The Implications of Working Without an Office

Early research on how people are — and aren’t — adapting and how leaders can help.

by

and

Ben Waber

by

and

Ben Waber

July 15, 2020 · Long read

01

Do We Really Need the Office?

02

The Implications of Working Without an Office

03

Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce

04

Building Work-Life Boundaries in the WFH Era

05

A Brief History of the Modern Office

06

In Praise of the Office

07

What Is an Office For?

In early 2020, the world began what is undoubtedly the largest work-from-home experiment in history. Now, as countries reopen but Covid-19 remains a major threat, organizations are wrestling with whether and how to have workers return to their offices. Business leaders need to be able to answer a number of questions to make these decisions. Primary among them is “What impact has working from home had on productivity and creativity?”

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Ethan Bernstein is the Edward W. Conard Associate Professor of Business Administration in the organizational behavior unit at Harvard Business School and a coauthor of “How Intermittent Breaks in Interaction Improve Collective Intelligence” (PNAS, 2018). Twitter: @ethanbernstein
Hayley Blunden is a PhD student in the organizational behavior program at Harvard Business School.
Andrew Brodsky is an assistant professor of management at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He is on Twitter @AndrewSBrodsky.
AndrewSBrodsky
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Wonbin Sohn is a PhD student in the management department at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Find him on Twitter at @wonbinsohn.
Ben Waber is the president and co-founder of the workplace analytics company Humanyze and the author of People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us About the Future of Work.