For at least some of those with soul-destroying morning commutes, liberation may indeed be at hand. A preliminary presentation posted by Stanford University researchers describes the effects of allowing customer service employees at a billion-dollar Chinese company to work from home: Productivity went up, as did hours worked, and employees seemed happier for it.
—Ray Fisman at Slate reports on a study that shows that telecommuting may not be the “working from home” joke many of us make it out to be. And, yet, when all the workers were offered a telecommuting option, half the employees opted to inhabit a cube, “preferring the hours in commute in exchange for the human interaction of office life and a fixed beginning and end to each work day.”
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
