![]() But numerous surveys find that those same groups of workers are also the ones who value flexible arrangements the most, and who are the least likely to return to the office voluntarily. Shapiro’s experience highlights a particular challenge for companies and workers navigating return-to-office tensions: The career penalty for remote work may be greatest for women, young people and people of color, who often lack the professional networks that being in the office can help provide. “Of course if you need to be home, be home,” she said. Shapiro, who had a baby this year, noted that increased flexibility in her field had also made it easier for in-office employees to give priority to child care when crises arose. She emailed his assistant to schedule the conversation right away. She bumped into the company’s chief executive in the hallway, and he invited her to set up a meeting to talk about her department’s approach to compensation, which had come up during her job interview. When questions came up throughout the day, she worried about reaching out to her employees spontaneously, because she knew the anxiety that a sudden calendar invitation could provoke.ĭuring her first week at Verkada, back in an office, she realized what she had been missing. Morgan Shapiro, who joined Verkada in November 2020, had previously worked at Lyft, where she struggled to manage her team of recruiters once the pandemic sent workers home. And the mentorship and training people get in person had so far proved hard to replicate on Slack and Zoom.įor some major employers, the research confirms a sentiment that has guided their decision-making on hybrid work: “It’s hard to replicate the opportunities for apprenticeship and learning that come from in-person interactions,” said Sara Wechter, head of human resources at Citi, where most employees are in the office at least three days a week.Īt Verkada, the Bay Area-based technology company that called its workers back into the office five days a week, interviews with several employees showed why some people were choosing to leave jobs with flexible work arrangements in search of an office where they could cultivate relationships. But the authors said their findings suggested something broader: that the office, at least for a certain type of white-collar knowledge worker, played an important role in early-career development. The study’s findings are preliminary and relatively narrow, directly measuring just one form of interaction among one set of workers at one technology firm. “Particularly for junior engineers who are new to this particular firm, and younger engineers, they receive less feedback from their senior colleagues when they’re remote. Harrington, an economist at the University of Iowa. “We find a now-versus-later trade-off associated with remote work,” said Ms. The effects of remote work, in terms of declining feedback, were especially pronounced for female engineers. They found that remote work enhanced the productivity of senior engineers, but it also reduced the amount of feedback that junior engineers received (in the form of comments on their code), and some of the junior engineers were more likely to quit the firm. The economists - Natalia Emanuel, Emma Harrington and Amanda Pallais - studied engineers at a large technology company. The research is among the first major studies to demonstrate the professional downside of remote work. In recent months, as large employers - including Amazon, Disney and Starbucks - have tried to call workers back to the office, thousands of employees have objected, pointing to a track record of productivity at home.īut remote workers may be paying a hidden professional penalty for that flexibility, according to a working paper from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Iowa and Harvard. Many of them, especially working parents, became fiercely attached to the flexibility. More than 50 million Americans, largely in white-collar jobs, began working from home at least part of the time. Since the start of the pandemic, sweeping workplace changes have arrived far faster than the research examining their effects. “Because I want to move up in my career.” “It’s like if there’s something in my teeth, I want you to tell me,” she said. Becker has rediscovered an upside of the office: feedback. The routine is a stark departure from her previous role at Yelp, where she worked from home and often spoke with her boss by phone just once in a day. Becker, 28, comes into her office in San Mateo, Calif., five days a week, along with all her colleagues. At least 10 times a day, Erika Becker, who works as a sales development manager at a technology company called Verkada, turns to her boss with questions.
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