DeepSummary
The podcast episode features an interview with Natalia Emanuel, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, discussing her research on the effects of remote work. She co-authored a paper examining how remote work impacts productivity, mentorship, and career growth for software engineers at a large tech company. The study found that when engineers worked in the same building, they received 22% more feedback and mentorship from colleagues, which initially reduced their productivity but ultimately benefited their skill development and long-term career prospects.
The research also revealed differences in the impact of remote work on junior versus senior employees and between men and women. Junior employees, especially women, received more feedback and mentorship when working in the office, which initially hindered their productivity but helped them build skills for future advancement. However, senior employees, particularly women, experienced a productivity boost when working remotely as they no longer had to spend as much time providing feedback to junior colleagues.
The discussion explores the potential implications of these findings, including the challenges of ensuring fair mentorship and growth opportunities in a remote work environment. It also touches on the broader impacts of remote work on work-life balance, social connections, and individual well-being.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Remote work can initially reduce productivity for junior employees, especially women, as they receive less mentorship and feedback from senior colleagues, but it can ultimately benefit their long-term skill development and career growth.
- Senior employees, particularly women, experience a productivity boost when working remotely as they no longer have to spend as much time providing feedback and mentorship to junior colleagues.
- The study found that even having one remote colleague on a team can significantly reduce the benefits of in-person collaboration and mentorship.
- The impact of remote work on individual well-being and work-life balance is still unclear, with potential benefits and drawbacks.
- The study focused on software engineers, which may be a best-case scenario for remote work due to the digital nature of their output and established mechanisms for online feedback and collaboration.
- The research design, utilizing a control group of employees who were already working remotely before the pandemic, allowed the researchers to isolate the effects of remote work from the broader impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The findings challenge the popular narrative that remote work is universally beneficial for employees and detrimental for employers, highlighting the nuanced trade-offs and varying impacts on different groups of employees.
- The study underscores the importance of fair mentorship and growth opportunities in a remote work environment to ensure long-term skill development and career advancement for all employees.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Before the pandemic, we find that female engineers are receiving about 40% more comments on their code than our male engineers, giving us an effect that's roughly twice the size as it is for male engineers overall.“ by Natalia Emanuel
- “I would not say I had strong priors growing into this. It was one of those topics that I was genuinely extremely excited to see whatever the results would be and could totally have spun a story that it could go in either direction.“ by Natalia Emanuel
- “I'm a little bit pessimistic about it, and in part I am, because I feel like the trend of work technology has been to just eat into more and more of our leisure hours.“ by Jerusalem Demsas
- “And so we can sort of difference out the impact of the pandemic and really just zero in on the effect that's only coming from working remotely. So that's sort of one component there.“ by Natalia Emanuel
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Episode Information
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The Atlantic
6/4/24
Four years after the Great Remote-Work Experiment began, the public debate has boiled down to: Bosses hate it and workers love it. But is that all there is to it? Who really benefits from remote work—and who doesn’t? And why is it that women with more job experience suffer the most?
Host Jerusalem Demsas talks to Natalia Emanuel, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who co-authored a paper looking at the effects of remote work. Do people understand the tradeoffs they’re making when they choose to work from home? What’s the impact on the team if even one person is remote? And does remote work benefit older workers at the expense of younger ones?
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