OUR distant work suddenly entered our lives when, with the onset of the corona virus pandemic, an immediate solution had to be found to unload the space Job. At least 50 million Americans who work in the office have moved to work from home in these months.

In later years, the model was sometimes supported and sometimes abandoned, but its short life has prevented researchers from drawing meaningful conclusions about its impact on working life and life. career from employees.

Working from home significantly reduces constructive criticism both from superiors and from older and more experienced colleagues.

According to a major recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Iowa, and Harvard University, telecommuting has one major downside: a lack of oversight and direct communication. Erica Becker, who works as a sales manager for a large technology company, states: “At least ten times a day I went to my boss and asked: “Did I do everything right, what could I do better?” If there’s something I can fix, I always want to be told I want to move up the corporate ladder.”

OUR Contact in the workplace, this is actually much easier to achieve, and in the case of remote work, its frequency even drops by a third, according to the survey.

For young men and women working from home, this means a lack of constructive criticism from both superiors and older and more experienced colleagues. The study involved engineers working for a large technology company. The results showed that, on the one hand, remote work increased the productivity of older employees, but, on the other hand, reduced the feedback that younger employees received about their work, so much so that even these employees are more likely to leave the company. This was even more true for women.

conclusions

Although the results of the study cannot provide a complete picture, since the space of a large technology company is only one of many different work environments, the authors make a more general comment: The office, at least for a wide group of professionals, plays a key role. in promoting youth careers. They also add that supervision of young people in the workplace cannot be achieved through programs such as Zoom.

Today, many businesses are trying to implement a hybrid model, allowing some to work from home and others to be invited to the office. But “the power of proximity,” as the study calls it, calls even that approach into question.

The researchers argue that the benefits of communication are only achieved when the entire team is present. “Even when one team member works from home, it can disrupt the collaboration of the entire team,” says Natalia Emanuel, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.