officeinsight magazine rarely runs book reviews, mainly because few books are written about the office or commercial office design. But occasionally, one catches our eye, in this case a new book called “In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work” by Peter Cappelli and Ranya Nehmeh.
Again, we don’t talk about many books because even those with titles as compelling as the one above, either the publisher or author (or often both) have a vested interest in promoting one idea over another. In short, a lot of books like this are biased one way or another. That’s not the case here. Cappelli is a professor or management at Wharton School and Nehmeh is a global HR strategist. The book is published by Wharton School Press.
In this case, credentials are important since so much of the so-called research on work from home and hybrid work came from companies trying to sell you their products (For example, Cisco has been relentless with its praise of work from home).
We spoke to Nehmeh, who said: “It’s much more complex than just the nuanced remote, good office, bad. I think it’s much more complicated than that complex. And we wanted to unpack that.”
“In Praise of the Office” is a slim volume, 112 pages that could (and should) be read in one good airport layover after it comes out to the public on Sept. 30. It’s billed as “a balanced, research-based approach to navigating the complex landscape of remote and hybrid work,” and to my surprise, that’s exactly what you get.
In a nutshell, here’s what the authors found: “Serious research on real office jobs indicates that many aspects of performance are worse with remote work, except in the case of individual contributor roles.” An individual contributors is, as the name implies, a professional without management responsibilities who contributes to an organization independently to help support its goals and mission. Although they usually have to report to someone within the organization, an individual contributor is not responsible for managing anyone except for themselves. Examples might include software engineers and financial analysts.
Let me say right away: I like the book precisely because it avoids pandering. No grand romanticization of Zoom charm or home-office heroism. Instead, Cappelli and Nehmeh offer clarity about what works, what doesn’t, and why the fervent romance with hybrid might be quietly collapsing.
The book doesn’t so much praise the office or take the side of office work as it posits that management has deep trouble managing remote workers. The reason work from home was praised so much at the beginning of the pandemic is that many managers were surprised it worked at all, according to the authors.
And the authors go on to say that despite the continued drumbeat for work from home, if work from home really did work better than working in an office, savvy business leaders would be more than happy to keep staff out of the office. The fact that workers are being called back, even though it would save companies money by keeping them remote, proves that the work-from-home experiment didn’t create better results.
That being said, there’s no blinkered pro-office agenda here — just data, nuance and a realization that yes, maybe, the old office isn’t so easily dismissed after all.
The authors acknowledge that remote work succeeded at first. This is not a revelation. What is interesting is their analysis of why those initial gains have plateaued or even reversed. A compelling section outlines what’s been lost: spontaneous hallway strategy, the epiphanies sparked by overheard colleague grumbling, the connections created by simply being together.
“I also think it is important people want to come back to a nice space,” said Nehmeh. “I don’t think it’s just about space (in terms of having enough room). It’s also about an office that you feel comfortable in. And I think a lot of companies right now are recreating rooms that are more collaborative spaces to really enhance the sense of collaboration…I think you need to recreate these moments where people can really informally talk together, informally have meetings together.”
Teamwork matters, the authors found, and it does not happen easily when workers are apart. Workers are far more likely to help each other with a project or problem, for example, when they are in the office rather than remote, despite all the slick high-tech collaboration tools we’ve adopted.
“When we shift from a world where work was done face-to-face with other people to one where we are trying to do the same work without seeing each other, we realize how much got done in the office because of the willingness to help other employees with whom we felt some personal ties,” the authors write. “Now, where coworkers are more likely to be strangers, a lot of that help and cooperation vanishes. That’s an enormous change. Yet we have been trying to manage in the same way as if we’re still face-to-face. The story about these drawbacks of remote work have not been told, nor as the case been made about how we have to manage differently if we want to operate remotely.”
They frame the office as an ecosystem with invisible, underrated benefits, not as a nostalgic relic. Consider talent development: promotions, mentorship, the subtle cues that help us learn the hidden rules of culture. They still happen best face-to-face according to the book.
Yet the authors don’t preach. They’re not saying “force people back” or “ban remote forever.” Instead, they lay out when fully in-office works, when remote works, and when hybrid makes sense, but only when executed with intention. Management still matters. A lot.
The prose is concise, the book swift, “fast-reading and practical,” as the publisher calls it, and I concur. It highlights the damage careless hybrid policies can inflict on both employees and employers.
Remember times when new hires on Zoom spent their first weeks politely waving, trying to figure out who’s who, and who to go to, but never quite do? Cappelli and Nehmeh mention how onboarding in person springboards connection and clarity in ways remote orientation doesn’t. That rang true. And not only do they point it out, they frame it in organizational terms. In-person versus remote greatly affects career mobility, inclusion and cohesion.
In a world where business writing can lurch between cheerleading and fear-mongering, “In Praise of the Office” is refreshingly middle-of-the-road — in the best possible way.
This isn’t a book written to pump up our industry, but if you manage hybrid staff, think about return-to-office policies, or just started to feel a vague sense of loss for your lunch-break colleagues, this book is your ally. More importantly, it is also the ally of the commercial interiors industry and commercial design. If I were a salesperson in a dealership or for a manufacturer, I would keep a few copies of this book around to hand out to my customers.