By | Jennifer Liu | www.cnbc.com
Ever since people started to work from home during Covid, bosses have been trying to figure out how to get people back into offices. Companies have thrown out big incentives to stir excitement about it, too: free food, corporate swag, welcome-back concerts and redesigned offices.
For Amir Henley, there’s another big perk of being back in-person: the return of office gossip.
“I am the CEO of office gossip,” the 23-year-old marketer jokes. Henley’s even gone viral on TikTok for his satire of clocking in just to dish on the latest workplace drama.
(For the record, the office gossip he takes part in is “all out of fun and love and a way to pass the time,” he says.)
Henley’s far from alone in seeing that the biggest upside to office work is the chance to spend time with colleagues in the flesh.
While remote work was a boon for flexibility, it hasn’t been the easiest on our social connections. Since the start of the pandemic, people say the biggest challenges to remote work are feeling less connected to their organization’s culture, decreased teamwork and impaired working relationships with colleagues, according to Gallup research.
Meanwhile, when given the chance to work onsite in a hybrid arrangement, 59% say their priority is to meet with coworkers. By comparison, 39% say their biggest focus for office time getting face time with their boss.