The professional sphere in people’s lives has changed dramatically since the pandemic in 2020. Teleworking has disrupted not only how people work, but also what they expect from businesses to offer to recruit them. Financial reimbursement for their time is still important, however, most people consider the flexibility offered by employers to be equally important. As McKinsey highlights in a report, “when people have the chance to work flexibly, 87 percent take it.”

The catalyst for this change was the seemingly overnight adoption of video conferencing platforms and team management tools, all which enabled professionals to work from home, or anywhere, other than the office. 

At the Reflect Festival in 2022, one of the most important technology and innovation events in the MENA region, Covve’s CEO and co-founder, Yiannis Gavrielides, explored how technology has impacted the way we work, yet why physical interaction plays a very important role in workplace and productivity dynamics.

Over the past few years, teleconferencing defined the way we communicated with one another. As Yiannis describes, besides Zoom, platforms like Hopin helped in hosting events, while GatherTown created remote interactive offices. Between 2019 to 2021 teleworking increased three-fold, from 6% to close to 18% in the US. This figure was even higher in Europe, from 5%, to 20%. During this period of time, people realized the value of being able to work from home, and being closer to their families.

In 2022, with the pandemic subsiding, the growth curve eventually normalized. There was a visible shift in teleworking, with people returning back to the office. This is partly due to the fact that businesses recognized a lack of company culture and a decrease in high-performance due to remote work conditions. According to a Deloitte survey with 275 clients, 32% mostly focused on maintaining company culture, and 26% were seeking to maintain high-performance work. So how would companies get people back to the office?

It’s simple. Businesses had to offer more attractive packages to candidates and current employees. They had to include flexibility in their offers, enabling people to choose the frequency of attending the office, and working from home. 

Stanford University conducted a study consisting of 35,000 participants, showing that 31% preferred to work from home all days of the week, and 20% wanted to attend the office every day. The remaining 50% stated a preference in balancing their work days between the office and their home. So there was the birth of the hybrid model.

Beyond the newly found desire and ability to claim the freedom of working remotely, people have also realized a disconnection with their colleagues and their work overall. 

In his speech, Yiannis referred to the Microsoft Work Trend Index, and its indications of people wanting to return to the office for the purpose of rebuilding their professional ties. 73% of participants stated that returning to work based on company expectations was not a good enough reason. 85% of employees said rebuilding team bonds and socializing with colleagues would motivate them to return to the office. 

Indeed, people were actually motivated to return to the office knowing that their direct team members would be there. Yiannis noted that people “want personal interactions, they fuel our creativity, and they solve problems at the coffee station.”

As a Harvard Business Review article highlights, “the spontaneous informal interactions at risk in hybrid and remote work are not distractions or unproductive. They foster the employee connections that feed productivity and innovation - these interactions are the soil in which ideas grow.”

In reference to physical interactions contributing to the forging of relationships,Yiannis shared a friend’s personal anecdote. He asked his friend if they could do their work remotely, to which she replied with, “no, people trust me because we share drinks and food, and we build relationships over common passions.”

Remote and hybrid work bring some positive change, but it must be taken with a pinch of salt. Clearly, people need to interact, not just for innovation purposes, but to feel that they are valued, and that they are part of something greater than themselves.

The disruptions to the way we work, and the value we seek to extract from work, have left a mark felt across the world. As we navigate these changes through technology, one element remains constant, and that is the intrinsic value of nurturing and developing personal and professional relationships. 

This rings true, as Yiannis emphasized when quoting Dr. Waldinger in Harvard’s 80-year old study on adult development, “personal connection creates mental and emotional stimulation which are automatic mood boosters, while isolation is a mood buster.”