an indication of unresolved problems.

It's not for everyone and so is working from office. If you worked like this all life and suddenly you're forced to full time WFH, you may find that out yourself, no need for articles with an agenda. For me it's the opposite now, can't imagine going back to full time office. I've experienced some of the best time in my career during WFH when subjectively looking at how content I was overall. Granted, the company and the team must be awesome, but guess what, same applies to office work.

tl;dr the clickbait title illusion intensifies