Idea 19 for 2025: Work from Anywhere

I had registered to attend Harvard Business Review Press' presentation of a webinar of Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, a Harvard Business School professor and researcher into the transformation and future of work in early June.

The beauty of some of these registrations is the possibility to watch and review at another convenient time, and so I here are some distillations of Choudhury’s illuminating advocacy based on research completed for his national bestseller, The World Is Your Office: How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Innovation

1.    Despite the seeming prominence of Return to Office (RTO) mandates, remote work is here to stay.

Choudhury displayed a range of US-based data, from building occupancy rates, swipe cards and cell phone usage to show that remote work is stabilizing at around 25% since 2023 in the US.

Data from Bloom et al (2025) demonstrating swipes of office cards at workplaces.

2.    RTOs are not effective

Choudhury’s second point  confirmed something that I and others long suspected. Intriguingly, Choudhury argues that companies are using RTOs as a tool for voluntary turnover, getting rid of people without being obligated to pay for any related benefits. RTOs have resulted in increased attrition of 9%, with females leaving such workplaces at a much higher rate than males (13% to 5%).

3.    Work From Anywhere (WFA) is not the same as Work From Home (WFH)

Choudhury takes pains to distinguish WFA from WFH, where WFA can include WFH, but also co-working spaces and generated satellite offices. For Choudhury, WFA reflects choice and intentionality of the worker looking to shape their way they work around the way they would prefer to live.

4.    WFA is win-win for workers and companies (and numerous communities and countries)

This idea was perhaps the most compelling. Let’s start with companies. For them, there are productivity gains, the possibility to attract from a larger network of talent and support inclusion goals. Choudhury provided insights from his own research of US Patent Office workers, where there were productivity gains of 4.4% and from Zapier, which has no office and hires from anywhere, including more than 30 countries.

For workers, Choudhury’s argument is particularly compelling and attentive to the gendered dynamics of “double duty,” the responsibilities for housework, childcare and eldercare, which disproportionately impacts mothers and women. Choudhury sees WFA as facilitating career development for women who may not have been able to relocate for a promotion due to familial demands.  For workers living with disabilities and neurodiversities, work from anywhere can increase their effective participation and engagement, as commuting, navigating the physical and social elements of in-person workplaces are less required.

Moreover, for all workers, one can choose where one lives, based on a litany of personal preferences and economic choices.

Intriguingly, Choudhury points out that smaller communities are seeking to recruit remote workers to their communities, providing financial incentives. These communities, such as Tulsa, OK, are finding success in these efforts. In an interesting way, they are replicating the strategy of the “digital nomad” that numerous countries launched during COVID-19 and have maintained, drawing people who bring their jobs to the new country and engender a variety of economic, social and cultural spin-offs.

While Choudhury recognizes the importance of social ties with colleagues, particularly in team building. He points to research that indicates that 25% of days in-person was optimal for job satisfaction, mentoring and performance. He mobilizes research that the proverbial watercooler tends to reinforce silos and that serendipity, the je ne sais quoi of exchanges to spark ideas, can be engineered virtually, describing virtual meetups between CEOs and new interns as an example.

Screenshot demonstrating results of study investigating job satisfaction, mentoring and performance

In the last segment of his presentation, Choudhury turned to the transformative spectre of AI, from “digital twins” in manufacturing and materials processing and other work to personalized bots that learn to mimic your communication style and go to meetings and conferences for you. There’s more here, of course, but perhaps left for another future distillation!