In reply to Sophie:

Workers are also slowly, but surely, using AI (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude etc) to bounce questions off instead of colleagues. The chances are most people simply don't realise this is happening within their organisation because those using AI are, to a large extent, keeping it well under wraps. But it's happening. This feels like it could be problematic in the near future if it starts to become the default choice for many. Why bother ringing, emailing or Teams calling colleagues when I can just chat with Claude as I'm working through a problem. Especially when many of the large language models are rolling out voice chat. This isn't simply a home working problem but for those that want to keep their AI usage under the radar, it's easier to use it heavily when you're out of sight.

In reply to Gavin:

I think that is one giant leap. Replacing work colleagues with a prompt to ChatGPT?

In reply to Robey:

I agree that it is dangerous to identify a correlation and decide that's the cause - I acknowledge that at the end of my post. But the point I was refuting is Thomas' assertion that for "anyone in a desk job...it's pretty much a given that they can do that at home with little to no impact on productivity". That's not at all the experience in my company. Prior to working here, I worked for a company that was fully remote and it did work there and we didn't get the email overwhelm.

I see the key difference between the two organisations being that the remote organisation had roles that did not rely on each other quite as much to come to a decision. It was more conveyor belt - person A does their task then hands over to person B, who does theirs and hands to person C. In my current company, persons A, B, C, D and E work together on a multitude of tasks and all need to input on what the finished product will look like before handing it to D to make and E to sell. This *could* be facilitated remotely, like almost anything could. But a face-to-face meeting where everything can point at the same pictures and move around the same space has proven easier. It means A, B, C, D and E all talk about things in a meeting and then send an email to confirm giving the solution to points 1 and 2.

The problem comes when C is working from home, so A, B and D have a very productive meeting that C joins remotely but doesn't quite fully partake in due to physical limitations in what they can actually see and do from afar. And then C sends emails with all their thoughts after the meeting that have become apparent when reviewing everything in more detail.

It *could* be worked around. But it hasn't been needed to because our employees have largely preferred mainly office working because it correlates with higher productivity - whether it causes it or not.

I agree that if we were having difficulties with working preferences or struggling to recruit locally, we would need to consider how to make it work remotely. But we haven't...so we don't.

In reply to Steve Bridger:

We’re not there yet but it’s come to light in my organisation that some employees are increasingly using generative AI systems and a number have mentioned that they have used (and are using) some of the subscription frontier models for a back and forth discussion about work issues, and with some success it seems. Needless to say we’ve needed to reinforce our companies data protection policies although they have assured us that they’ve kept such communications vague and anonymous, and have subsequently shared the ‘conversations’ with us. What’s both fascinating and worrying (potential data breaches aside!) is that they would have had such discussions with their line manager or an available colleague and, because no one has been available and they didn’t want to send emails and then wait a day or so for a reply, they’ve simply cracked on and used GPT-4 or Claude Opus (not the less capable free versions). This definitely feels like the beginning of a shift and something our company needs to think about, especially given that a lot of employees work from home for considerable parts of the week. And it’s spooked some middle managers who suddenly feel a bit vulnerable.

In reply to Sophie:

Have to say I agree. While I understand how wfh might work for the individual, it doesn't always work for the business. The nature of our business is fast moving and things can often change at very short notice, so good team interaction is essential and it does just work better when people are in the office to react to the changes . After the pandemic we allowed wfh 1 day per week which seems to work for both sides. I very rarely use wfh unless I have a something like a Dental appt during the day which makes it a waste of time to go to work (45 minute drive), leave the office to go to the appt which is only 10 mins from home and then drive all the way back to the office again. Team dynamics were definitely affected by having to wfh during the pandemic and since returning to the office (which we did early on in Boris' opening up roadmap), we have only lost one member of staff because they didn't want to be in the office. Also as a business with an office in a rural part of the country where wifi and broadband are still not great, there are regular issues with people joining Teams calls from home so to have people wfh more than one day a week would be more problematic/disruptive. There is no right or wrong with this, as with most things it's about getting the balance right to meet needs for both the employees and the business.

A practical suggestion. I am aware of an organisation has a monthly 'all colleague' day at each of their locations. Everyone is strongly encouraged, but not mandated, to attend. Senior leaders make an effort to be at as many of these as possible. They day will always involve a free lunch, often themed, eg pancakes on pancake day. They will sometimes have other activities from some learning and development to something related to one of their organisation's charities. There will be curated opportunities to network and engage with people including outside of their team. 'Standard' meetings are discouraged on these days. Attendance is high as people can see the value in them / enjoy attending / get some face time with leaders. Build it and they will come etc.....

I was struggling as well to bring the associates back to the office, until I gathered a wellbeing committee which consists of 4 members (one member from each department for example) they were able to gather some ideas to make the employees go back to the office. Just a simple communication to all stating that "Surprise, make sure to come to the office for a nice initiative" every two weeks we were able to have a social even at the office or plan something symbolic such as Ice cream day, sports day, wellness talks with an external service provider. Usually people like to have fun at work, it's a matter of understanding your people at the location.

In reply to Steve Bridger:

Agreed Steve. While AI and Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IASs) may outpace human information processing capacity (analysis) and task execution (automation), this still doesn't get past the level of technical knowledge and capability.

In other words, yes, we can have highly competent technology, but it will only ever be that - competent. It's interesting to take a look at Dreyfus & Drefus' work in Mind Over Machine (Dreyfus, H., & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over machine. Simon and Schuster.).

