The hybrid workplace is failing to live up to expectations in a number of ways
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskFor purveyors of remote-working tech, the gradual unwinding of the grand work-from-home experiment is already proving rough. Slack, a corporate-chat app owned by Salesforce, a software giant, projects slowing sales growth to 20% in the next quarter, year on year, down from 50% at the height of the pandemic.
. For one thing, it is no substitute for the buzz and the chatter of the pre-pandemic office. Many people hanker after the socialising, camaraderie and shared experience, even if getting used to it again may take time. Even small amounts of remote work can have a big impact on the frequency of face-to-face interactions in the office. By one estimate, spending an average of three days each week in the office can limit encounters between any two workers by 64% compared with pre-pandemic norms.
Before the pandemic many companies were going to great lengths to overcome the “Allen curve” and engineer serendipity. Google, which credits spontaneous chats for products such as Gmail and Street View, designed its Silicon Valley headquarters to ensure that any one Googler could reach any other by walking no more than two and a half minutes.