I stopped going into my office because of Covid in March 2020 and I never went back! In fairness, paying rent for an office for 12 months without using it soured my love for it somewhat.

Now I like remote working and I am fortunate to have a lovely office at home. It works for me. Yet social change often takes time to be visible and now as I talk to my coaching clients, I see very clearly the competition between two deeply potent evolutionary instincts.

On the one hand, many people like the flexibility, autonomy, and freedom that remote working gives. In 2020 A global survey of 28,000 full-time employees by Cisco found that 82% said that the ability to work from anywhere has made them happier.

But what this statistic doesn’t address is the evolutionary drive to be with other people. The sheer need for physical, present contact with other human beings cannot be adequately satisfied via Zoom.  As much as we feel modern, evolutionally we are still stone age beings with modern tech and better teeth. Throughout our species history, we have relied on being social to live. That’s it! No tribe, no family, no social group, no survival!

Our present loss of physical connection has consequences that impact so many areas of our lives. For many people work is the place of human contact! It’s where we talk about the weekend, see and meet new people have lunch, and get frustrated and complain. It encompasses many of the normal but important human experiences. The ones we all took for granted and never thought about until now.

We are a fortunate cluster of generations. We have more autonomy, freedom, comfort, health, longevity, leisure, and yes peace than has ever been seen in the history of humanity. But as we are propelled further along this ‘path of progress’ we must remember that our history is one of connection and relationship. Everything in our recent past was predicated on being in connection with others. We cannot easily put this aside without consequences.

Clearly, some form of blended work setting is favored by most workers, but not everyone as each has different personal circumstances and needs. As leaders, I think we have to be mindful of the evolutionary drives that got us here but may not be well suited to take us much further unless properly recognized and worked with to the benefit of all.