Telecommuters in Canada have pushed productivity levels up across North America
The sudden shift to telecommuting hasn’t stopped Canadian workers from staying on track and keeping their business running – even from home.
Canadians are showing a 25% increase in their overall productivity despite social distancing measures disrupting their traditional work routine, aggregate data on global workers revealed.
While the coronavirus pandemic has led to a 72% decline in in-office work, telecommuters in Canada have pushed productivity levels up across North America, according to the COVID-19 Remote Work Productivity Tracker of enterprise tech company Aternity.
But workers in the US are seeing a slowdown – with a 7.2% dip in their productivity level – resulting from the switch to remote work.
READ MORE: The perks and pitfalls of working from home
It’s a different story all the way in Europe, however. The impact of the outbreak has caused stark contrasts between countries based on their geography, public policy and overall response to the COVID-19 crisis.
On one hand, workers’ productivity in Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands dropped significantly. On the other, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland are seeing productivity levels rise in the wake of the pandemic.
One factor may be the kind of jobs that continue to thrive in this environment.
“Countries with a higher proportion of office or service jobs will see less of a fall in productivity than those with [a] higher proportion of tourism or manufacturing [jobs],” said Mark Robinson, senior director of global strategic accounts at Aternity, in a report by TechRepublic.
READ MORE: 7 HR questions about COVID-19, remote work, and duty to accommodate answered
As the crisis reshapes the world of work, organizations can expect further disruptions – leading to a wider gap between segments of the labour force – based on their industry and geography.
“Some of these differences are changing over time so the benchmarks will almost certainly show a different pattern between countries in the coming weeks,” Robinson said.
Aternity collected aggregate data based on the number of hours remote workers spent in accessing enterprise software between 24 February and 26 March. The sample included millions of employees from more than 500 Fortune 2000 companies.
