Working from home may reduce commute time, save money, and shrink an employee’s carbon footprint. But it can also be a hazard to career advancement, a new study shows.
“Merely being seen—often from a distance and without any interaction or real understanding of what a person is doing—that in itself has value,” says Kimberly Elsbach, professor in the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis. “People notice.”
In a pair of studies—one involving in-depth interviews with office workers and another using a behavioral experiment—Elsbach and colleagues found that being present at the workplace gives an employee an important edge.