Three days a week is a desk number
Sep 5
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Ten past two in the afternoon. The leadership team spent forty minutes on the same question. Two mandatory days in the office or three.
Two studies in Frontiers in Psychology, five weeks apart. The first, on 29 July, compared 7,704 people across remote, hybrid and onsite work. Remote scored highest on wellbeing.
The second, on 24 August, followed UK employees over time. It measured frequency rather than category. The more days people worked from home, the lonelier they got.
They are not really contradicting. They just measure different things.
Two studies in Frontiers in Psychology, five weeks apart. The first, on 29 July, compared 7,704 people across remote, hybrid and onsite work. Remote scored highest on wellbeing.
The second, on 24 August, followed UK employees over time. It measured frequency rather than category. The more days people worked from home, the lonelier they got.
They are not really contradicting. They just measure different things.
Your brain is counting something else
Your brain has a security chief. I usually call her Amy. She runs the amygdala, two small almond shaped parts deep inside your head. One of her oldest jobs is to check that you are still part of the group.
Your brain has a security chief. I usually call her Amy. She runs the amygdala, two small almond shaped parts deep inside your head. One of her oldest jobs is to check that you are still part of the group.
She does the checking all day. For most of human history, being pushed out of the group meant dying. Being left out still runs through the brain's pain centres, the same ones that handle a broken arm. That's why we say "that comment hurt.
Amy counts exchanges with people who matter to you. A four minute call where something got solved together. A laugh. A few of those in a week and she settles down. Hours logged and days sitting at your desk in the office are not on her list.
That number of valuable exchange does not rise because you drove to the office. It rises when a conversation happens. Sometimes the drive makes the conversation more likely. Sometimes it just moves you to a different desk to do the same silent day.
A policy moves bodies
An office used to produce those exchanges by accident. Proximity did the work. You passed someone by the printer and it counted. Nobody planned that and nobody paid for it.
An office used to produce those exchanges by accident. Proximity did the work. You passed someone by the printer and it counted. Nobody planned that and nobody paid for it.
A policy brings the accident back for the days people are there. It also creates the commute and the noise.
In my book I mention the "Relations bucket", one of six needs Amy continuously checks. A Harvard study that has followed the same families since 1938 points at the importance of this. A few people you trust does more for your health than a wide circle of contacts.
Three days a week gives some information. It tells you how many desks to keep and when the canteen will be full. It says nothing about who spoke to whom. Who felt seen and heard. Five people can sit in the same office for three days and speak to nobody.
But days are easier to count. That is the only reason we count them.
But days are easier to count. That is the only reason we count them.
Count conversations instead
How many real exchanges do people in the team have at work? A voice, someone who knows their name, something that got decided or solved. A real and meaningful conversation. A meeting with fourteen people is an item on a calendar. It is not an exchange.
Set a minimum. Most of your team will already be well over that. For the one or two sitting at zero, work out what would get them there. Sometimes that is a standing call with a colleague. Sometimes it is a day in the office. Not for the policy but for the purpose.
/ Maria