Newsletter Article
Member Benefit
Published Mon Apr 11 2022
When the pandemic caused a massive push for work-from-home arrangements, employers worried that productivity would suffer; however, the opposite was true. According to a new report from Deloitte, productivity rose during the pandemic. “We felt like it was going to bring our industry to a screeching halt, and creativity and productivity would be stunted. We felt like it would be difficult to hire people if you couldn’t sit across the table from them,” said Paul Silverglate, vice chairman and US technology sector leader at Deloitte. “I think one of the biggest breakthroughs was that flipping a switch and being virtual almost overnight worked. We feel like the pandemic for tech companies was kind of like a time machine that catapulted us tens of years into the future. We were pretty prepared for it from a work perspective, but we all thought you had to be physically together to be successful creatively right up until March of 2020 when you couldn’t anymore.” Deloitte broke down productivity into three measures, each serving a key purpose in allowing employees to be impactful in their roles: effectiveness, efficiency, and empowerment. “I was surprised by the sustainability of the spike in productivity. Commuting is not an efficient use of your time. Sitting in a car in traffic isn’t efficient, but if you can walk to your office and start working it allows you to be more productive,” Silverglate said. “I think now we are seeing very purposeful moments when you want to be working together \[in-person\], rather than being together just for the sake of it or out of habit. We are now having to reinvent and recreate what things need to happen together live and what can be well done virtually.”
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