Behavioral Economics for Leaders

CHAPTER 3Working from Home Is Great—But It May Hurt Your Career

The COVID‐19 pandemic produced an unprecedented shift in the location of work by forcing millions, perhaps billions, of people to work from home. While before the pandemic working from home was often viewed skeptically, now it is widely embraced. So, we are beginning to understand its pros and cons better, in particular, also what it means for your career.

Brian has been working as a language editor at a prestigious research institution for several years. With the advent of the COVID‐19 pandemic, he has shifted to working from home for the entire week, while before the pandemic he was usually in the office for four days. When the pandemic hit workplaces worldwide, Heidi, his boss, was not sure whether Brian would work equally well and productively from home as he always did in the office. Given that the young researchers benefit considerably from his revisions of their scientific texts, it is important for their publication, and thus career prospects, that Brian is doing his job as excellently as he did before the pandemic. So far, Heidi and the researchers, as well as Brian, have been very satisfied with the new work arrangements.

Even before the pandemic, the use of the home office was on the rise worldwide. In the United States, for instance, the proportion of employees who work remotely on some days of the week has risen fivefold over the past 30 to 40 years before the pandemic hit the world. Similarly, in ...