California

Work-from-home (WFH) benefits are endless, as proved by the pandemic years. Now a new study has put into the limelight another positive side of it, which can also be applied to other areas of life. Work from home has pushed golfing enthusiasts to hit the course more often than ever, especially on weekdays, a new report has found. The report by Stanford researchers says that work from home led to a huge boom in golfing. The increase was especially on Wednesdays than any other day of the week. Mid-afternoon seems to be the most preferred time for golfers who were also working from home. 

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The report found that more golfers played the sport on weekdays in 2022 as compared to 2019. There was a 143 per cent rise in golfing on Wednesdays when seen against the figures during the same day in 2019. 

More golfers played mid-afternoon than at any other time of the day. A comparison of 2022 with 2019 showed that there was a 278 per cent hike in golfing at 4 pm on Wednesdays.

The reason, researchers believe, can be pointed to the possibility that these people are taking up golfing during their shift breaks. Since while working from home you are at ease using your break as you like, golfers chose to go to the golf course.

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The report might lead companies to think that if employees are going away to golf courses during work hours, it might be affecting their productivity. However, that is not true, researchers say. Several reports have established that productivity was much higher during the pandemic years when people were working from home. Besides, if these employees make up for the lost time by doing extra hours later, productivity continues to stay high, the study says.

The next good thing about the results of this study is that golf course is now getting higher usage. Since now golfers aren't restricted to going to the course only on weekends and overcrowding it, the course is being utilised in a much better way. Staggered usage spread across the week at different times means that golfers are getting much better use out of the golf courses.

"Golf courses are getting higher usage by spreading playing across the day and week, avoiding weekend and pre/post work peak-loading. This will raise golf productivity, that is, the number of golf courses played (and revenue raised) per course," the study says.

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The study can be applied to other fields as well, such as shopping malls, gyms, salons and other such places. This means that higher usage is being squeezed from these places as well, meaning better use of resources, consequently increasing national productivity. 

When people get more time to go out and about and make use of these places, they are adding to the country's GDP.  

(With inputs from agencies)

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