Working Paper: NBER ID: w27612
Authors: Evan DeFilippis; Stephen Michael Impink; Madison Singell; Jeffrey T. Polzer; Raffaella Sadun
Abstract: We explore the impact of COVID-19 on employee's digital communication patterns through an event study of lockdowns in 16 large metropolitan areas in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Using de- identified, aggregated meeting and email meta-data from 3,143,270 users, we find, compared to pre- pandemic levels, increases in the number of meetings per person (+12.9 percent) and the number of attendees per meeting (+13.5 percent), but decreases in the average length of meetings (-20.1 percent). Collectively, the net effect is that people spent less time in meetings per day (-11.5 percent) in the post- lockdown period. We also find significant and durable increases in length of the average workday (+8.2 percent, or +48.5 minutes), along with short-term increases in email activity. These findings provide insight from a novel dataset into how the nature of work has changed for a large sample of knowledge workers. We discuss these changes in light of the ongoing challenges faced by organizations and workers struggling to adapt and perform in the face of a global pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; digital communication; remote work; employee productivity; organizational behavior
JEL Codes: L2; L23; M0
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | total count of meetings per person per day (Y10) |
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | average number of attendees per meeting (A32) |
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | average duration of meetings (C41) |
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | total hours spent in meetings per day (J22) |
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | email activity (Y60) |
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | number of recipients per email (L87) |
| COVID-19 lockdowns (F69) | average workday span (J29) |