In-person collaboration has been linked to high performance and job satisfaction, but these benefits don't increase with more days spent in the office.

In-person collaboration has been linked to high performance and job satisfaction, but these benefits don’t increase with more days spent in the office.

An oft-cited reason for in-person work mandates is that they help drive connection among a team. As more employers push for four and five days in the office, rhetoric has focused on the importance of collaboration and a sense of belonging that some leaders believe can only be fostered in a shared physical environment.

Yet some data shows the number of days people attend the office doesn’t directly correlate to that sense of connection. In fact, there’s only a 1% difference in the number of employees who say they feel connected to their organisation working four or five days a week as compared to those working two or three days on site. That slim leading edge went to the latter group, at 60%, according to a global survey of 1,115 employees by London-based workplace insights firm Leesman, seen by the BBC.

“There just doesn’t seem to be huge gains from the number of days people are in the office,” says Allison English, deputy CEO of Leesman. “It’s about the quality, not quantity, of time that matters. In fact, we see that the greater the number of in-person days, the less the worker is generally satisfied with work-life balance, impacting engagement and their connection to the organisation.”

  • Track_ShovelEnglish
    9•6 months ago

    I work from home entirely.

    The issue with this topic is that most people can’t see past their own roles and experiences with it to see how office time can sometimes be beneficial (as you outline above) or completely pointless (my case).

    It’s good to have a place to meet clients, or have important meetings, so I go when only when I need to do that. For some people that’s all they do. Other people can do their jobs away from the office. Neither side should be slammed for their view; the only people we should slam are our corporate overlords. Now get in the Hilux

    • @[email protected]English
      1•6 months ago

      Yep. My role works heavily with outside vendors and contractors in multiple states and countries. It’s incredibly rare for any given meeting to consist solely of workers living within 50 miles of each other. So ‘in person’ typically means two guys in a shitty conference room, with shitty audio calling in to an online meeting with the other 4 people. That is not productive and has no value. Actually negative value as I’ve always found mixed in person and on call meetings to be less effective than if everyone just called in.

      I get a lot of people can actually see their coworkers, but that’s not my role and never will be. RTO is an extremely poor fit for me.