Original title: a recent international case study shows that telecommuting affects collaboration among colleagues
Beijing, September 10 (reporter Sun Zifa) - a sociological research paper published by Springer nature's open access professional academic journal Nature human behavior said that from December 2019 to June 2020, researchers conducted a case study on about 61000 Microsoft American employees, Its company wide telecommuting will make the employee collaboration network more decentralized and isolated, resulting in reduced real-time communication, such as shortening the duration of regular meetings.
The early implementation of home office policy in COVID-19 has enabled almost all employees of many companies to enter the telecommuting mode quickly. The author and the research team of Microsoft Corporation in the United States used this change in working mode to analyze the impact of telecommuting on cooperation and communication mode. They borrowed a large anonymous data set covering email, telephone, regular and irregular meetings and instant messaging of Microsoft American employees to study how these communication methods will change when more employees switch from corporate office to remote office.
They found that in the case of telecommuting throughout the company, employees' contact with colleagues in other business teams will be reduced, and their working time with colleagues working across teams (who are also more likely to bring new information) will be reduced. In addition, telecommuting will also reduce real-time communication, such as shortening the duration of regular audio and video meetings; Increase in the number of emails and instant messages; The average working hours per week were extended.
The author concludes that the company wide telecommuting will change the mode of communication and cooperation, which may reduce the opportunities of cross team cooperation. (end)