Ep 11: The Economist POV: WFH Research's Jose Maria Barrero Shares In-Depth Studies on Hybrid Work

In this episode, I sat down with Jose Maria Barrero, applied economist, co-founder of WFH Research, and assistant professor of finance at ITAM Business School. In May 2022, he and his WFH Research co-founder Nick Bloom realized there was no timely data on working from home. They knew they could get good information off the ground very quickly and started running a survey of a few thousand individuals in the U.S. Since July 2020, they’ve conducted a survey every month.

Together, we dive into:

• Ideal number of WFH days for productivity and mental health (broken out by education)

• Should employees have 100% choice? Or more guardrails?

• Evolving trends (e.g. commuting distance) in hiring for hybrid workplaces

• The top 3 reasons people want to go into the office (hint: it’s not ping pong)

• The future of hybrid work: balancing in-person and remote interactions