Personality Traits, Remote Work and Productivity

Nicolas Gavoille (nicolas.gavoille@sseriga.edu) and Mihails Hazans (mihails.hazans@lu.lv)
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Nicolas Gavoille: Stockholm School of Economics, Riga
Mihails Hazans: University of Latvia

No 15486, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The future of teleworking ultimately depends on its impact on workers' productivity and wellbeing, yet the effect of remote working on productivity is not well understood. This paper investigates the link between personality traits and workers' productivity when working from home. We exploit a survey providing measures of the "Big Five" personality traits for more than 1700 recent teleworkers. We document strong links between personality, productivity, and willingness to work from home post-pandemic. Ceteris paribus, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience are positively associated with a higher productivity from home, especially for females. On the other hand, the link between Extraversion and preference for teleworking is negative. These results suggest that a one-size-fits-all policy is unlikely to maximize neither firms' productivity nor workers' satisfaction.

Keywords: productivity; work from home; teleworking; personality traits; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J32 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-eur, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Forthcoming - revised version forthcoming in: International Labour Review, 2025

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Working Paper: Personality traits, remote work and productivity (2022)
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