This is an anonymous post from an Elpha member.

benefits of in-office or hybrid work

we read so much about the benefits of remote work, to the point that it can feel a bit taboo or demonized to talk about the benefits of in-office or hybrid work modalities.

I've been working remote for years, but have gotten the itch to do some more in-person projects.

So, I'm curious to hear the flip side, those of you who are champions of in-office/hybrid work, what do you love about that modality?

sagha·Aug 19

I work hybrid and I love it. I find that I have a greater sense of the people I work with being real people when I interact with them in the office. We have side chats before meetings or by our desks or in the lunch room. That gives us more opportunity to pull back and discuss things holistically. I also find it's easier to develop empathy and goodwill with my coworkers, and that feeds into better collaboration and decision making. In comparison, my Zoom-only interactions feel a lot more transactional and tactical.Are there more distractions in the office? Sure. Is it more tiring to have to commute? Absolutely. I love being heads down on my remote days. The important thing is balance, and hybrid gives me that.

ErikaTonhauser·Aug 20

Very well put. When I worked hybrid I felt very similar. Now I am fully remote in a different job, and I am trying to apply some of the concepts that made me feel more connected while in the office, but it is quite hard despite the team being very nice!

Iynna·Aug 19

Oh noo don't let it be taboo or demonised! If you're into the whole in person / hybrid, by all means be into it! you'd be surprised the amount of people who would be on team "in office/hybrid"! there's definitely a lot of pros to the in person/hybrid model which I did for a bit in 2021 before going remote after (well I also went back to school). I love having people around to bounce ideas, i like the accountability eg i am less inclined to spend my day scrolling on instagram if everyone around me is working or at leat appears focused (they might be focused on watching cat videos, but at least they are doing it in silence and that's giving me enough "pressure" to work too haha). Some might say it gives a reason to wake up early, have some structure, but for me it no longer matters since my workout classes are usually what get me up. What is it you miss about in person/hybrid?

Morgan·Aug 19

If that's what you (and that other lady) enjoy, then go for it. If I was in an area I enjoyed living in, with people who match my values (even if we don't match how we get to the end goal), I'd be more open to at least 2 days in an office.

marjorieaageeb·Aug 21

Hi Anh153 :-)I am a Radiologist. There are times that I work remotely and I have to be in-person at other times. Patient-doctor relationship in my observation, is stronger and quicker to develop in person, face to face. I can coach my radiology staff better with techniques as well. Being in-person also decreases lawsuits because medical risks are prevented better and quicker. Again, one of the root-causes of medical lawsuits is lack of (or crappy) patient-doctor relationship which is hard to build or absent in remote work.Remotely working benefits me by being a little bit more relaxed, be in my comfy attire, listen to the music I like and put the volume up when I want to!! (from ACDC to the classic Mozart)How about you? Do you encounter challenges in remote work?

Kris75·Aug 24

This job, and the two jobs before that, were all remote/hybrid. The fully remote part was due to the pandemic, and once things opened back up a bit, I went back to hybrid. My sweet spot is 2-3 days per week in office. It's sort of unpopular to say, but I really felt seeing people in person, being able to ask a quick question at their desk, being able to insert myself into interesting conversations around the office, really helps me work better. I produce better work for my employer. A lot of brainstorming, bouncing ideas around in groups, looking at complicated problems and trying to find creative solutions: all that worked better when the group was together in one room. I will come right out and say it: our fully remote colleagues missed out on a lot. We tried to make meetings more inclusive and upgraded our tech for easier and better collaboration; we tried to document better so that people had other ways to find information; we brought people into the office once a quarter for team building. But...these were inferior replacements for regularly working in the same place.Do I want to go back to 100% in office? Heck, no. And I turned down a job recently that required it. Obviously I like having no commute (I have always commuted by public transport, and they've been 20-50 minute commutes), I like being able to wander around my garden for a break, putting on a load of laundry, eating a real lunch, all the stuff we like about working from home. 100% remote would be better for my non-work life, but the quality of my work would suffer. 100% in-office may be better for my employer, but I'm unwilling to do that. So hybrid it is. To be fair, hybrid is also a bit better for my non-work life, in that I am by nature a homebody, and getting out of the house and talking to other people occasionally is good for me.

alyshalynn·Aug 25

If your company doesn’t put in the effort to make remote work systems both productive and conducive to sharing ideas and feedback effectively then your company probably also isn’t putting in the effort to make those systems happen in-person. This means you are personally responsible for curating and cultivating those things for yourself whether you’re in office or not - and making that a personal responsibility of an employee is a sign of a lazy company/management team.It’s even goes beyond lazy to negligent when you consider how personal bias comes into play when that scenario is thrust onto individuals instead of built into systems and culture - men are less likely to include women in social connecting since it can be viewed as sexualized, whether they intend it that way or not. Marginalized groups are more likely to be overlooked in social connections where the shared social capital congregates around implicitly biased behaviors - like how golf has a high-cost of entry in both time & equipment… I could go on.But the point is - if there are things that are ‘good’ or ‘enjoyable’ which are relevant to the work a company fosters in-person (as opposed to just an individual’s ability to perform work politics well or embody office norms) the same aspects can and should be applied to remote working, otherwise the management is not just overlooking some people’s ability to participate but actively hampering effective collaboration regardless of the format of that work.So if you find yourself personally more-productive in-person, I hope you’re questioning if that individual preference is fueled truly by your internal values or if it is a form of over-functioning to compensate for the lackluster collaboration systems in your current company.