Many employees who now commute under stricter return-to-office policies still work virtually once they arrive, economists Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington wrote in The Atlantic Oct. 14.
In a September survey of 1,835 college-educated U.S. workers, more than 70% of respondents said at least one teammate was working elsewhere on their most recent office day. About half had no fully in-person meetings, and more than 1 in 3 had only online meetings because their teams went fully virtual whenever anyone was off-site, according to the results.
Even when everyone is on-site, meetings often stay virtual. Among workers who had meetings on their most recent office day, 52% had at least one held online, even though all attendees were in the building.
The authors pointed to two holdovers from the pandemic. The first is geographic sprawl. In their analysis of one Fortune 500 company, about 60% of corporate employees had at least one distant teammate after the pandemic, a jump from 20% prepandemic. The second is habit: Many workers now see in-office conversations as distractions from their own task lists.
Attendance also tends to fall short of policy. The typical worker comes in one fewer day than required, according to the authors. “Ask for four and you get three,” they wrote. When managers stay home, their teams often follow.
To make office days count, the authors suggested employers pay remote workers to relocate, focus hiring around each team’s central hub, hold regular off-sites, and reward in-person contributions such as mentorship in performance reviews.
“Mandating more time in an office has neither ensured that colleagues go to the same office nor that they meet in person rather than online,” they wrote.
Health systems have been weighing similar questions about nonclinical staff. In May, Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic ended remote-only job listings in an effort to strengthen collaboration and advance innovation. Chief human resources officers at other systems previously told Becker’s that hybrid and remote roles remain an important part of their workforce model, offering greater flexibility and access to a wider pool of top talent.
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