{"id":3965,"date":"2025-04-23T17:18:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T17:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:25:07","slug":"remote-workers-dont-know-what-theyre-missing-in-the-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/remote-workers-dont-know-what-theyre-missing-in-the-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote Workers Don\u2019t Know What They\u2019re Missing in the Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\r\n

There are positives and negatives to any work arrangement, whether it\u2019s fully work-from-home or five days a week in the office. That said, more organizations have encouraged or required employees to be in the office two or three days a week, and even reluctant officegoers have experienced benefits from face-to-face interactions with bosses and colleagues.<\/p>\r\n

Academy of Management Scholar Carol Kulik<\/a> of the University of South Australia said that for hybrid work models to be effective, flexibility is key. It\u2019s also important for leaders and managers to realize that remote work is different from in-office work and adjust their expectations and communication styles accordingly.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat I find most frightening about the return-to-office conversation is it\u2019s been presented as \u2018employees want to be working from home vs. managers want them in the office,\u2019 and that\u2019s a very black-or-white argument that misses so much complexity,\u201d Kulik said. \u201cI don’t think employees fully appreciate what they\u2019re missing by not being in the office.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019re not going to see some of the effects of this rise of remote-work and hybrid-work schedules for generations,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know that one of the things that\u2019s happening as a result of people not being in the office is that they\u2019re missing a lot of on-the-job training.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cA great example is, if you were a junior clerk, you used to write a brief, and you would actually see a senior clerk take a red pencil, edit it, and change it right before your eyes,\u201d she said. \u201cNow it\u2019s more like an assembly line: You submit that brief, your boss reviews it and approves it, and it moves forward, but you don\u2019t see the action happening so you\u2019re not learning as much or as quickly.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Despite Kulik\u2019s advocacy for the benefits of workers being in the offices, she says it\u2019s important for organizations to offer a flexible hybrid model. That requires adaptable leadership styles and management tactics.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNothing is going to frustrate employees more than coming into work after, say, an hour commute, and then they settle into a little cubicle, put on their headset, and go into a Zoom call that they could have done anywhere,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really important that we think very carefully about what people are doing in the office and how an office day is going to be different than a home day.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhat would bring me into the office? Maybe a conversation with my line manager about my career and opportunities for professional development, so all of these things need to be built directly into the office days rather than just telling employees they have to be there.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The onus is on leaders and managers to make the office a magnet drawing employees in, Kulik said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhy are you going to be there? It\u2019s because you\u2019re getting something that you really value,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe you come into the office when you\u2019re going to be interfacing with another team, so that you have a little bit of extra time to have lunch together and get to know this other part of the organization that you\u2019re otherwise not interacting with.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A sample of Kulik\u2019s AOM research findings:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n