More than six years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, over 1 in 5 of the U.S. workers who can work remotely do so either full time or at least one day per week.

Even though a new normal has set in, no single approach has worked for all employees. And the debate over the benefits and drawbacks of remote work continues.

To see what factors affected the long-term shift to remote and hybrid work that kept going after the pandemic subsided, and to learn more about the pandemic’s effects on research firms more broadly, I teamed up with my Babson College colleagues, Gina O’Connor and Jonathan Sims.

We found that the process used to decide where employees should work matters just as much as the decision itself.

Facing the same challenge

In early 2020, the research and development units of four global companies were conducting similar technical and scientific work. They all had access to the same communication technologies when COVID-19 upended everyone’s routine.

In keeping with social science research methods, we agreed to not name any of these companies. As we learned through a series of interviews with senior leaders, project team leaders and team members from 2021 to 2023, all four companies told most of their employees........

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