Transferring developers to a remote site due to coronavirus increased productivity in Google and Microsoft

In early March, most of the largest US IT companies in the United States transferred their office workers to work from home. Microsoft, Alphabet, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, Uber and many others. And now the first results arrived. New research shows how remote work due to coronavirus affects employee productivity, and what pitfalls might be.

The study was conducted by Blind , a network of professionals with 3.2 million employees from America's largest companies. Through an anonymous chat application, more than 2,000 IT specialists were surveyed, who in March began working from home. These included employees from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Expedia, and Uber. As a confirmation, Blind checked that people had corporate email addresses of the employer on whose behalf they were being interviewed.

The majority of technical workers surveyed (80%) said they were satisfied with the measures that their companies are taking to ensure their safety. Least of all were working Google (41%), Uber and Lyft (50% and 56%, respectively). Google later called on other companies to work from home. And in the case of Uber and Lyft, perhaps IT people have shown solidarity with drivers. That is, they are personally doing fine, but in general, for their workers, the company could do more.


Amazon headquarters is empty due to coronavirus

In another Blind survey, which was attended by a little less than 6 thousand people, about 70% said that coronavirus made them very worried at work in the office, and that as the situation developed, their fear increased. So the transition to remote work helped them worry a little less.

No harm to performance

Most importantly: about 60% of the nearly six thousand respondents said that the virus did not have a significant impact on the productivity of their work. Work from home is called the main reason: time is not wasted on traveling, large technology conferences are canceled, and the schedule has become more comfortable. IT experts called loneliness as their main new problem. Nearly 53% of respondents from organizations like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Walmart reported that their loneliness worsened due to loneliness.

The worst things were for:

• Facebook (69.7%);
• Google (64.3%);
• Amazon (57%).

At the same time, 52% of respondents said that they now work more than before. And 40% said that it seems to them that now they should work more intensively than their colleagues from the office.



Another new study shows what will happen to telework after coronavirus. According to Gartner, even after the pandemic, two-fifths (41%) of workers are going to continue to work outside the office (instead of the 30% that were before).

The leaders of many companies, including Oracle and Okta, observing the absence of a decrease in productivity at remote work, have already decided that this is a great reason for saving. They decided to reduce the size of their offices, leaving some employees to work remotely even after the coronavirus.

According to Oracle founder Larry Ellison, now all 136 thousand employees of his company work remotely, but this does not affect the efficiency of their work. Therefore, management came to the decision to refuse to rent part of the office property. This will allow Oracle to save significantly.



The same conclusions were reached at Okta. They said that they planned to expand the office, but quarantine showed that employees work well at home, so it makes no sense to increase office space.

At the same time, Gartner analysts warned that although the productivity of remote employees is much higher (48% demonstrate “ discretionary efforts”, Instead of 35% who have never worked remotely), the risk that such employees will leave is also more significant. Those who have never worked outside the office say they are willing to stay with the company in the future, 13% more often than employees on a remote location.