It was reported on June 2, Beijing time that Elon Musk obviously did not like telecommuting. The email exposed on Wednesday showed that he asked Tesla employees who wanted to work remotely to work at least 40 hours in the office, or they should leave. Previously, musk expressed his disgust at American workers' trying to avoid going to work and praised the diligence of Chinese people in an interview in May, although he did not compare employees in the company with remote employees.
Last month, he wrote on Twitter: "all the things at home will make people think that you don't need to work hard."
However, musk may be wrong about telecommuting. Three economists said that telecommuting during the epidemic would not damage the productivity of employees.
Musk says home makes people lazy
Natacha Postel Vinay, an economic and financial historian at the London School of economics, said: "most of the evidence shows that when people stay at home, productivity increases. People spend less time on their commute, so they can spend part of their time working, and they also have more time with their families and sleep, which means they are happier and ultimately more efficient."
Albrecht Ritschl, a professor of economic history, also said that the reduction of commuting can improve employees' work efficiency, adding that working from home can reduce the time spent on "meaningless meetings". "Working in an office is different from working hard." He said.
They say that in some cases, home office productivity occasionally declines, but this is not because people are lazy. Vinai and Richell pointed out that during the epidemic, people with children at home often had to focus on their work and taking care of their children, resulting in a decline in work efficiency.