It also risks letting two organizational cultures emerge, dominated by the in-person workers and managers who continue to benefit from the positive elements of co-location and in-person collaboration, while culture and social cohesion for the virtual workforce languish. To lose sight of them during a significant shift to virtual-working arrangements is to risk an erosion over the long term of the very trust, cohesion, and shared culture that often helps remote working and virtual collaboration to be effective in the short term. These downsides arise from the organizational norms that underpin culture and performance- ways of working, as well as standards of behavior and interaction-that help create a common culture, generate social cohesion, and build shared trust. But in each case, the downsides of remote working at scale came to outweigh the positives. Consider how Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer ended that company’s remote-working experiment in 2013, observing that the company needed to become “one Yahoo!” again, or how HP Inc. While these potential benefits are substantial, history shows that mixing virtual and on-site working might be a lot harder than it looks-despite its success during the pandemic.

The new model promises greater access to talent, increased productivity for individuals and small teams, lower costs, more individual flexibility, and improved employee experiences. As the pandemic begins to ease, many companies are planning a new combination of remote and on-site working, a hybrid virtual model in which some employees are on premises, while others work from home.

We can work from home song