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Before we begin, we have a couple of questions. What do you love about HBR IdeaCast? What would make IdeaCast even better? What do you want less of? Tell us. Head over to hbr.org/podcast survey to share your thoughts. We want to make the show even better, but we need your help to do that. So head to hbr.org/podcast survey. Thank you. Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickit. Remote work, especially hybrid work, exploded far and wide during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past five years, companies have made substantive changes in their IT, workplaces, and policies, and it's had a huge impact on the lives of many workers. Today, there's a clear shift back in the other direction. More CEOs are telling workers to come back to work on-site. Across industries, financial services, government, even technology companies like Apple and Amazon that you'd think would be the most prepared to support effective remote work. Their argument? That collaboration, communication, innovation, and productivity suffer if you're not present in the workplace. Today's guest says leaders face a much more complicated dilemma than the binary choice between remote work or return to the office. His research shows that for some companies, it is optimal to work in person, but remote work gives a clear competitive edge for many others. And there are strategic choices to be made between different types of hybrid work, quarterly, monthly, and weekly. And he'll break down the specific management practices necessary to make those arrangements effective. We're joined today by Raj Chowdhury. He's an associate professor at Harvard Business School and the author of the new book, The World is Your Office, How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Thank you so much. Great to be here. Now, we had you on the show speaking with Alison Beard back in October of 2020, which seems like a lifetime ago. What has been the real change and shift that you have seen in these last five years? So I think

the first thing that we have observed is a very stable pattern where about 25% of the days workers work in the economy in aggregate are now being performed in a remote way. Before the pandemic, this was about 5%. So this is a 5% to 25% jump. And the really interesting pattern has been across multiple data sources that I've looked at, it's been a very stable 25%. So yes, we see all these Amazon stories and other stories in the media, but the aggregate number is very stubbornly around 25%. And my interpretation is that we see the stories on one side of the spectrum and not the drop boxes shutting down their offices. Or there are many other companies like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Citibank, sticking to a very stable pattern. The other thing that I think has changed in the last five years is now we know a little more about the plane that we were building while flying.