Does working from home make you less productive?

It's 6 a.m. and Sophie, my chocolate Lab, is staring at me with her marble eyes, while Ivy Sue, the Great Dane, snoozes. Sophie sees me stir. She yelps, a high-pitched yelp that means "Dad, get your lazy butt up and take me out." Ivy rubs her meaty head against her oversized bed, groans, and slowly begins her day. I shove my partner Karen awake and take the dogs out. Within the hour, my belly is full of coffee. Karen is on her way to work, and I amble upstairs to my writer's garret. My day ends when I say it ends. Sometimes it's 4 p.m., other times earlier. Still other times, like tonight, around 9 p.m. (OK, I didn't work all day, but you get the idea.)

Home has been my only office for more than four years. I've learned a few things by working at home. It is my belief that, on average, I am more productive working from home than I ever was at the office. For one thing, there's no commute (I once traveled three hours a day). I'm not being called into senseless meetings, and no one is trying to sell me Girl Scout cookies. Lunch hours are now lunch 15 minutes. Watercooler gossip is gone. Distractions are nonexistent, unless Sophie and Ivy need to go outside or the cats are clawing one another's eyes out.

I'm not the only person who works this way. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of workers who telecommute has doubled in the past 30 years. In 1980, the percentage of people working from home primarily was 2.3 percent. In 2010, it was 4.2 percent. Census officials found that 10 percent of American workers labor from home at least one day a week. Just as many men work from home as women [source: Fottrell].

What's the reason? For one thing, many more jobs can be done from home. Those working as salespeople, IT workers, and yes, writers and editors are among the top telecommuters [source: San Francisco Chronicle]. That's because technology has made working at home easy. I can write upstairs on the PC or downstairs on the laptop. Broadband, wireless, instant messaging, texting, Skype and a host of other high-tech programs and innovations make a brick-and-mortar office obsolete for many of us. We can attend meetings virtually, converse with bosses and clients, and send files from one corner of the globe to the other [source: Kensing]. I don't even have to leave the house to send packages. Delivery and pickup is a computer mouse click away.

Many companies understand the positive benefits of allowing workers to telecommute. In fact, 90 percent of Cisco employees work from home, as do 81 percent of Accenture workers and 80 percent of Intel employees [source: CNN Money]. In all three instances, those employees were allowed to telecommute at least 20 percent of the time.

Yet, does telecommuting really make people more productive, or does Marissa Mayer have a point? Well, if you believe a study published in 2012 from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, then telecommuters are more productive and happier than office workers.

Stanford researchers conducted a study at a Shanghai-based company called CTrip, a Chinese travel agency that employs 16,000 workers, 249 of whom participated in the experiment. Those selected were split into a control group and a teleworking group. The researcher found that those working from home were 13 percent more productive than employees working in an office. Telecommuters worked 8.5 percent more hours, took shorter breaks and called in sick less. Moreover, researchers found a 50 percent decrease in the attrition rate among telecommuters compared to on-site workers [source: Stanford University].

The Stanford study mimics a similar study by Cisco, the technology company we just mentioned with a telecommuting policy in place. In 2008, the company conducted a survey of its nearly 2,000 employees. The majority of those who answered the survey said telecommuting allowed them to balance life and work more easily than working full time at the office. As a result, Cisco's telecommuters were happier and more productive. In addition, Cisco said, telecommuting saves the company $277 million a year. The average Cisco employee works at home two days a week. Sixty-nine percent said they were more productive when working remotely, while 83 percent said their ability to communicate with co-workers was the same, if not better, than working on-site [source: Cisco].

So, there you have it. While these are only two studies, they suggest that telecommuters are productive and happy, which leads to an increase in productivity and the company's bottom line. Still, there are drawbacks. We telecommuters are a lonely breed. There's no one to talk to face-to-face, no one to say, "Let's grab lunch." Moreover, telecommuters are always at the office. There really isn't a break [source: Greenberg].

Perhaps the biggest drawback is the lack of organic conversations that inspire creative thinking. That's just the type of atmosphere that Google has created at its home office in Mountain View, Calif., and in other locations. Google has taken great pains to make sure its in-house employees are always interacting with one another. People get to play beach volleyball, chess and soccer. There's free food in the carefully designed cafeteria, which resembles a high school eatery. The idea is to increase casual interactions (by literally bumping into one another) among employees. Such casual conversations lead to learning and collaboration and, companies hope, innovation. Google's program has spread to other corporations, including Facebook [source: Henn].

Still, I'd rather be home working. In fact, I tell any editor who will listen to pour on the work, because I don't want to go back to an office. My commute went from three hours a day to zero. I don't mind the isolation. It gives me time to think. My dogs and cats are good company. In fact, here comes one now. Mike Moo, the black cat, just plopped his furry behind in front of the computer. Off you go! Daddy's working.