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Driving High Performance with Home Working

Dr. Theresa Welbourne and her colleagues from Telefonica O2 Europe recently completed a study on the impact of home working on employee performance. Working with Amanda Jones, a doctoral student from King's College London and Danielle Lee, Head of Employee Engagement and Insights, the study merged extensive qualitative interview data with a longitudinal quantitative study, using the firm's employee engagement survey data along with performance outcomes, to show the following:

  • Home worker scores on the employee engagement survey (all index scores) were significantly higher than those of non-home workers.
  • Performance ratings were significantly higher for the home worker sample.
  • Volunteer turnover was significantly lower for the home worker sample.

Also, supporting the study's hypotheses, they found an interaction effect between core employee engagement and home worker status. Using one index that measured employee motivation and energy levels as the core engagement index, the study found that employees high on this engagement index and who were home workers had the strongest improvement in performance appraisal scores from year 1 to year 2 (thus providing evidence of causality with the research design).

Telefonica O2 is actively pursuing a strong sustainability program, including redesign of office space and research on how to use home workers in the most effective way, for firm performance and in consideration of community and environment. The home working study is helping the TO2 teams that work on the sustainability project, who are designing the employee engagement initiatives and who are managing change in the business.

Contact Theresa Welbourne to learn more about the study.

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