Is the future of work really remote?

🌶 Hot take: the future of work will not be fully remote.

I'm very interested in the future of work and often think about what we'll all be doing at some point in the near future. For many, the thought of going back to a physical office is a nonsense. I even know people who have turned down job offers because the company required some time in office.

Countless studies have shown that the remote work experiment was a resounding success! Employees have never been more productive! But is that really the case?

More work is getting done, but at what cost? Employees are working harder and longer hours. The line between work and home has been blurred and the "personal" time most companies gave in the middle of day is shrinking.

As companies begin to abandon their offices, my fear is that they're doing so under the guise of the what the office was and not of what it should become.

In my opinion, nothing can replace the good parts of being in an office - the spontaneous conversations with coworkers, the strengthening of friendships, office romance, and the feeling of community, camaraderie, and teamwork.

You simply can't recreate that over zoom in a few hours per week.

I often joke that remote work is where culture goes to die, but I don't think I'm that far off.

With Elon Musk in the news for ordering Twitter employees back to the office (amongst other things), it's my opinion that we'll start to see more and more companies following suit.

Do I think that employees should be back in an office 5 days a week? Of course not. But I do believe that employees should be back a little.

So what is the right balance of remote and in-person work? I'm not sure, nor do I believe that anyone really knows.

I think back to a conversation I had when I interviewed a senior executive at Gensler for an internal podcast I produced at LinkedIn. In our chat they likened the office of the future to the downtown or main street of a town - a place of community and gathering. It's a place that you don't go to everyday, but do travel to often - usually when you need something specific, are meeting a friend for drinks, or are gathering with your neighbors for the town Christmas tree lighting.

The more I think about it, the more I think this analogy is spot on.

Much like we'll pop over to Main Street to grab a coffee for a short break, why can't we pop into the office for a few hours here and there? Why can't we all be together in real life for team meetings once a week or gather as a company for monthly all-hands meetings?

Why can't the office become the company's Main Street?

What do you think? Do you think most companies will eventually start asking employees to return to the office in some form? Or do you think remote work is here to stay?