On-site jobs lift 'skill accumulation'

Workers in the office spend 25% more time in career-development activities than their remote counterparts, according to new data from a team of economists who have analyzed working from home since the pandemic began.

Those who came into work devoted about 40 more minutes a week to mentoring others, nearly 25 more in formal training and about 15 additional minutes each week doing professional development and learning activities, according to WFH Research.

The figures, based on surveys of adults who are able to work from home, lend quantitative support to CEOs such as JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman, who have said that workers — particularly younger staff — need to be on-site more often than not to learn and develop alongside more experienced colleagues.

While bosses are banging the drum on the value of in-person mentoring and professional development, they’ve had little to support their arguments beyond vague references to the power of so-called “water cooler moments” when workers spontaneously connect to share ideas and advice. Now, they can cite a new research paper from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Iowa and Harvard University that argues that working in the same building “has an outsized effect on workers’ on-the-job training.”

That effect is even more significant for younger workers, and “older workers not coming back to the office may depress younger workers’ skill accumulation,” the economists said.