Remote workers take cues from students. Instead of working 9 to 5, they spread their work around the clock. That means late afternoon, for example, is fair game for doing something fun. If you’re going to work later tonight, why not?
One of the beneficiaries of the shift to remote work, it seems, is the golf course. According to Stanford researchers, working from home “has created a huge boom in golf.”
Researchers, Nick Bloom and Alex Finan, studied data from the company Inrix for more than 3,400 golf courses and shared their findings in a new research paper titled “How Working from Home boosted Golf.”
Comparing Wednesdays in 2022 to the same day in 2019, they found a 143% increase in golfers playing more golf on that day, and a 278% increase in golfers playing that day during the day.
The most likely explanation, he wrote, is that “employees play golf during breaks while working from home.”
But that doesn’t mean productivity took a hit, they noted. “If employees make time later, “then this does not reduce productivity. Indeed, national productivity during/post-pandemic has been strong.
And, they note, the change also helps the golf course: “The golf course is being used more and more by spreading the play throughout the day and week, avoiding weekends and pre/post peak-loading work. This will raise the ‘golf productivity’ – the number of golf courses played (and revenue raised) per field.
However, Bloom notes in a tweet on March 11, work-from-home remotely “down. Some jobs will become hybrids as bosses drag employees back 2 or 3 days a week.
As fortune reported in January, other CEOs, including Disney and Starbucks, demanded that workers begin to return to the office.
In the long term, Bloom estimates, a hybrid work-from-home arrangement will be 50% work, 40% in-person, and 10% remote.
As a result of the shift, he said, the economy has been “twisted” in some ways. He noted in a tweet ana: “For offices, public transport and city centers shops have shrunk to Tue-Thurs, generating peak-load problems. Leisure, sports and suburban shopping has spread throughout the week, reducing the pre-pandemic Sat-Sun peak load.
Not all bosses are against the idea of telecommuting employees taking some time off for recreation during work hours.
Stephanie Cunningham, 27-year-old marketer, told the New York Timesif his employer supports him coming in earlier or later in the day to free up time during working hours for other things, such as getting his hair done or running errands: “My boss allows me to take time for myself. As long as I’m done with my work.”
Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary recently said on CNN that managers need to change their strategy because of the shift to remote work, noting that the “new generation” of employees has never worked in an office.
He said that 44% of employees in his portfolio of ventures work remotely, but “it doesn’t change anything” in terms of productivity.
“You tell anybody, ‘Look, you have to finish this by next Friday.’ You don’t care if they do it… as long as it’s done.