Dr. David Lenihan, Ph.D., J.D., FRSM is the CEO/Co-Founder of Tiber Health and the President of Ponce Health Sciences University.
The remote vs. in-person work debate appears to have divided its respective adherents based on their organizational roles.
A number of leaders at top tier companies are adamant about their teams returning to the office full time. These execs include CEOs at such blue chip institutions as Goldman Sachs, Salesforce and JPMorgan—all of whom are convinced that remote work stifles innovation and hampers productivity.
Researchers seem to be split on the topic: Studies at MIT and by Microsoft conclude that working remotely degrades an organization’s ability to achieve results and solve problems. McKinsey, however, found that “innovative companies developed new ways of connecting remote workers together to build and sustain the cross-functional, inter-term ties necessary for innovation, thus widening the pools of minds that could generate new ideas.”
A story by Rani Molla in Vox also shares research that lines up on the pro remote work side:
“It seems to be the prevailing consensus, at least if you ask managers, that, ‘Oh, if you’re all remote, it has to be bad,’ and hence you have to bring people back to the office,” said Christoph Riedl, an associate professor at Northeastern University who’s been studying team collaboration and processes for nearly a decade. “We can directly compare the performance of teams that work remotely versus teams that work face to face, and we generally find no difference with regard to team performance.”
Wharton’s Adam Grant concurs from an organizational psychology POV. In a recent tweet, he said:
“To all the companies calling people back to the office full-time: Don’t mistake presence for performance. Showing up is not a sign of commitment or contribution. It’s an act of compliance. What matters is the value people create, not the place they inhabit.”
While all of these smart people are saying very sensible things, here’s my 2 cents: Everybody’s right-ish, but there are subtleties that are being missed.
In my experience, remote work is absolutely fine for single lane, functionary tasks that don’t require joint efforts to envision, execute and complete. But to create an environment in which useful, big picture solutions can spontaneously emerge, RTO (a new acronym meaning return to office) is essential.
An example: Recently, a handful of team members were hanging out in our break room. I passed by on the way to a meeting and said hello. I later passed the break room again, and these folks were still chatting. I peeked in and busted their chops about their extended pow wow, and asked what the topic of the discussion was—sports. A TV show? A new restaurant?
It turns out that the trio didn’t plan to gather, they all wandered in at different intervals. Their informal gabbing evolved into a deliberation about a nagging administrative issue with our medical school’s nursing program that they weren’t able to unravel on their own. But their impromptu teamwork led to a possible fix that they all agreed was feasible.
This revelation is what’s known as a happy accident, which is defined as a chance event that leads to a pleasant surprise or a favorable outcome. While our happy accident wasn’t as momentous as the discovery of penicillin, the invention of popsicles or the creation of The Rolling Stones, it was nonetheless really valuable—and I don’t believe that it would have been possible if these team members were exclusively working solo from home.
Can similar significant revelations occur in scheduled video meetings among remote workers? Perhaps, but I believe not likely; online gatherings tend to be tightly planned and topic-specific. Remote participants log in, watch the clock so they can cover the meeting’s defined itinerary as quickly as possible, and then leave the meeting in order to tackle the next item on their at home schedule, whether it’s cranking through work to-do’s, showering or making a quick grocery run.
Interestingly, the age demo that’s quite amenable to RTO is younger workers—Gen Z, specifically. In an excellent Washington Post article, Britt Peterson explains:
“For the past three years, my entire life was virtual,” said Billie Gardner, who recently started a new job as a government relations associate at the Council on Foundations in D.C. When they offered her the choice between working fully remote or hybrid. “I was like, hybrid, please!”
I get it: many of these young people spent early 2020 until the beginning of 2023 in nearly 100% virtual interactions at college and the workplace. Their hankering for in-person social connections, collaboration and mentorship is necessary to support their mental health and their professional growth.
Establishing a feasible remote vs. RTO protocol for your organization is an art, not a science. Finding the right balance will not be achieved by decree, but rather awareness of what will work best for your firm as well as your employees. Here are a few tips to help you get started:
1. When it comes to remote work vs. RTO, you should listen to your employees, understand their desires and make them feel that they’re part of the process. But ultimately, you need to make the determination about what’s best for your organization.
2. Launching a trial remote work arrangement with a discrete and defined time frame is a good idea, but it can possibly have the downside of creating expectations that it’s a permanent structure—so be clear about the parameters of the trial. Once you’ve surveyed the outcomes and made your decision about how to proceed, you can always revisit the plan if it is not working as desired.
3. For most of our team, we’ve sought to create a workable balance of remote vs. RTO. But some of our administrative roles are difficult to implement remotely since the work requires in-person presence. Don’t be afraid to continually experiment with trying to establish a fair mix that allows all involved to achieve their goals.
The key is for your team members to recognize the benefits and limitations of the remote option while simultaneously embracing the possibilities that in-person work makes possible. This will allow collaborative happy accidents—which will benefit them as well as the company overall—to consistently develop and flourish.
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