Managing Remote Team Coordination: Experimental Evidence on Constrained and Flexible Scheduling

Abstract: A frequently cited benefit workers associate with remote work is flexible work schedules that allow them to balance work and non-work time demands. While flex schedules may allow employers to attract and retain workers who value them, they may also make coordination among work teams more challenging by introducing scheduling uncertainty and communication lags. We study these trade-offs by comparing the coordination and performance impacts of flexible schedules that do not specify when workers in teams should collaborate on their assignments relative to constrained work schedules that do specify time windows for collaboration on team performance among remote workers. Using a field experiment among teams of online language translators, we find that flex schedules lead to somewhat lower team performance than constrained schedules. We find heterogeneity in treatment effect that is consistent with flex schedules being challenging for teams more likely to have other communication barriers. In particular, we find mixed gender teams perform significantly worse under flex schedules, but same gender teams do not. We are currently investigating whether these effects are temporary or persist over time.