The office is not dead. Here's why.

The debate on back-to-office v/s work-from-home v/s hybrid continues to rage, with people clinging on to their personal opinions for dear life. An integrated opinion and a solution that can work for everyone isn't getting any airtime.

Yes WFH has worked for many people and reduced the suffering of many workers. Those who crave a quiet, personal workspace, flexibility and personal time have loved WFH. Those who live far from the office and detest the commute have welcomed WFH. I'm assuming people who have a preference for working alone are in this category too.

On the other hand, those that loved their drive to the office, and the company and buzz that their workplace offered, are craving to get back to the office. People who like to work in groups are probably in this category.

There are problems with each option. Not everyone has a quiet space available to them at home. There are people who have felt terribly discomfited by the WFH experience and have not been able to adapt. Nor does every office have a warm culture of camaraderie to enjoy. There are people who feel discomfited by, and have not been able to adapt to an in-office experience. Each side does its best to point out the problems with the other while ignoring the problems with their own preferred option.

I want to share my personal take. I think there are factors that are not being discussed enough in this debate. Part of the reason, I feel, is that most people still imagine the workplace as "a place you go to do work; a place where you have to come back from and start living". We are still not trying to imagine the workplace as a place where human beings go to thrive, as an integral part of the living experience.

Two factors that affect the human experience are proximity and physical contact. These two factors affect the human brain positively and contribute to a richer human experience of each interaction. Since the virtual experience cannot replicate this, it offers a curtailed form of human interaction, a 2-D audio-visual, 15-inch experience. Even as designers of virtual experiences are still attempting to create immersive experiences that can hope to mimic the real experiences that our 21 senses accord us, some of us are insisting that virtual is ready to replace in-person. I suspect these are the same people who forget to keep the user at the centre of what they design.

An in-person interaction offers dozens of cues about the other individual that you can't pick up on screen. On a screen, you can't pick up their scent, you can't see their footwear, and therefore you miss out on opportunities to compliment them or joke about these things. In-person, you can notice their slight build, their stoop, their bulging tricep, and these give you clues for conversations, clues into aspects of their lives. These things build relationships. (Howard Gardner would call this ability Interpersonal Intelligence). Not everyone understands the significance of these things in relationship building. Some of us do and we want these opportunities.

The importance of an in-person learner experience is something even e-learning and edutech firms (and their clients) have had to wake up to. Reports are that edutech firms are investing in hundreds and hundreds of offline learning centres: https://www.dhirubhai.net/news/story/is-edtech-going-offline-4795049/

The challenge ahead isn't creating a technology-aided virtual office. It is about creating workplaces where humans can thrive. The workplace is made up of humans with brains, bodies, feelings and needs, and not just methods of collaborating to achieve objectives; recognising this is essential for creating a thriving and inclusive workplace. Ignoring the human aspects and aiming for objectives, tech and costs is just going to create disengaging virtual work, and continued waves of The Great Resignation. As edtech has found, people will want to return to more in-person experiences.

Despite the brouhaha around it, as Mark Twain might have put it, "the death of the office" is greatly exaggerated.