People work productively in ‘Bad Weather’

Bad weather?? Are you panicking on a crucial review day, your juniors will either not turn up or if they do, they will be less productive? Now a new research will make you worry less. Most people believe that bad weather conditions reduce productivity. In a research, authors found just the opposite. Using empirical data from laboratory experiments as well as from a mid-sized Japanese bank, the research demonstrates that weather conditions influence one's own cognition and focus, but in a good way.  In context of indoor-working employees productivity is higher on bad weather day, rather than on good weather days. Though the definitions of bad weather can be vague and many, in this case, bad weather has been linked to rain and good weather signifies sunny days here.

Francesca Gino, who is an associate professor at Harvard Business School says, “when the weather is bad, individuals may focus more on their work rather than thinking about activities they could engage in outside of work. We proved it to great extent by testing our hypotheses using both field and lab data.”

In this research, first, the field data was gathered based on employees from a mid-sized bank in Japan, which was then matched with the daily weather data to investigate the effects of bad weather conditions (in terms of precipitation, visibility, and temperature) on their productivity. Second, a laboratory experiment was used, explaining the relationship between bad weather and increased productivity. Findings supported the proposed model and suggested that employee productivity is higher on bad rather than a good weather day. Here are some interesting points revealed by the research:

There are some key factors we must look at:

a) Organizations could assign more clerical work on rainy days than sunny days to tap into the effects of bad weather on productivity, assigning work that does not require sustained attention but does allow for more flexibility in thinking - We won’t refrain from assuming that all those ad makers and creative writers out there wait for it to turn cloudy and rainy so they can think better and more creatively!

b) Researchers say, there is a significant gap between people's general beliefs about the effects of weather on their productivity and the actual effect of weather on their behavior.

c) We are not biased towards juniors and biased against bosses but it is true that the fact that managers can’t control factors like bad weather, may also have powerful effects on employee’s productivity.

d) People believe that weather conditions influence their everyday work life, but to date, little is known about how exactly weather affects individual productivity.

So the next time the weather is terrible and you still manage to work well and productively, don’t be surprised. And we also hope bosses don’t use this as an excuse to put more work pressure on their subordinates!

Photo by Eric Audras.