For the first time in history, millions of workers can do their jobs from anywhere—and the result is the most contentious workplace debate in generations. Employees fight to protect their freedom. CEOs issue return-to-office mandates by gut instinct. Everyone argues, but no one has the data. Until now. 

Harvard-trained economists Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington are leading researchers on remote and in-person work. They've spent years tracking millions of work hours across industries, analyzing Fortune 500 firms, startups, tech companies, and call centers. Their findings? Remote work is good for crossing tasks off a to-do list, but can erode the quality of our work, stifle creativity, and hurt mental health. When we're together, our brain-to-brain synchrony increases 10x, accelerating creativity, mentorship, and innovation. That’s why Pixar animators, Nobel Prize winners, and Silicon Valley founders have come up with their best ideas face-to-face with one another.

Working side-by-side can be a powerful force to supercharge company performance. But many office policies miss this mark, focusing on butts in seats, instead of brains in sync. Emanuel and Harrington offer solutions on how to craft the right policy. After years of confusion, animosity, and conflicting mandates, In Person finally delivers the answers in a clear, evidence-based roadmap for making smarter decisions with your most valuable resource: your people.

Authors Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington recently took time to answer seven questions from Porchlight about their new book—and some other books they love.

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Porchlight Book Company: Writing a book is no small undertaking. What compelled you to write this one?

Natalia Emanuel & Emma Harrington: Many years ago, when we were in graduate school, we were assigned to share the same basement office. At first, it was a little awkward as we didn't know one another very well so conversation was halting at best. But eventually, we discovered our shared passion for graphs that tell a story well, research on how work can be enjoyable. And from there, it rapidly became a haven of creative ideas and collaboration and productivity. We felt jazzed about research just walking into that basement office.

Fast forward a decade and we're living the midst of this huge experiment with remote work, which we're simultaneously doing research upon. We felt the discussion had devolved into a "yes, remote work" or "no, work from the office" quibble. But that polarized debate overlooked the most meaningful component: the beautiful in-person connection that we felt we had experienced in the basement office.

We wanted to refocus the conversation on how to get the best of in-person connection, while also preserving the flexibility of remote work. And, true to our backgrounds as economists, we wanted to bring the data to bear on a debate that was often ruled by anecdotes and gut feelings. So we aimed to distill the best research into actionable insights that can help make work enjoyable and humane. 

PBC: Writing (and reading) always prompts as many new questions as it offers answers to the
ones you came to it with. What is one unanswered question you encountered as
you wrote the book that you are most interested in answering now?

NE/EH: We found in our early research that when people sit next to their teammates, they tend to get more feedback on their work, which ends up helping them improve. When people are just a 10 minute walk away, that feedback drops a lot.

Yet one of our most recent findings is that a small number of especially talented managers can continue to mentor their teammates and foster their growth, even while from afar. Their subordinates receive just as much feedback and continue to improve in their work product. We want to open the black box and understand exactly how these exceptionally talented managers can overcome the challenges that remote work poses. Doing so wouldn't obviate in-person connection, but it could help ensure that we can make remote work as constructive as possible.

PBC: If there is only one thing a reader takes away from reading this book, what would
you hope it to be?

NE/EH: Being in person is not the same as being in the office. If you're in the office, taking zoom calls all day, the commute was probably wasted. The point of going in is to connect face-to-face with our colleagues, clients, and collaborators. 

Yes, often this takes coordination and effort. But achieving the in-person connection will ultimately boost our learning, personal growth, creativity and long-run productivity. 

PBC: One of the great things about books is that they tend to lead readers to other
books. What book[s] related to this topic would you recommend people read after
(or perhaps even before) reading your book?

NE/EH: A Little More Social by Nick Epley came out earlier this year and makes such a compelling case for how important human connection is in making us happier, more fulfilled people. Yet it is terribly easy to let opportunities for connection slide past us. Indeed, remote work decreases social contact by quite a bit. Simply working in a remotable occupation has increased the chances of spending one's whole day without social contact by about 50%. And Epley's book both underscores why that's likely to take it's toll on our mental health, and also explains how we can overcome the fears we may have of connecting.

We see this prioritization of convenience over connection in so many places, but perhaps the most in the workplace. In one of our surveys, we found that the last time people were in the office and had a meeting, over half of them had it over Zoom… even though everyone was in the same building. That is a level of disconnection that is almost guaranteed to make us unhappy (not least because it makes the commute feel pointless).

PBC: What is your favorite book? 

NE/EH: Natalia loves George Orwell's narrative essays, collected in Facing Unpleasant Facts, where he ruminates so honestly and vulnerably about humanity, who we are within and without society, and how we treat one another. His thoughts always prompt reflection and often shifts in perspective.

Emma loves Chemistry by Weike Wang, both because it is hilarious, and also because it explores a PhD student's struggles with the purpose of life. It feels extremely relatable to someone in an academic position. 

PBC: What are you reading now?

NE/EH: Emma's been reading Crib Sheet by Emily Oster. She just welcomed her first baby and so it's nice to have the data to help guide decision-making. 

Natalia's been enjoying Why Brains Need Friends, by Ben Rein, which is a lovely exploration of the neuroscience of social connection in our social media era. Unsurprisingly, it has a whole chapter that explains how digital interactions are less powerful than in-person ones.  

PBC: Do you have any future projects in the works that we can look forward to?

NE/EH: We're turning back to economics research for a bit, intent on exploring more about the conditions that help workers and companies thrive. 

About the Authors

Emma Harrington and Natalia Emanuel received their PhDs in economics at Harvard, and both completed postdocs at Princeton. Natalia is a research economist at the NY Federal Reserve Bank, and Emma a professor of economics at the University of Virginia. Their work has been published in top journals including Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and American Economic Journals. Their research has been featured in the BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic’s Good On Paper podcast, and NPR’s PlanetMoney, among others.