11/28/2020 Are workers ‘stealing’ time from their companies when working from home? Some employers say yes — but studies say just the opposit… This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com BUSINESS Are workers ‘stealing’ time from their companies when working from home? Some employers say yes — but studies say just the opposite By Sean Frankling Special to the Star Sat., Nov. 28, 2020 5 min. read Article was updated 15 hrs ago JOIN THE CONVERSATION ( 23 ) When Howard Levitt’s downtown Toronto law firm had to send employees home during the pandemic’s first lockdown in March, he saw a 30 per cent dip in the practice’s billable hours. “Employees may genuinely believe they’re being productive, but that doesn’t mean they’re being productive,” Levitt says. As an employment lawyer, Levitt says he would expect to see similar drops in any business that has employees working from home, pandemic or not. The reason, he says, is not only because of the difficulties co-ordinating teams remotely, but also due to what a recent column he wrote for the National Post called the “insidious trend” of time theft, a trend he says is rising in the move to remote working. In his piece, Levitt defines time theft as “an employee not working despite being paid for their time.” Without the supervision of an office environment, employees working from home are more likely to spend work hours on distractions, he says. The online reaction to that article has not been friendly. https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/11/28/are-workers-stealing-time-from-their-companies-when-working-from-home-some-employers-say-yes-but… 1/4 11/28/2020 Are workers ‘stealing’ time from their companies when working from home? Some employers say yes — but studies say just the opposit… “I don’t think for 25 years I’ve had this much hate mail,” Levitt says. “People don’t want someone to tell their employer, ‘You might be getting ripped off.’” Jho Nazal, a student adviser at the University of Toronto who has been working from home during COVID-19, says the transition to remote working wasn’t easy, from setting up her home office to finding ways to replace in-person conversations with students. “I’m not as fast (at home) as I used to be,” Nazal says. But while it was common for her to put in extra time before the pandemic, Nazal says, she’s working even longer hours since the switch to remote work. “If nothing distracts me, I just keep going. Eighteen hours isn’t foreign to me.” Nazal says she takes pride in her work, and does the extra work voluntarily — no one is pushing her to. “That’s just my attitude toward work,” she says. While not everyone works as many hours in a day as Nazal, Andrew Caldwell, an advisory team lead for HR consultancy firm Peninsula Canada, says Nazal’s experience is common. “There are going to be times when employees get up to stretch their legs because they’re at home,” Caldwell says. “Some employees may take more breaks throughout the day, but they’ll probably start earlier and end later.” Caldwell tells employers who are concerned about time theft that the enforcement question comes down to how performance was being measured before COVID-19 sent workers home. “Was it just a visual cue? ‘I’m looking at (a worker) on his iPad and he’s doing work, great?’ Or is there actually something you can quantify?” Caldwell says. That approach makes sense for salaried employees, he says, who account for the overwhelming majority of work-from-home jobs, according to Statistics Canada data. “Those who work hourly are not in the kinds of jobs you usually find in a working-from-home position,” Caldwell says. In fact, data shows workers who continue to leave the home for work are more likely to be risking infection, or simply be laid off. But for those lucky enough to have salaried remote-working positions, Caldwell says meeting productivity standards may be more important than strict adherence to specific hours. “The 9 to 5 was this, I don’t want to say ‘archaic’ structure, but … a different workflow doesn’t mean people aren’t productive.” Levitt disagrees. https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/11/28/are-workers-stealing-time-from-their-companies-when-working-from-home-some-employers-say-yes-but… 2/4 11/28/2020 Are workers ‘stealing’ time from their companies when working from home? Some employers say yes — but studies say just the opposit… “People have a set number of hours per day and per week,” he says, even for salaried workers. “That’s what the wage bargain is premised upon.” “When people know that it won’t be detected if they go to a friend’s house and bake a cake (they’ll do it),” Levitt continues. “It’s just human nature. We had people who were slacking off before. Those people are going to do it with impunity.” From a research perspective, though, things are less clear. Before COVID-19, there was already controversy around remote working. Some studies claimed it boosted productivity, while others showed productivity took a hit. By forcing up to 40 per cent of Canadian workers into work-from-home roles, according to Statistics Canada data, the pandemic’s lockdown may provide the greatest experiment in remote work of our time. Because the crisis is so recent, analysis is sparse, but early numbers don’t appear to support a surge in time theft. For example, a report from Aternity, a company based in Cambridge, Mass., that provides software usage and performance analytics, seems to support Caldwell’s view. It showed that in the early days of the pandemic, employees got fewer tasks done per hour on software, but the number of hours they spent using those applications rose by an average 23 per cent across North America, offsetting the slowed pace. Meanwhile, a survey by human resources firm OI Global Partners headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., surveyed business and HR leaders at 585 companies of all sizes across 16 countries. It found that 39 per cent reported no change in worker productivity since COVID-19 began, and 43 per cent actually reported improvement. Seventy-one per cent reported their organizations would pursue a hybrid of office and remote work after the pandemic. Salina Williams, a senior consultant with the OI Global Partners’ Canadian partner organization, Feldman Daxon, says participants in her recent HR think tank confirmed those results. “We heard there was a surprising level of either increasing or maintaining productivity through going virtual,” Williams says. And time theft, “has not come up at all. They’re more concerned about making sure their employees are supported, connected and not overworking.” That element of care is critical to productivity, says Deanna Simms, a clinical psychologist for the Canadian Mental Health Association. Stress from balancing pandemic anxiety, work and family life can wear down employee concentration, or risk causing burnout from trying to keep up. So employers who see productivity slipping may need to focus on their workers’ health first, Simms says. “We actually have to encourage people to set healthy boundaries. Logging off at the end of the work day,” she says. “When we improve well-being, we improve performance indicators.” Nazal says she’s getting the hang of working from home, despite the stress and uncertainty of the early days. At this point in the pandemic, she says she feels safe at home. “If I was at work, I’d always have that question mark in my mind. Being out in public scares the heck out of me.” For his part, Levitt brought his employees back to the office on alternate days as soon as he was able, just three months after closing down, which he says fixed the gap in billable hours. “Why does sympathy for employees mean you have to let them work from home if you have precautions in the workplace?” Levitt says. Despite Toronto and Peel regions having reimposed lockdown restrictions on businesses and gatherings, Levitt says his employees will continue to come to the office, following all safety measures. “We are not suffering the disadvantages of lawyers attempting to work remotely as we have access to everything we need,” he says. Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/11/28/are-workers-stealing-time-from-their-companies-when-working-from-home-some-employers-say-yes-but… 3/4 11/28/2020 Are workers ‘stealing’ time from their companies when working from home? Some employers say yes — but studies say just the opposit… https://www.thestar.com/business/2020/11/28/are-workers-stealing-time-from-their-companies-when-working-from-home-some-employers-say-yes-but… 4/4
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