ICBS seminar with Ann Sophie Lauterbach: Performance at a Distance: A Meta-Analysis of Remote Work Use, Intensity, and Performance /10.12. 2026/

WHEN: Thursday December 10, 2026​, 10:30-12:00
WHERE: RB436
On-site only.

Performance at a Distance: A Meta-Analysis of Remote Work Use, Intensity, and Performance

Ann Sophie Lauterbach, TU Dresden

Many organizations are calling employees back to the office on the premise that remote work erodes performance, while employees value the flexibility it provides. Yet evidence on its performance consequences remains dispersed, partly because forms of remote work, performance measures, and the periods in which evidence was generated have rarely been disentangled. Drawing on work design theory, we distinguish remote work use (RWU; whether employees work remotely at all) from remote work intensity (RWI; how much they do so) and examine whether their relationships with performance vary across levels of analysis, rating sources (self-rated, supervisor-rated, objective), and the pre-, during-, and post-COVID-19 periods. Findings from a Bayesian meta-analysis based on 80 effects from 77 studies indicate that both RWU and RWI have small positive associations with individual performance. Associations were estimated most precisely for self-rated performance and were smaller and more uncertain for supervisor-rated and objective performance; contrasts between rating sources were inconclusive. Evidence at the team and organizational levels was too limited for conclusions. Associations were descriptively weakest before the pandemic and strongest after it, suggesting that pre-pandemic estimates may not generalize to today’s institutionalized hybrid work. Overall, remote work shows modest performance gains and no clear evidence of performance losses, but these gains are best supported by employees’ own assessments, calling for multisource performance evaluation in hybrid settings.