The Work From Home Revolution with Nicholas Bloom (video)

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Key Takeaways:

Before the pandemic, about 7% of workdays were from home; at the peak, more than half of all workdays in the U.S. were remote. With support from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Bloom is leading research to discover whether working from home leads to increased entrepreneurship and more equitable wealth distribution.

Nicholas Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, where he is also a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and is the Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In this Stories of Impact video, Bloom shares what he and his team at WFH Research and its Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA) have uncovered about how this shift is affecting different workers.  SWAA is a monthly survey of 2,500–10,000 U.S. residents ages 20–64, tracking working-from-home patterns and employer plans. Bloom says the team set up SWAA in 2020, surveying 10,000 Americans a month using online surveys that can return results quickly, and pairing that with other data sources to “see the bigger picture.” The survey asks “very basic questions” on “demographics, age, gender, education… where you live… which industry you work in, and how many days is it on premises versus at home... and because it’s online, you can get 10,000 answers back within 48 hours.”

Bloom stresses that productivity is “a very complicated question” and depends on the job. He notes that for many roles, productivity “is zero remotely,” while for a big share of hybrid-eligible jobs it looks “neither better nor worse.” To test this, he describes a large randomized controlled trial: the team took 1,600 employees in marketing, accounting, and finance and randomized whether they came in five days a week or three. The team found “their productivity was unchanged.” He adds that a smaller slice of jobs can be “more efficient, more productive” fully remote. Taken together with what SWAA is tracking, like how many people are working from home two days a week or more, and how highly workers value that flexibility, Bloom feels that: “The rise in work from home has been a huge driver of human flourishing; we’re all dramatically better off.”

Watch the video to learn more details, including:

• Why many workers value being able to work from home 2–3 days a week as much as a pay increase.
• What saving time by not commuting means for sleep, family, exercise, and leisure.
• How work from home has already enabled around half a million people with disabilities to enter the labor force, turning a “massive social win” for inclusion into fiscal and productivity gains.
• Why firms benefit too, and what randomized controlled trials say about productivity in fully in-person, hybrid, and fully remote roles.
• The broader societal impacts: from suburban booms and changing downtowns, to reduced congestion and pollution, to effects on family size in dual–work-from-home households.
• The downsides: what about remote work may harm promotion prospects, and why the mental health impact varies dramatically for WFH workers.
• Why Bloom likens WFH to “beer or wine: good in moderation,” and why he believes hybrid work is here to stay, even as AI reshapes the future of fully remote jobs.

Find out more about the related TWCF-supported research project here.

Listen to the related podcast: What Remote Work Reveals About Equity and Innovation with Dr. Nicholas Bloom (podcast)

Created by TWCF grantee, journalist, and senior media executive Richard Sergay and his team at Rebel Media, the award-winning “Stories of Impact” video series weaves together in-depth interviews, engaging narratives, and critical perspectives to explore scientific discoveries and fresh insights into life’s deepest questions. The videos illuminate the individual and societal impact of research at the intersection of science and spirituality, and serve as a basis for the podcast of the same name. The video series has received multiple honors, including Webby and Gold Telly Awards.