Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith and Brian Chesky of Airbnb made waves in the tech industry by announcing that all their employees will be allowed to work from home permanently. Elon Musk then made his own waves by announcing the opposite.
I have a friend whose daughter manages callers looking for sellers of residential homes to third party investors. And she agrees with Musk: She knows remote working is not the same, whether is in Silicon Valley or real estate or a law firm. There are reasons why even if you can do the same thing on a telephone from home, or a Zoom call, it still loses something. Something valuable. Here are a few reasons it’s time to come back to work – at least, that should be a goal.
At the pandemic’s onset, we listened to our public health authorities and shut down our lives to save others. Restaurants were shuttered, travel was restricted, kids went to school on the computer and businesses moved online. Two years later, we are once again traveling, enjoying meals at restaurants and learning on campuses. You’ll notice I didn’t say that we’re back in the office …
Today, we’re witnessing a push to fundamentally change how we work. Rather than coming to the office, many employees are fighting to work remote permanently. Their most common argument is that they can perform every function of their job from afar. Yet, just because something can be done one way, does not mean that it should. I am not advocating for a swift and sudden return to five days a week in the office with no flexibility, but there are a few simple reasons for why in-person work should be our north star.
The Workplace Is for Learning
Coming into the office allows employees to experience company culture, new ideas and the way that company does its business. This is learning, or in other words, training. Training helps us learn how to function as a unit; how to support our teammates; how to make effective presentations; how to receive and provide constructive feedback. Each lesson is critical to building a thriving workforce.
Certain companies now elect to bring employees together once or twice a year to substitute for workplace learning. While this may seem like a novel approach, the Department of Defense has deployed it for years through the military reserves. Reservists meet for one weekend each year and then spend two weeks training together.
As a former reservist, I know first-hand that our units were not as cohesive, nor did they learn as much about their teammates and duties, as those that trained together year-round. Though tech companies’ work can’t be compared to the military’s, at the end of the day, the principle is the same. We learn from each other and grow when we’re together – not when we’re apart.
The Workplace Is for Creating
When you put a group of capable team members in a room and present them with a challenge, magic happens. That creative process gets stymied when it is digitized and happens over video conferencing apps.
No matter who you are or what you’re working on, video conferencing allows for endless distractions – from barking dogs to honking cars to commotion in the house. We all try our hardest to stay focused on our endless video calls, but there is an obvious drop-off in how close both managers and employees pay attention.
This reduces the energy level of a conversation. Our creative juices flow best when we’re energetic about what we’re working on and fully engaged. Over video, an invisible barrier exists that prevents full engagement.
The Workplace Is for Socializing
Amid this debate, one often overlooked topic is the value of social relationships and interactions in the workplace. These relationships provide employees with both meaning and happiness. For one, teams work better when their members are close. Second, when employees are happy, they tend to stay with their companies longer.
There are countless studies about how social withdrawal can lead to loneliness, which can easily become depression. When an employee isn’t going into the office, they withdraw socially. This social withdrawal can have a serious impact on employees’ states of mind, and as a result, their work product can suffer.
A Necessary Inconvenience
None of this is to say that work can’t be done at a high level away from the office. It can, and the last two years show it. It does, however, imply that we aren’t doing our best work away from the office – and with tech companies so dependent on growth, they need their employees to constantly strive for their best.
Coming into the office every day is an inconvenience – it can’t be denied. And of course, being flexible to the needs of employees is critical, as a lack of flexibility can also create an unhappy workforce. Yet, at some point, when remote work creates a drop-off in quality, that inconvenience becomes necessary. There’s a happy medium to be found, but working from the office must remain the norm to foster both productivity and efficiency.
Maury Blackman has led high-growth tech companies for more than 25 years and is currently CEO of Premise, a global platform that democratizes the way actionable insights are sourced and used by organizations in over 125 countries.