It comes amid prevalent concerns over the organisational impact of working from home during the pandemic, including reduced productivity and collaboration in the workforce.
But Bloom’s experiment reversed these productivity concerns for managers who participated.
“We also found that the 395 managers in the experiment revised their surveyed views about the effect of hybrid working on productivity, from a perceived negative effect (−2.6% on average) before the experiment to a perceived positive one (+1.0%) after the experiment,” the report read.
In fact, the experiment was so successful for Trip.com that an executive committee there voted to extend the hybrid WFH policy to all employees with immediate effect, the report said.
“Their logic was that each quit cost the company approximately US$20,000 in recruitment and training, so a one-third reduction in attrition for the firm would generate millions of dollars in savings,” it added.