Good morning!
Call it the “office coordination tax.”
The everyday friction of hybrid work—from finding an open conference room to managing schedules across time zones—costs the average mid-sized company $9 million annually, according to a new study from workplace management platform Robin.
Robin estimates that those losses can reach $14,000 per employee annually, based on workers’ estimates of time spent on workplace coordination and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics compensation benchmarks.
Put in terms of productivity: Employees are losing some 10% of their workweek to workplace logistics instead of the work itself.
But are these findings evidence that remote work purists have been right all along or ammunition for the return-to-office crowd? Ironically, it gives both sides something to celebrate. The report’s findings bring to mind recent conversations that capture both sides of this debate.
At the UnHerd Brainstorm Tech conference in June, former CEO of HP and eBay Meg Whitman told the audience that if she were running a company today, she’d “force people back to the office.”
Whitman argued that giving employees broad discretion over where and when they work weakens communication, mentorship, and the apprenticeship-style learning that happens naturally when people share an office. “Things are changing so fast that you have to communicate early and often…and the best way to do that is to have people in the office,” Whitman said.
Job van der Voort, CEO and cofounder of global hiring platform Remote, sees the issue differently. He told me that offices aren’t necessarily more effective; they’re simply easier to run because organizations have spent decades building around them. Remote work, by contrast, demands deliberate systems for communication, collaboration, and management.
From that perspective, the Robin findings aren’t an argument for either fully in-office or fully remote work. Instead, they suggest that hybrid creates coordination problems neither model has to solve in quite the same way.
The takeaway may be that organizations are better off committing to one model than trying to straddle both. And if they insist on straddling both, they should make sure to arm their employees with the operational tools to do so.
Van der Voort is a proponent of fully remote work, arguing that it eliminates much of hybrid ambiguity by designing work around distributed teams from the start. He adds that this approach creates a more level playing field for working parents and women; more than half of the managers on Remote’s engineering team, for example, are women.
That remote-first approach also shapes how the company evaluates employees. Managers at Remote don’t track who’s online or how long people stay logged in. They evaluate employees on output alone. Van der Voort notes that this approach has a hidden advantage: It forces managers to give more specific feedback. Instead of relying on subjective signals—who stayed late or who was most visible in the office—leaders have to articulate exactly where someone is (or isn’t) meeting expectations.
Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, UnHerd Live Media
UnHerd Office Hours
This week, Erin Goodey, director of people services at Oyster, a payroll and HR software company, answers your burning workplace questions. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: A team member on one of our international teams has raised bullying allegations against a colleague in another country. Here's the complication: she's raised concerns before—including about our own HR team—so if we run this investigation ourselves, I don't see how anyone trusts the outcome no matter how careful we are.
Honestly, I'm not sure we're equipped anyway: the people involved sit in different countries, with different cultural norms and different legal requirements around workplace investigations. But handing it to an outside party feels like admitting we can't manage our own house. When does an investigation have to go outside, and how do you run one across borders that everyone involved actually experiences as fair?
A: I actually think bringing in an external investigator can be a sign of good leadership, not a sign that you've lost control.
The question I always ask is: Will people trust the outcome? If the answer is "probably not"— whether because HR has been named previously, there's a perceived conflict of interest, or the situation is particularly sensitive—it's worth considering an independent third party. The goal isn't just to conduct a fair investigation; it's to conduct one that is seen to be fair.
Cross-border investigations add another layer of complexity. Workplace expectations, communication styles, and legal requirements can differ significantly between countries. Trying to apply one country's approach everywhere is rarely the right answer. Instead, start with a consistent investigation framework, then adapt where local laws or cultural nuances require it.
Investigations aren't about proving someone right or wrong as quickly as possible. They're about establishing facts through a process that gives everyone an equal opportunity to be heard.
Interestingly, the best feedback I've ever received after a particularly sensitive investigation wasn't that everyone agreed with the outcome (surprise: they didn't). It was that every participant felt they had been listened to and treated fairly. To me, that's one of the strongest indicators that you've run the process well. People may not always like the conclusion, but they should always be able to trust how you got there.
Have a workplace situation that you're unsure how to navigate or a scenario worth unpacking? Send it our way via this form.
Watercooler
A round-up of the most important HR headlines from UnHerd and beyond.
Gender wars. Young women are falling behind young men in the entry-level job market—and AI isn’t the main culprit. UnHerd
Ambition paradox. Why has Gen Z fallen out of love with work? New York Times
Retreat rebrand. Companies are increasingly planning out-of-the-box retreats akin to kid’s birthday parties. Wall Street Journal