{"id":89981,"date":"2023-06-06T07:24:28","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T07:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/?p=89981"},"modified":"2023-06-06T10:00:47","modified_gmt":"2023-06-06T10:00:47","slug":"whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s so great about the office anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is still a lot of debate about the \u201creturn to the office\u201d, and surveys (suspiciously often sponsored by real estate companies or others with a vested interest in getting people back to physical premises) saying that \u201csenior managers\u201d want people back in the office \u2013 reasons include concerns about creating connections, productivity and innovation.<\/p>\n

But these were all concerns even when most people were office based. We need to compare a remote or hybrid situation with the reality of office life, not some hypothetical idealized office past.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s think about the three common concerns above in turn<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Was the office really so good for connection. The work of Thomas Allen at MIT showed that communication between engineers fell off rapidly once they were a few meters apart. Remember how hard it is in the office to get people from different floors of a building or buildings on the same site to mix and meet each other. In reality people tended to socialise and take their breaks with people they already knew. In both office and remote working we need a reason to communicate and collaborate, not just the accident of having nearby desks.<\/li>\n
  2. Productivity is a classic diversion, see our earlier blog on this here<\/a>. Few organizations ever measured knowledge worker productivity so they will never know if remote working is better or not, though individuals do consistently self-report being more productive when working remotely. It seems unlikely that individual productivity is higher in a busy office and collective productivity is notoriously difficult to measure.<\/li>\n
  3. Was creativity better in the office? It was always a concern before COVID and it is hard to measure creativity, but did your best ideas ever come in a meeting or in the office? Remote working gives us the opportunity to engage higher levels of diversity in innovation (not just those who are able and willing to commute to the same location) and individuals generate more ideas working individually than in groups (contrary to our stubborn belief in collective \u201cbrainstorming\u201d).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, let\u2019s be realistic about the office as a baseline to compare with remote and hybrid working. Let\u2019s look objectively at the comparisons and parse out the relative advantages. By consciously choosing what to do when we are together and apart, we can get the best from the different modes of working.<\/p>\n

    By forcing people back to the office when it adds little value and undermines our ability to attract talent we are serving nobody<\/p>\n

    You can see how we do this in our programs on innovation and other topics<\/a> here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There is still a lot of debate about the \u201creturn to the office\u201d, and surveys (suspiciously often sponsored by real […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-89981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","type-blog","training-matrix-management","training-people-and-purpose","training-virtual-teams"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat\u2019s so great about the office anyway? - Global Integration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"lets compare remote working with the realities of office working, not an idealised past\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What\u2019s so great about the office anyway?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"lets compare remote working with the realities of office working, not an idealised past\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Global Integration\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-06-06T07:24:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-06T10:00:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/pexels-pixabay-416320-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevan Hall\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevan Hall\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kevan Hall\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/fd1e2a46f0d9d3bf3ae0a0f06a8a113d\"},\"headline\":\"What\u2019s so great about the office anyway?\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-06-06T07:24:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-06T10:00:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":437,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/10\\\/pexels-pixabay-416320-scaled.webp\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.global-integration.com\\\/insights\\\/whats-so-great-about-the-office-anyway\\\/\",\"name\":\"What\u2019s so great about the office anyway? 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