Before the pandemic, most managers assumed that working from home was a productivity killer.
Now studies found that working from home actually allows white-collar professionals to get more done, not less.
However, a recent study published in Nature has sparked discussion in the business world.
They found that in-person teams are more likely to achieve groundbreaking advancements than their remote counterparts.
The study analyzed both patterns of collaboration and innovation. They concluded that face-to-face interaction plays an important role in creating disruptive ideas.
These findings challenge remote work models, shining a light on the value of direct team interactions.
The researchers analyzed 20 million research articles (from 1960-2020) and 4 million patent applications (from 1976-2020) globally.
Another breakthrough discovery: the farther away team members were from one another the worse they performed.
Even if they were in the same time zone, more distance meant a worse chance of producing work that was groundbreaking.
Teams located in the same city, were 22% more likely to produce innovative patents than teams spread out by several hundred miles.
They also were 27% more likely to produce pioneering insights in scientific papers.
