Working remotely and in the office: this is what SCIENCE says about the hybrid format and the opportunities to make it successful

he Hybrid format between Home office And the office It is increasingly common. After several investigations conducted by experts on this topic, results were found on how it affects every person's life and success.

According to the Nature websiteSome studies indicate that teams that work in close proximity to each other, including groups of Academic research, producing more innovative and high-quality results. How they achieve Distant teams Collaboration and knowledge sharing?

While the Work in a mixed format has been enhanced, Scientists They are quick to decipher all the implications, both for science and for the rest of the working world.

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Remote work 2024: What does science say about the increase in this work format?

In the scientific world, the concept of working from home has not always been an option. before Covid-19 pandemicbarely 4% of working days in United State It was done from home. But in May 2020, this percentage rose to 60%, then stabilized at 25%.

This trend is similarly reflected in other countries, as evidenced by UK government figures Subordinate Period 2022-2023Nearly half of workers reported that they spent some time performing their tasks from home.

Researchers from various scientific disciplines were at the forefront of this trend to work in geographically dispersed teams.

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as technology And the Policies I was encouraged Exchange ideas, data and materialsWith the increasing specialization of knowledge, it has become Geographic dispersion The collaborative research teams have grown significantly.

A 2011 analysis examined the titles of some 39 million authors of research articlesrevealing an almost linear increase in Average cooperation distancefrom 334 km in 1980 to 1553 km in 2009. This indicates that Remote collaboration It was already well established by that time, with increasingly international teams.

But, even with these developments, the members of this… Remote search teams They were not generally working from the comfort of their homes.

However, the challenges of remote cooperation and its reliance on it technology Rather than face-to-face communication, they share striking similarities with the efforts of organizations and companies across sectors to build… Successful hybrid structuressays Jenis Hurft, a researcher at… Communications and Computer Science from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Regarding the challenges you face Scientists In this new era of work, “the problems we face are quite universal,” comments Horft.

Even before the pandemic, there were already a series of studies examining the consequences of remote work. In the 1980s, American banking company American Express Implemented a successful pilot project called Project Homebound, which was tested Home office system As an alternative for people with disabilities.

The project has been hailed as a success, with the company in the spotlight Cost saving And a Increase in productivity. However, union officials have raised concerns about potential exploitation, going so far as to call for a ban on “electronic home workstations.”

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Although post-analyses pandemic Provides useful data, according to researchers, long-term studies are needed to fully evaluate it The rise of remote work.

“The pandemic has shown us the impact of working from home in the short term to some extent, but we need more evidence of what will happen if we continue working remotely for years,” says Marina Schroeder, an innovation economist at Harvard University. Leibniz University Hannover, Germany.

She is studying The effect of remote work on creativity I showed this as an example Communication via chat programs It leads to less innovation compared to face-to-face conversation.

Late last year, a long-term study led by Carl Frey, M.D Economist at Oxford University, United KingdomProvide the strongest evidence to date that remote work can change the nature and quality of what researchers produce together.

The team found that those who reside in the same place make more innovative discoveries. despite of Remote collaborators They benefit from a Greater collective knowledgeThis is a difference They are less likely to be creative It is more suitable for making gradual progress.

“In the document we show that Remote teams are more likely to collaborate on technical tasks“While on-site teams are more likely to collaborate to conceptualize new ideas,” Fry says.

Study 20 was analysed Millions of research articles They were published between 1960 and 2020, and 4 million patent applications were filed between 1976 and 2020 worldwide. The researchers examined Affiliations And the Geographic scope of contributors, and used citation analysis to assess how “disruptive” the posts were.

when The cooperation distance has increased from 0 km to more than 600 km,The probability of disruption is reduced by approximately 20%. “Remote teams are unlikely to be able to make breakthrough discoveries,” Fry says.

Horft comments that the study provides a valuable note of caution amid the rush to embrace this idea Distance working: “This is not the way we want science to develop. So I think we urgently need to take this seriously.”