Working from home may be more productive – but nothing beats the conversations we used to have in person

Working with sustained concentration for longer stretches is easier now, yet there is a downside to missing out on the chance interactions I’d have with other journalists every day, writes John Rentoul

Flying solo: emails and messages just aren’t the same (Getty/iStockphoto)

My favourite American economist, Tyler Cowen, has dug out a research paper from six years ago about the benefits of working from home. The study found that home working led to a significant improvement in performance, as well as higher worker satisfaction and therefore lower staff turnover – but that home workers were less likely to be promoted.

Many of us are now in the middle of a larger experiment, and it will be interesting to see if those results, from a Chinese travel agency call centre, will be replicated, and if so, how much of a permanent increase in home working there will be when the coronavirus pandemic has receded.

I suppose it is different for different personalities and for different jobs, and my experience is hardly typical. But I can report that I am more productive, in that I work longer hours, mainly because my government-approved exercise takes less time than my commuting used to.