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Cited by 273Work-Family Balance ChallengesCOVID-19 Pandemic ImpactsSocial impacts of COVID-19

Collaborating During Coronavirus: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nature of Work

Open access
DeFilippis, Evan, Impink, Stephen Michael, Singell, Madison, Polzer, Jeffrey, Sadun, Raffaella·2020·SSRN Electronic Journal
DOI 10.3386/w27612
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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.

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  • Recent analyses of telemetry and survey data show that the pandemic affected both the who and the how of collaboration in information firms, with workers spending less time in meetings, communicating more by email, collaborating more with strong ties, and exhibiting more siloed and less stable communication patterns.

    “Recent analyses of telemetry and survey data show that the pandemic has affected both the who and the how of collaboration in information firms-while working remotely during the pandemic, workers are spending less time in meetings 35 , communicating more by email 35 , collaborating more with their strong ties as opposed to their weak ties 36 , and exhibiting patterns of communication that are more”

    From The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers (2021) · cites this paper as [35]

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Authors
DeFilippis, E., Impink, S. M., Singell, M., Polzer, J., & Sadun, R.
Affiliations
National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
Corresponding author
Polzer, Jeffrey
ORCID
Venue
SSRN Electronic Journal
Publisher
National Bureau of Economic Research
Published
2020-07
ISSN
1556-5068 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3386/w27612
OpenAlex
W3046267468
Cited by
273
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 69 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 78 · 2020: 10
Type
posted content
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
  • National Bureau of Economic Research (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Work-Family Balance Challenges
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Social impacts of COVID-19
Keywords
COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown, staff meetings, working hours, knowledge workers, remote work, collaboration, meeting attendance

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