In the chaos and lockdowns of Covid-19, companies shifted to remote work out of necessity. Three years on, some are maintaining the status-quo while others -- including Apple, Amazon and Google -- are shifting to hybrid or fully in-office mandates.
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And though workers tend to love the flexibility of remote work, there may be some significant drawbacks to it.
A new working paper from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Harvard and the University of Iowa found that, while remote work led to a notable increase in productivity, it also led to a crucial decrease in feedback. This situation most impacts younger workers.
The study, titled “The Power of Proximity to Coworkers,” only examined software engineers at a single Fortune 500 company, making the scope narrow. The implications of it, however, may be wide-reaching.
Engineers who worked in the same building as their peers received 23% more feedback than geographically distant teammates when offices were open; when they were closed, that number shrank by 17%. And though being in person reduced productivity in programs written per month by 21%, it increased feedback and collaboration, supporting the idea of a longer-term investment in a stronger team.
“We find a now-versus-later trade-off associated with remote work,” Emma Harrington, an economist at the University of Iowa, told the New York Times. “Particularly for junior engineers who are new to this particular firm, and younger engineers, they receive less feedback from their senior colleagues when they’re remote.”
Even in a hybrid situation, the study found that younger workers still pay the price.
“One worker’s choice to work remotely impacts her peers. Older workers are much more likely to work remotely than young workers. Their not coming back to the office can depress younger workers’ skill accumulation,” the study reads. “This may be particularly important as young workers learn the most on the job.”
The study, though its findings are specific to that one firm within that one industry, found that there is something irreplaceably important about the human proximity found in an office.
