How to Recognise (In)effective Homeworkers

Since the pandemic, more and more people are working from home for at least part of their working week. At the same time, there were many doubts about remote working. Do people actually do the work? Do they start at 9 o’clock and do the hours according to their employment contract?

Throughout this period, several studies have been conducted focusing on what type of employees benefit most from working from home. The research also looked at whether or not you can allow everyone to work from home three or four days a week. Experts also investigated whether working from home influences the hierarchical structure in organisations and also how employees can keep sharing knowledge in the same way as we were used to doing in the physical workplace.

Katlijn Haesebrouck is Assistant Professor in Accounting at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. Her expertise is in Management Accounting and Control based on the experimental method. Katlijn’s main research interests revolve around knowledge sharing in organisations.

In her research on homeworking, Katlijn focused on two character traits. In both groups, she looked at where productivity was higher. At the office or at home. The first group studied consisted of people who were very diligent and dedicated to their work. In this group, no preference was observed. They were just as happy coming to the office as working from home. Where Katlijn did see a difference was in the second group. This group consisted of people who, by nature, are not always honest. She noticed that this group of people preferred to work at home. This can have a notable impact on their productivity and performance.