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Does working from home affect workers' productivity?

Last registered on January 02, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Does working from home affect workers' productivity?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012741
Initial registration date
December 22, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 02, 2024, 10:55 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Alessandra Fenizia
Affiliation
George Washington University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Tom Kirchmaier
PI Affiliation
London School of Economis
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-03-01
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Firms & Productivity
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This trial evaluates whether working from home affects workers' productivity.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Fenizia, Alessandra and Tom Kirchmaier. 2024. "Does working from home affect workers' productivity?." AEA RCT Registry. January 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12741-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our goal is to rigorously evaluate a randomized intervention that asks workers to work almost exclusively from home relative to a hybrid working regime.
Intervention (Hidden)
Our goal is to rigorously evaluate an intervention that asks workers to work almost exclusively from home relative to a hybrid working regime. Our design targets the full-time officers willing to increase the fraction of time they work from home (N=138). 69 officers will be randomized to be part of the treatment group. The remaining 69 officers will constitute the control group.

The intervention entails one treatment and one control arm.

The randomly selected subset of officers assigned to the treatment arm will be asked to work almost exclusively from home. These officers will be asked to work home all days but one per month. This is equivalent to working from home approximately 95% of the time and working the remaining 5% of the time from the office.
The randomly selected subset of officers assigned to the control arm will not experience any change in their schedule relative to the status quo. In the status quo, officers rotate through a deterministic schedule and work from home approximately 70% of the time. They work the remaining 30% of the time from the office.
Intervention Start Date
2024-01-02
Intervention End Date
2024-10-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
number of crimes logged in the internal computer system, average time spent on each crime report, total amount of time spent logging crimes on the internal computer system, an indicator equal to 1 if the officer works from the office
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
see pre-analysis plan

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
see PAP
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
see PAP

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will randomly assign roughly half of the sample of officers to the treatment group and the other half to the control group.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization in office done by a computer
Randomization Unit
officer
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
138 officers
Sample size: planned number of observations
138 officers observed at daily over several months
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
69 officers in the treatment group and 69 officers in the control group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Approval (LSE)
IRB Approval Date
2023-08-31
IRB Approval Number
249913
IRB Name
The George Washington University Committee on Human Research, Institutional Review Board (IRB)
IRB Approval Date
2023-09-11
IRB Approval Number
NCR235181
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials