Return to office: what’s this obsession with collaboration

[Lantern12]

More of a rant than anything else, but wondered if others felt the same!

More and more companies seem to be pushing a return to office now (including my own, so I am biased) and the narrative it always the same - mostly that we “collaborate” and build relationships better in person. Is this actually true? Is there any evidence for this?

Some of the strongest relationships I’ve built in my career (clients and colleagues) have been forged over video calls. I find it a lot easier to speak to people 1:1 from a private space than on an open office floor where I feel everyone is overhearing my conversations, and I appreciate the peace and quiet between calls. I also come up with all my best ideas sat quietly thinking about things, never sat in a meeting room with others.

When leaders insist we build relationships and collaborate better in person I think “who are you to tell me how I work best?”. Maybe for them the buzz of an office helps them, but they can’t just insist this is the case for everyone.

Who’s with me on this?!

I agree.

And in my company it doesn't even make sense. We're also being made to come in more often, but no one in my team is based in my office. But they've done it as a firmwide policy, with monitoring, so I have to pay to commute to sit on the same teams calls I'd be on if I stayed at home.

I think you can get to know people far better in person than you can from the other side of two glass screens. You can read body language better for a start.
I would say line managers have a duty of care over their line reports that can only be exercised via face to face meetings.
My team is back in the office 2/3 days a week and we find that decisions can be made more quickly via impromptu conversations and meetings that wouldn't be possible over Teams and those printer and coffee machine conversations are great for forging deeper relationships.

If we all worked at home all the time, in years to come, no one will have met anyone face to face and o think that's really sad.

There's also a feeling from employers that brand loyalty from employees will diminish if they have no physical connection with the brand, and I can understand this too.

My DH has retired but they were consulting engineers. There is no way they can train engineers in complex design by WFH. They need oversight and team meetings where people are able to teach and inform others. We know from education that remote doesn’t work. Relationships are better formed with some office working. Many young people don’t want to be separated from others.

Also what does your contract say? Office based of home based? If your work location is office, the employer can expect you there. You took the job with the costs associated with it. Many employers are offering hybrid working but refusing to attend the office could result in a disciplinary procedure because you are not fulfilling your contract. If you want it varied because it suits you, then negotiate.

Same here. I actually think it likely would be good for us if the entire team was in the office and we were having meetings in the meeting room instead of on Teams.

Sitting next to a load of people, some of whom are in the same Teams meeting as me and some in different ones is really stressful. I can't focus or hear anything and struggle tuning other people out.

There appears to be no etiquette about it either. Last week my manager started a loud conversation with someone right behind my desk while I was on a meeting and when I spoke louder he did the same. It's completely chaotic and every single person says they get hardly any work done in the office.

I even hate being at home but being on a meeting with someone in the office as the background noise makes it so hard to hear them. You have to ask them to mute as soon as they finish speaking or you can these yourself think, and as soon as they unmute to reply it's really loud and startling.

The worst is when several people are sat next to each other in the same meeting because if they don't mute consistently when not speaking there's an echo as you're hearing someone on multiple microphones.

I am actually amazed that anyone thinks this way of working is a good idea. Unless the office can completely replace online meetings, it's just an awful experience. I think in our place if they're going to push getting back the office then they need to split teams by location but that won't happen.

I'm sure I read somewhere that more men than women were going back in the office and it worked out better for their careers.

There is no evidence, anywhere, that employees are more productive or more effective when they’re in the office. The push back to the office might have many reasons but none of them are underpinned by evidence based research.

We talk and exchange ideas far more on Teams and we share more than we used to when we were physically in the office, plus you don’t get people interrupting you as they do in a physical office because you can choose when you respond to a query. Now our team is made of members who live all around the country and we have more parents who can fit work around childcare.

Rubbish! Anyone who uses any telephone helpline can tell you that for a start

I agree with this. In the office it is the same few people gossiping all the time. I really struggle to see why anyone would think that gossip helps us work better. It does not. On teams people take more equal time to talk and input their ideas.

