Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom discusses remote and hybrid work—and its relevance to the restaurant industry—during the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference November 13 in Las Vegas.
During the opening session of the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference November 13, Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom presented on the impact and future of remote work, something he’s been studying for 20 years.
While the number of people working remotely spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s since stabilized, said Bloom, but what’s clear is a full return to the office five days a week simply isn’t going to happen.
As for why, Bloom provided a few different reasons, with happiness (both employee and employer) and productivity at the top of list. The happiness element comes from a few factors, the most prominent of which is lack of a commute.
“The second most hated activity during the day is work,” said Bloom. “The most hated thing throughout the day was commuting. People hate commuting even more than they hate work.”
For the employer, employee retention is the benefit of remote work. Bloom’s research shows that a few days of hybrid flexibility is equivalent to an 8 percent pay raise on average for workers. While employees do enjoy coming to work for socializing, the data shows that giving the option to work from home at least a couple days a week has immediate effects.
One piece of data Bloom shared was employees with hybrid schedules were less likely to quit, by a wide margin. He proposed that companies able to provide hybrid work should do so for that benefit, especially since productively levels haven’t been shown to take a hit.
He also emphasized that companies with a hybrid workforce should maintain a coordinated schedule in order to allow workers to get the socialization they crave while ensuring they’re maximizing that in-person time with productive collaboration.
“The thing that pisses people off more than anything else is coming to the office and spending all day on Zoom,” said Bloom.
The impact of remote work on the economy—and the restaurant business—is already visible, Bloom pointed out. Instead of going out to lunch, remote workers go to dinner, shifting the spend both by daypart and in many cases away from downtown commercial districts. Restaurants on transit hubs, meanwhile, have been heavily affected, as transit usage is down by 30 to 50 percent.
As restaurant brands plan out their development strategies, taking the shift in remote and hybrid work into account is important, said Bloom, and restaurateurs need to embrace what’s now the new status quo.
The Restaurant Finance & Development Conference, presented by the Restaurant Finance Monitor, Franchise Times and Food On Demand, runs Monday, November 13, through Wednesday, November 15, at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.