The case for presence
Remote work solved for productivity in isolation. What it couldn't fully replicate was the ambient awareness that comes from proximity - overhearing a conversation that changes your approach, the quick whiteboard session that untangles a problem in minutes rather than days of async back-and-forth, or the organic mentorship that happens when junior engineers can observe how senior colleagues navigate ambiguity.
High-bandwidth communication matters. Video calls are scheduled, intentional, and bounded. In-person interaction is continuous and unstructured. That unstructured time is where trust forms, where context is shared without documentation, and where the small corrections happen that prevent larger misalignments. Teams that work together physically develop a shared intuition that's hard to manufacture through standups and Slack channels.
None of this means remote work is inferior - it's simply different. The question isn't which is universally better, but which is better suited to what you're trying to build and at what stage. For early-stage teams establishing culture, for complex cross-functional projects requiring rapid iteration, or for developing less experienced team members, in-person collaboration has genuine advantages worth acknowledging.
Remember what flexibility actually looked like
There's an irony in the current debate: before COVID, most offices already operated with significant flexibility - we just didn't call it a policy. Parents left at 3pm for school pickup and finished their work from home after bedtime. Engineers came in early because they wanted to leave for a midweek surf or gym session. People worked from home when the plumber was coming or when they needed deep focus time away from the office buzz.
This informal give-and-take worked because it was built on trust and reciprocity. When the team needed to push hard before a launch, people showed up - sometimes late into the evening, sometimes on weekends. Those shared moments of intensity, ordering dinner together and grinding through the final stretch, built bonds that no virtual happy hour can replicate. You learned who your colleagues really were when you worked through pressure together. You earned trust by demonstrating that you'd show up when it mattered, and that you'd extend the same grace to others when life demanded their attention elsewhere.
Somewhere in the pandemic response, we lost this nuance. Remote work policies became binary. Return-to-office mandates became rigid. We replaced adult discretion with attendance tracking. The goal now should be reclaiming that pre-COVID flexibility - not as a formal policy with rules and exceptions, but as a cultural norm where people work in and around each other's lives because they trust each other to deliver.
Norms worth rebooting
COVID broke many of our workplace habits - some for the better, others we should consciously rebuild. If your organisation is moving toward in-person work, simply showing up isn't enough. We need to be intentional about recreating the practices that make presence valuable.
First, relearn how to have ad-hoc conversations. We became so accustomed to scheduling everything that we forgot how to tap someone on the shoulder. Not every discussion needs a calendar invite. If you see someone at their desk and have a quick question, ask it. This isn't interrupting - it's the point of being in the same place.
Second, use the office for collaboration, not parallel isolation. If your in-office day consists entirely of video calls with remote colleagues while wearing headphones, you've recreated remote work with a commute. Block time for in-person work with the people physically around you. Schedule your deep focus work for home days if you have flexibility.
Third, invest in shared rituals again. Team lunches, coffee walks, even the casual Friday afternoon wrap-up - these aren't wastes of time. They're the connective tissue that turns a group of individuals into a team. Go further: organise team dinners, drinks after work on a Thursday, or breakfast together before a big planning day. Actually socialise. Learn about each other's lives outside of standups and sprint reviews. The pandemic stripped away many of these touchpoints, and they won't return by accident. Someone needs to make the reservation, send the invite, and create the space for people to connect as humans rather than job titles.
Fourth, make mentorship visible and accessible. One of remote work's hidden costs was the loss of observational learning. Junior team members couldn't watch how senior engineers approached problems, asked questions, or handled difficult conversations. If you're back in person, leave your door open - literally and figuratively. Let people see how the work actually gets done.
Earning the commute
The hardest part of any return-to-office policy is justifying the time people now spend commuting. That time has real cost - to individuals, to their families, and to their wellbeing. Organisations that mandate in-person work owe it to their people to make that time worthwhile.
This means being deliberate about what happens in the office. It means ensuring teams are co-located on the same days. It means creating environments conducive to the collaboration you're asking people to show up for. And it means acknowledging that flexibility still matters - that life happens, that trust is a two-way street, and that presence is about impact, not surveillance.
The companies that navigate this transition well won't be the ones with the strictest policies. They'll be the ones that build cultures where people want to be together because being together produces something better than they could achieve apart. That's the standard we should all be aiming for.