A quick Google shows me the weight of research shows workers are more productive on company premises than working remotely.

Easy question. Just replace the word ‘collaboration’ for ‘conformity’ and ‘control’.

Lots of companies don’t seem to like that their staff have started behaving, speaking and interacting like actual normal humans since WFH rather than offfice drones who think and talk about nothing but work. Speaking to colleagues via video call, outside of the hearing and control of managers, people can express their honest opinions about things in the workplace. Workplaces lose control of the narrative i.e can no longer force company ‘values’ or push certain narratives (as they often do during the change management process). This conformity is what they are talking about when they talk about the ‘company culture’

Companies believe that they aren’t just paying you for the work you produce. They are paying you to be a certain person for a number of hours a day. To perform socially and emotionally as they wish.

A quick google shows me remote workers are 5% to 9% more productive

I find it far easier to collaborate around a table than in a teams meeting. A lot of my best ideas come from casual “what do you think of this” chats that happen when you are in the same office. I’m really glad no one WFH in my company as we all feel the same. Yes, there is a bit of chat over coffee, but that is often productive too as well as fostering personal relationships.

Same with our company. It’s an international company - the team I’m part of has members spread across EMEA and US, working with colleagues in Australia and Asia as well. There’s zero reason for us to be forced to go into the office. I’m actually fully remote anyway but manage a team of people who are hybrid office-based (none of whom are in my country or the same location as each other). I’m supposed to monitor their attendance but tbh I have no intention of pecking their heads about it.

@ExtraDisorganised and do your colleagues feel the same? Or do they just wish you would get on with your work and let them do their work?

I took it upon myself to go back to the office mon to Thurs before we have a back in 3 days a week rule come in. I found myself developing relationships with all the various people from.other teams thay came in on their days. Surprisingly I found myself developing better connections with the direxros who came in, before I would neve have the opportunity to talk to them unless I needed them which was rare, usually it would go via my manager.

So i do find it better coming into the office.

This is a valid point though. Making yourself visible to senior staff is basically the only reason to go in now. I’m aware that being fully remote probably isn’t great for career progression but it’s the price I’m willing to pay to work from home and have all the flexibility that entails.

@Spectre8 I found in the office I could never get near the Directors. They were always in meetings or others were always wanting to talk to them urgently. They were way easier to have a quick zoom chat with when everyone wfh.

No, not at all, we all co-operate very well in person, they come and talk to me as much as I talk to them. Many cant work from home for technical reasons but of those that could no one has ever expressed an interest in doing so.

I imagine it's so dependent on the role, and the set up of the company that taking a general average and applying it widely to say "people are more productive in the office" is pointless (similarly "people are more productive at home").

Some days I really just need to concentrate on something all day. It's absolutely better for me to be able to do that in the silence of my house with no one coming over to chat to me.
Some roles are obviously more collaborative. Mine is some of the time - although as I said upthread no one in my team is based on my office, we're all spread out across the whole country, so being in the office makes no difference there.

Also we all know each other well enough to know when not to interrupt or can say “could I get back to you later”.

I spend a lot of time on spreadsheets. I do not work collaboratively day to day. Being in the office just means distractions, and being forced to listen to gossip

@Lantern12 “who are you to tell me how I work best?"

I think they are your employer, the people who pay you to work. So your opinion on the matter is irrelevant. If you don't want to work for them, quit. If you want to retain your salary, then suck it up.

I can see that if you are just working on spreadsheets or databases etc all day there is no point being in the office. My workplace is highly collaborative and we all talk all the time so that is different.

Meeting in person does really make a difference. Big corporations get a bad rap but some of the biggest sponser food so that colleagues are more likely to eat lunch together and other big corps with multinational teams actually pay expenses for colleauges to be in the same office (country/continent) for a few weeks so that they can mingle. My DH worked for one of these and reported that it did really make things easier both short term for an immediate project and longer term as they worked on other products.