Is Hybrid the Future of Work: Evidence from A CHINESE EXPERIMENT

Last registered on March 27, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Is Hybrid the Future of Work: Evidence from A CHINESE EXPERIMENT
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008075
Initial registration date
August 16, 2021

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
August 19, 2021, 10:22 AM EDT

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

Last updated
March 27, 2025, 9:18 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Stanford
PI Affiliation
Beijing University Guanghua Management School, and Ctrip

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2021-08-09
End date
2022-01-30
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
As businesses and everyday life slowly return to pre-pandemic activity, one point is becoming clear: The home office isn’t about to shut down. In his research and discussions with hundreds of managers across different industries, Prof.Nicholas Bloom finds that about 70 percent of firms — from tiny companies to massive multinationals like Apple, Google, Citi, and HSBC — plan to implement some form of hybrid working arrangements so their employees can divide their time between collaborating with colleagues on-site and working from home.

Hybrid arrangements balance the benefits of being in the office in person — greater ability to collaborate, innovate and build culture — with the benefits of quiet and the lack of commuting that come from working from home. Firms often suggest that employees work two days at home, focusing on individual tasks or small meetings, and three days a week in the office for larger meetings, training, and social events.

We are conducting a hybrid WFH experiment at Ctrip, a 16,000-employee, NASDAQ-listed Chinese travel agency. Managerial and IT-professional employees who volunteered to WFH every Wednesday and Friday were randomly assigned either to exercise this hybrid working option or in the office for 6 months.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bloom, Nicholas, ruobing han and James (Jianzhang) Liang. 2025. "Is Hybrid the Future of Work: Evidence from A CHINESE EXPERIMENT." AEA RCT Registry. March 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8075-1.1
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We are going to collect information on participants' creativity, efficiency, productivity, and happiness. We will also track participants' performance, attrition, promotion, and switches of WFH status in the longer term. With this information collected, we will check the longer-term equilibrium effect of this hybrid option, heterogeneous effect across different subgroups, and indirect effects.
Intervention (Hidden)
In the first wave from a group of 1000+ employees, 628 volunteered to participate, of which 494 were qualified by having worked at the firm for 6 months, having broadband internet, and having their own workspace in their homes. From this qualified group, those with odd-numbered birthdays (day of birth ending in 1, 3, 5, etc.) were randomly selected to work at home every Wednesday and Friday. Those with even-numbered birthdays were required to continue working from the office and served as the comparison group. Both groups maintained the same hours, wage levels, type of work, and computer and communication equipment.
Intervention Start Date
2021-08-09
Intervention End Date
2022-01-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Impact on employee performance, productivity and promotion, Impact on employee satisfaction, Employee and company learning. Variations by employee type (e.g. gender, age, education, location, role, manager etc).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experiment took place in Ctrip’s airfare and hotel booking call center in Shanghai, China. The experiment lasted roughly six months, mandatory mid-term and post-experiment surveys were conducted.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
This selection of even birthdates into the treatment group was randomly determined by the Chairman, James Liang, by drawing a ping pong ball from an urn in a public ceremony one week prior to the experiment’s start date.
Randomization Unit
Individual level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A, no cluster
Sample size: planned number of observations
494 technical and managerial employees
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Treatment:233 call center employees

Control: 261 call center employees
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
In the 2015 study we had 125 in treatment and control and picked up significant effects. In this wave we have roughly twice that number, and include all available volunteers. So since this is the largest possible sample, and about twice the prior sample, we have not run any formal power calcuations.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Study has received IRB approval. Details not available.
IRB Approval Date
Details not available
IRB Approval Number
Details not available

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
Yes

Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
Working from home has become standard for employees with a university degree. The most common scheme, which has been adopted by around 100 million employees in Europe and North America, is a hybrid schedule, in which individuals spend a mix of days at home and at work each week1,2. However, the effects of hybrid working on employees and firms have been debated, and some executives argue that it damages productivity, innovation and career development3,4,5. Here we ran a six-month randomized control trial investigating the effects of hybrid working from home on 1,612 employees in a Chinese technology company in 2021–2022. We found that hybrid working improved job satisfaction and reduced quit rates by one-third. The reduction in quit rates was significant for non-managers, female employees and those with long commutes. Null equivalence tests showed that hybrid working did not affect performance grades over the next two years of reviews. We found no evidence for a difference in promotions over the next two years overall, or for any major employee subgroup. Finally, null equivalence tests showed that hybrid working had no effect on the lines of code written by computer-engineer employees. We also found that the 395 managers in the experiment revised their surveyed views about the effect of hybrid working on productivity, from a perceived negative effect (−2.6% on average) before the experiment to a perceived positive one (+1.0%) after the experiment. These results indicate that a hybrid schedule with two days a week working from home does not damage performance.
Citation
Bloom, N., Han, R. & Liang, J. Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature 630, 920–925 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07500-2

Reports & Other Materials