AI isn't new. Their exploration of five levels of human capability, from novice to expert, is still relevant today. Proficiency and expertise go beyond competence (technical knowledge) and involve the weighing and discretionary application of purely human values.

These levels - proficiency and mastery/expertise are proper to phronetic knowledge (practical wisdom, as a loose translation) and quite distinct from technical knowledge (that plateau's at competence).

A number of organisation's do this quite well - in terms of focussing more on the human development of their people, rather than prioritising skills. Each new generation comes with the skills of the age; the appropriate application of those skills - and the tools, techniques, and tactics that guide their use - is the domain of charter and values. That's why, for example, one of the big 4 consulting firms takes a people-first (rather than skills-based) approach to developing their talent.

An example I was provided by a CLO recently was that of a master craftsperson. Their tools, such as a hammer (read AI in this case) are neutral - in the hands of the right person, a master craftsperson, it can be used to build something beautiful. In the hands of someone else, it may be used to destroy or harm. The same holds true for AI. While a powerful and impressive technology - it is just that. It's use depends on the value, character, and phronetic knowledge of the master professional (expert) using it.

Successful and sustainable organisations in the future will have a character-first/people-first approach, investing in human development, to guide the ethical and masterful use of technology - even if this means giving technology an enormous amount of autonomy (if even under human oversight). A skills-first/technology-first approach ignores what it is to be human, as well as other dimensions of knowledge - and, overtime, I believe will prove to be unsustainable.

Newer generations put a much greater stock in purpose and ethics - as we see in the shift towards sustainable and ethical investments, and the importance of meaningful work to current candidates in the job market. They're looking for - and influencing - a market and social consciousness that is human/purpose-centric. A tech-first/skills-first approach simply won't jive. It's already outdated and won't be fit-for-purpose in the next 5 or so years.

Apprenticeship continues to be on the rise, as it provides a human-first community of practice where values, virtue and character are developed. The superiority of this approach is evident when we look at the leading Big 4 professional services firm that adopts exactly this focus - to build better humans first.

Hi Kate, While I know you've asked this awhile ago - and those who've encouraged looking at the 'why' of encouraging people to come into the office - I'd like to add a thought, that I'm not sure has emerged from the discussion below, as yet. I actually see a great benefit to being in an office - and it's surfaced from a research study I'm leading at the moment.

I advocate for strategic (or thoughtful, intention) in-office connection and contact - but for a very different reason that may often be promoted - such as collaboration, strategy development, team work, etc. Given most if not all of these reasons can be done effectively - and at times, or even often, more effectively remotely - as we discovered during Covid.

I delve into the reason in more detail in a reply to Steven below, but essentially the 'why' that I've found really sticks is apprenticeship. I don't mean a trades apprenticeship for example, but the informal mentoring and expert-novice relationship where values, behaviour, ethics, and character are forged - passed on from one organisational generation to the next.

It's this type of learning - or more appropriately, development - that we noticed was absent during Covid. The impact was noticeable - by leaders, the organisation's people, and in work outputs. This type of institutional knowledge and human values simply aren't effectively transmitted virtually (and no, not even in the metaverse).

And that comes down to the why. The attractive reason, and perhaps most compelling reason, that I've uncovered that encourages in-person connection, is that apprenticeship-type experience: the connection and conversation between experts or those with expertise, leaders, and individual contributors, practitioners and novices. This is how effective mentorship forms, 'watercooler' (spontaneous) conversations and brainstorming happen, and observation of experts-in-action (that you can't get in a virtual environment) contributes to the organisation's next generation's development.

Leaders want this (to pass on their knowledge, but also to have more effective teams) - and teams generally do to. It addresses the inherent drive for connection, belonging, recognition, and realising one's potential. So it's not the training per se or team work - its the community. the community of practice that benefits all participants, the organisation, and the organisation's constituents or clients.

If you're tying this approach to performance management and progression, now you have a truly compelling 'why' for encouraging in-office personal connection. Hope this helps add some food for thought! Be curious to hear how things go.

In reply to Nathan:

the informal mentoring and expert-novice relationship where values, behaviour, ethics, and character are forged

This is a great point by Nathan, but I'd like to also point out that the "informal mentoring and expert-novice relationship" is a coin with two faces. Yes, it is in such relationships that values are forged, but sometimes those values include institutional misogyny and racism as well as the more subtly-destructive messages about unspoken hierarchies and not challenging prejudice, poor practice and entrenched ways of thinking.

One of the things that many people found liberating and transformative about remote working in the pandemic was that they were released from these chains, and one of the features of the RTO trend is a determination by vested interests to seem them restored.

By way of a very specific and individual example, a close friend started his first apprenticeship (in software design) during the pandemic and it ended up being 90% remote. Because he was remote, it was much harder for his employers to have him just doing shadowing, tea-making, observing activity and instead he found himself thrown straight into development teams where, because his youth, inexperience and neurodiversity were less obviously visible, he was basically treated as just another member of the team and he was given opportunities to show what he could do that would have been impossible if he had been just another apprentice in the office.

I hasten to add that I'm not arguing to throw out your point entirely. I think you're right that one major feature of person-to-person working is to achieve specific investment in the business. One thing I know as a predominantly remote worker is that, because I always work in basically the same place, one employer can very much blur into another without much distinction because my workplace is essentially "Teams".

It's just worth remembering that this feature isn't necessarily 100% positive or constructive.