Despite the pandemic, worker productivity in 2022 matched pre-COVID 2019, according to Holly Tyson, Chief People Officer at Cushman & Wakefield, the country's largest commercial property manager. Citing company survey data, they discovered that 75% of the time people spent at work was productively.

Unfortunately, that data also contained some bad news. 

“When we compare 2019 to 2022 on well-being that was also around 75%” in 2019, and now that’s down to 39%” says Tyson, speaking during a Fireside Chat at From Day One's Chicago conference.

During her talk with Christian Farr, General Assignment Reporter at Chicago's NBC5 News, Tyson noted that much of that burden has fallen to the feet of people managers across industry, who were tasked perhaps most heavily with managing workplace transitions from office-only to all-remote and hybrid capabilities—arrangements that appear sticky even in a post-pandemic world.

“What we really need to be focused on most is human connection and the impact it has on wellbeing,” said Tyson during the session, entitled “Creating a Sense of Purpose in Both the Workplace and the Work.” 

Observing that people are “social creatures” and “pack animals,” she said,  we “crave connection and collaboration,” especially when it truly works “towards a purpose.” Therefore, within a few years or more, we may start to see the residual effects of the big disconnect we endured during COVID, especially in industries reliant on innovation. 

“Because innovation happens by accident, mostly, right? Innovation happens when you discover something that wasn't necessarily intended, and those things happen when you have collisions and coincidences. And not being together, you have less of those collisions and coincidences.” 

One area that may suffer the most from hybrid and all-remote workplaces are career trajectories, Tyson said. It’s too soon to tell, but Tyson intimated that in this post-pandemic, remote-heavy culture, people who don’t report to a physical workspace and interact with colleagues and leaders may struggle to get ahead. 

She’s not the only leader with this concern. A new study from a trio of economists, The Power of Proximity to Coworkers, said young workers and women employees are particularly at risk of being held back from promotions if they are part-time or full-time remote workers.

“[T]he office, at least for a certain type of white-collar knowledge worker, [has historically] played an important role in early-career development,” wrote the New York Times in an article about the “Power of Proximity” paper. “And the mentorship and training people get in person [has] so far proved hard to replicate on Slack and Zoom.”

However, ensuring workplace equity to remote workers is an issue that can be addressed with more mindful approaches and the supplementing of connectivity in light of a remote-work arrangement with employees. Tyson stopped short of supporting companies that go hard with return-to-the-office mandates. 

“​​The competitor in me says [to those organizations], ‘Go ahead. I'll take the person who quits,’” Tyson said. “Wise companies recognize that talent is the only real differentiator, and the best talent names their criteria.”

She suggested to companies that want to retain terrific talent who demand remote- or hybrid-work arrangements ​​gather them together once a month or once every couple months, whatever the company can facilitate. But quality over quantity prevails. 

“It needs to be purposeful,” she said of the gatherings. She added that they should also stretch “long amounts of time, like two or three days to build that connection.” This type of setup will allow personnel to “inject” themselves with “that humanity that can sustain you when you’re [each] just a face on the screen for the next two to three months” until the next gathering.

So, in a sense, when one removes the digital component to it all, things haven’t really changed all that much. Even before the pandemic employees didn’t like sitting in meetings that felt pointless.

“It always comes back to purpose,” said Tyson. “It’s: Why are people getting out of bed? What does your company do that differentiates themselves to make a difference in the world? And if your company is not clearly articulating the impact that they are making, it's going to be harder and harder to recruit.”

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.