The answer to a successful strategy isn’t forcing people back to the office, it’s ensuring the ability to engage regardless of location.
Hybrid and remote work discussions have turned into a bit of a holy war in recent months with one side arguing for a return to the office, and the other arguing against. Recently, Microsoft executive Lucy Cooper went so far as to argue that employees need to actively fight back against return to office efforts. No Jitter publisher Eric Krapf recently captured some of the recent anti-remote work sentiment here.
Some Drivers of Returning to the Office versus Remote Working
Metrigy’s own data, captured in our global Workplace Collaboration: 2023-24 study of 440 organizations found that just over half (52%) of participating companies are requiring some form of return to the office, with 25.2% bringing back employees on a full-time basis and 26.8% doing so part-time (typically about 2-3 days per week). Those who are returning to the office say the biggest drivers are an inability to perform jobs remotely, as well as the improved informal collaboration available when employees are physically together. Another top driver, often for younger workers, is their own preference to work in an office. For those early on in their careers, in-office work can provide a greater opportunity to develop mentoring and social relationships.
For those sticking with remote work, providing a better quality of life for employees is far and away the top driver. Quality of life benefits of remote work include flexible scheduling, eliminating long commutes, and improved productivity that may come from allowing employees to fit their work into their lifestyle.
At the end of the day, as our data points show, the cat has left the bag with respect to remote and hybrid work. The majority of knowledge workers will work from home at least part of the time, whether by their own accord or due to in-office requirements that only span a few days a week. So the challenge for IT and business leaders is how to ensure employee engagement, no matter the location. When we asked research participants to tell us their biggest challenge in supporting remote and hybrid work “loss of community and culture” was the number one response, even more so than network and application performance issues for remote employees.
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