Fumiharu Mieno Comments on Teleworker Performance in the COVID-19 Era in Japan

Abstract

The paper conducted a survey in April and June 2020 on employees who shifted to telework, asking them about the change in working environment and their subjective impressions of their own working efficiency. The results found various stylized facts: (1) the earlier the shift to telework, the better the worker’s efficiency; (2) experience and number of telework hours matter more for efficiency than workers’ base ICT skills; (3) the positive effect of telework on efficiency is highest in very small establishments and large-sized companies; (4) as for work environment, a flexible time management system enhanced the efficiency-improving effect of telework, while a results-based evaluation system led to the opposite effect; and (5) workers’ efficiency tended to increase when more hours were spent on teleworking, as opposed to spending their time on non-work activities like leisure time, housekeeping/childcare, and sleeping.