For most jobs, the measure of work is a task completed. The output proves the labor. If you hire a cleaner to prevent your apartment from hitting a rock bottom of untidiness, you don’t need to watch them work to know they were there. The proof is in the stack of neatly folded laundry and the sparkling stove top.
Most service jobs require a physical presence in a specific location. The dog can’t be walked over Zoom. An email won’t prepare a meal. Still, it’s not monitoring that ensures completion. It’s trust and relationships, coupled with a desire for repeat business.
For knowledge workers, whose output can be transmitted through the familiar tools of the digital age, the office is anywhere and everywhere. CEOs weren’t too upset about this when social norms dictated that most workers would still plant their butts in expensive Herman Miller chairs in branded towers and office parks from around nine to five on weekdays. In the first two decades of this millennium, the virtual office was the exception–for after-hours access to pitch decks or Sunday night email reviews while still out of town.
Then came the pandemic and everyone realized: Wait… I can send all my emails from home.
I began my career at a bank, doing word-oriented work for a numbers-driven business, and for most of that time, I also taught yoga on the side. Much more than my day job, it was fitness classes that showed me the value of in-person work.
Meeting with my bank colleagues over Zoom wasn’t any kind of jarring shift in March of 2020. Our dispersed global teams meant we had long been adjusted to the rhythms of mass calls.
Then I logged into my first online yoga class. There’s so much extra information about mood and well-being that doesn’t come through on a screen. Instead of walking into a peaceful studio and exchanging a greeting with each new person, I stared at a Brady-Bunch-grid of yogis.
I began to teach and students shifted out of frame. If they were breathing, I didn’t know. All my old tricks to match the duration of a plank to the students’ energy levels were gone. The only tool I had to guide me was the sound of my own voice. That first Zoom class was my last Zoom class.
I get how the CEOs feel. Teaching over a video call feels like teaching an abyss and I’m sure leadership of any kind feels the same. I had no idea whether students were paying attention, zoning out, or questioning my décor choices.
If I had sacrificed my whole life to become the emperor of a shiny glass building and suddenly all my citizens abandoned me, even if I really only passed them in the hallway twice a day and spent the bulk of my time sequestered in my own giant office where people felt afraid to enter without an explicit invitation, I might be a little sad. I might want them back. I might give cranky quotes to the media about the “aberrations” of remote work.
The most dedicated yoga teachers, however, adapted to virtual teaching. They knew that having the ability to practice could make a difference in their students’ lives, even if it felt a little awkward to teach. Many innovative founders and leaders are doing the same with remote-forward hiring strategies.
In Wall Street office towers in the pre-pandemic 2010s, water-cooler conversations weren’t a symbol of collaboration and productivity. They signaled something else entirely: slacking off. Unfavorable performance reviews highlighted time spent “off the desk” and indicated room for improvement.
On the surface, that has changed. When Goldman Sachs summoned employees back to the office in the spring of 2021 (and meant it), returners were greeted by new couch configurations in the Sky Lobby, meant to provide space for the informal chats that had allegedly been powering the business all along.
I know because I was one of the summoned employees. When I returned, I would walk past the couches, ride the elevator to my floor, and take calls from my desk with counterparts across the globe as I always had. To save time, even meetings with colleagues on other floors made more sense when handled over the phone.
Business leaders need to understand that if something is lost with remote work, something else is gained. Without a commute, more people have time for yoga and whatever other activities inspire them and make life worth living.
The office was never designed for chitchat and hanging out. It’s a place to be close to the tools needed to do a job. For many workers today, home works just fine.
Kara Panzer is a writer based in New York.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
More must-read commentary published by Fortune:
- The FIRE movement is soaring in popularity–but early retirees report feeling lost and unfulfilled
- America turned to hospital-at-home programs during the pandemic–but their stunning success calls for a permanent fix
- ‘The Feckless 400’: These companies are still doing business in Russia–and funding Putin’s war
- Daniel Lubetzky: ‘You can’t make big ESG commitments while failing at the basics of kindness’
