Home sweet home: Working from home and employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

In 2020, many governments responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by encouraging employees to work from home (WFH). Analyzing representative data from the UK, we find that the pandemic-led increases in WFH frequency are associated with a higher self-perceived hourly productivity among employed respondents. Interestingly, changes in WFH frequency are unrelated to the respondents' weekly working hours and weekly wages during the same period. While the WFH-productivity association is more substantial in non-lockdown months, it is inexistent dur-ing the months with strict lockdowns, indicating that lockdown measures inhibited the baseline association. The WFH-productivity association is weaker among parents with increased homeschooling needs due to school clo-sures implemented during lockdowns. In addition, the effect heterogeneity analysis identifies the role of crucial job-related characteristics in the baseline association. Finally, looking at the future of WFH, we show that em-ployees' recent WFH experiences and subsequent changes in hourly productivity are intimately associated with their desires to WFH in the future.