A recent episode of The Indicator podcast about remote work features research by Blueprint affiliate Amanda Pallais and co-authors, which studies how proximity to work colleagues affects productivity. By looking at software engineers, the authors find benefits from being close to work colleagues. In particular, engineers working close to their colleagues receive more feedback than those with distant teammates. These effects were more acute for women, who both give and receive more feedback when working close to their teammates. Moreover, proximity impacts career trajectories, decreasing the short-term pay raises, but improving long-run outcomes such as more promotions and top evaluations. When further exploring the results by age and gender, the study finds that younger employees, particularly women, may be hurt most by remote work.
Listen to the podcast to learn more about these findings.