A telecommuting experiment involving university students shows that working remotely reduces productivity by 6% to 10% if the task involves typing randomly generated characters but boosts productivity 11% to 20% for the job of imagining unusual uses for a tin can, says E. Glenn Dutcher of the University of Innsbruck in Austria. So if a task is tedious, an employer should make sure it's done in the office, but when it comes to creative work, a manager might do best to allow employees to work remotely, Dutcher says.

Source: The effects of telecommuting on productivity: An experimental examination. The role of dull and creative tasks

via The Daily Stat