If we want to know whether someone is doing a good job, we need to look beyond whether they showed up at a desk.
Someone can arrive at the office at 8.45am, stay until 5.30pm and still leave you wondering what they actually achieved. They were there, certainly. But did the work get done? Was it done well? Did the customer get what they needed?
Those are different questions. And for businesses deciding how remote or hybrid work should fit into their week, they are far more useful than counting days in the office.
That doesn’t make the office pointless. Some work needs people together. Some teams genuinely benefit from it. But showing up and performing well are not interchangeable.
What the research actually tells us
The argument for flexibility is strongest when we stop promising miracles. In a 2024 randomised trial published in Nature, 1,612 employees at Trip.com worked from home two days a week.
Resignations fell by about a third, while performance reviews, promotions and engineers’ code output showed no measurable difference. That is a meaningful retention benefit, not evidence that hybrid work magically makes everyone more productive.
There is evidence pointing the other way, too. A trial involving newly hired data-entry workers in India found lower productivity among those assigned to work from home.
Research at a large IT company found that, during an abrupt shift to home working, employees put in more hours without producing more output. Neither is a direct test of a thoughtfully planned hybrid arrangement, but both are reasons to avoid sweeping claims.
Australia’s Productivity Commission has likewise drawn a distinction between hybrid work, where findings are generally neutral or positive for productivity, and the fully remote arrangements imposed during the pandemic. The details of the arrangement matter.
The commute has a cost even when it isn’t on the balance sheet
Getting to work takes time. For some people, it also means an early start, crowded transport, traffic and arriving home with little left in the tank. None of that automatically shows up in a business productivity report, but still shapes a working day.
A multi-country study that included Australia estimated that working from home saved about 72 minutes of commuting per day, with roughly 40% of that time going back to work. That is worth noticing, although extra time at a laptop is not necessarily a better output.
The wellbeing evidence is mixed too. Australian panel research suggests that mental health effects of commuting and working from home vary across groups. That doesn’t mean everyone will be happier working from home. But time and energy are still real considerations.
When does being together make the difference?
An office can be a particularly useful place of learning. Research on software engineers found that proximity increased feedback and improved code quality. Another study found that initial in-person training helped employees who were later given the chance to work remotely.
Dynamic Business has also shared practical onboarding advice from SME leaders, including buddies, early check-ins, and a clear plan for the first 90 days. Those habits matter whenever someone new joins a team. These are practical reasons to bring people together, not reasons to require everyone in daily.
There is a social cost to consider as well. A 2026 Science study associated remote-capable work with greater isolation and poorer mental wellbeing, particularly among people living alone.
Other research has found better reported wellbeing among remote workers. The sensible response is to take connection seriously and give teams deliberate opportunities to collaborate. One arrangement doesn’t suit everyone, but there are those who are more inclined to accept them more than others.
Measure what matters
Before debating how many days an employee should spend at home, a business should be able to explain what good performance looks like. Not just whether a person was online, but whether the work was accurate, timely and useful.
The measures should fit the job, not the location. It also helps to separate three things that often get bundled together - attendance is being present, availability is being reachable when needed, and performance is delivering work to the expected standard. They tell us different things, and shouldn't be treated as interchangeable.
Availability can be particularly misleading. As Dynamic Business previously reported, an Australian employee survey found many people responded to after-hours messages because they wanted to appear committed.
Being permanently contactable should not become a substitute for doing a good job. Otherwise, employees risk being judged for not responding when they were never expected to be working.
Flexibility also needs the right support
Remote work is harder when connections fail, files are difficult to access or staff are left to solve security problems themselves.
The Australian Signals Directorate recommends basics such as multifactor authentication, software updates and backups. Levit8 has a useful overview of the IT challenges that come with remote work, including connectivity, security and data privacy.
A better question to ask would be, “Could you explain how you know someone is doing good work without pointing to their desk?” If you can, you have a better starting point for deciding when people need to be together and when flexibility makes sense.
The commute isn’t the work. What matters is the work that gets done, not simply where someone sits to do it.