Economists say office mandates fail without real in-person contact

Survey finds nearly half of office workers had no in-person meetings

Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington first shared a small basement office at Harvard, where the two budding economists formed a lasting professional partnership. “We had many, many years where we were only a few feet away from each other. You could say, oh, is this a brilliant idea? Or someone could very easily say, no, that’s a waste of time. Please stop,” Emanuel said. Their book, “In Person,” arrives as many businesses contend with just how in person they want their workers to be, NPR’s Scott Horsley reported Nov. 14, 2026.

The book opens with a story about Steve Jobs, who insisted that Pixar’s headquarters have a central atrium where animators and engineers would naturally bump into each other. Emanuel said Jobs nevertheless understood the value of connecting coworkers face to face.

“You do need to have some friction, the unexpected serendipitous encounter, and those things are much, much more likely to happen in person,” Emanuel said.

In-person contact on the job has become less common since the pandemic. Emanuel said nearly 1 out of 4 employees still works remotely, almost seven years after the outbreak began. As economists, she and Harrington have documented some of the drawbacks: a 20% drop in on-the-job feedback, less mentoring, which makes it harder for young people to find jobs, and more isolation, which wears on mental health.

Some companies have begun to backtrack on work-from-home policies they adopted during the pandemic. In leaked audio published by Barron’s last year, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told employees remote work wasn’t working.

“It slows down decision-making. The young generation is being damaged by this. They’re being left behind socially, ideas, meeting people. I can’t stand it anymore,” Dimon said.

Emanuel said just ordering workers back to the office is not enough. In a survey this fall, she and Harrington found that even when workers were in the office, nearly half had no in-person meetings. Fifteen percent didn’t have a single face-to-face conversation with a coworker.

“And that’s sort of one of the most demoralizing things. So you commute into the office only to achieve a different background for your Zoom screen. And so then you feel like you have a lonely, isolated workday bookended by a pointless commute,” Emanuel said.

That sounds familiar to Tom Robinson, a 36-year-old data scientist who used to drive at least 45 minutes each way to a job in Austin, Texas.

“There are days where I would just have Zoom calls. My productivity was measured by how long I was sitting in my chair versus what my actual, like, output was,” Robinson said.

Robinson ultimately took a pay cut for a new job that allows him to work from home. “My perspective is completely biased because I’m also a single father. My kids - they needed me to be present. I just was never around,” Robinson said.

Emanuel, who has four kids herself, acknowledges that remote work has been a boon for parents, especially women. Though she knows parents who try to combine work and childcare often feel like they’re shortchanging both, she said the challenge for employers is to balance the flexibility of remote work with real connection when people are in the office. That might mean realigning schedules or locating the coffee machines in a way that encourages chance conversations.

“Encountering other people, fueling friendships is a profoundly important experience, and we tend to undervalue how much even small encounters are going to make us joyful,” Emanuel said.

Emanuel and her co-author no longer share that small basement office, but they still make time to get together regularly to brainstorm and collaborate in person.