Hybrid work has a $9 million problem. The fix depends on who you ask

Call it the “office coordination tax.” 

The everyday friction of hybrid work—from finding an open conference room to managing schedules across time zones—costs the average mid-sized company $9 million annually, according to a new study from workplace management platform Robin.

Robin estimates that those losses can reach $14,000 per employee annually, based on workers’ estimates of time spent on workplace coordination and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics compensation benchmarks. 

Put in terms of productivity: Employees are losing some 10% of their workweek to workplace logistics instead of the work itself. 

But are these findings evidence that remote work purists have been right all along or ammunition for the return-to-office crowd? Ironically, it gives both sides something to celebrate. The report’s findings bring to mind recent conversations that capture both sides of this debate.

At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in June, former CEO of HP and eBay Meg Whitman told the audience that if she were running a company today, she’d “force people back to the office.”

Whitman argued that giving employees broad discretion over where and when they work weakens communication, mentorship, and the apprenticeship-style learning that happens naturally when people share an office. “Things are changing so fast that you have to communicate early and often…and the best way to do that is to have people in the office,” Whitman said. 

Job van der Voort, CEO and cofounder of global hiring platform Remote, sees the issue differently. He told me that offices aren’t necessarily more effective; they’re simply easier........

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