SPOTLIGHT: Reconsidering the Return to Office, With Nicholas Bloom

The Gartner Talent Angle

After working from home gained widespread adoption out of necessity, organizations must now optimize their remote work strategies for the long term. Stanford Professor Nicholas Bloom joins the Talent Angle to explain the implications of return-to-office mandates for organizations and their workforce. Drawing upon data on employee sentiment, workforce productivity and organizational performance, Bloom shares how organizations can set the right strategy for their context. He argues that, in many cases, remote work enables enough profitability to outweigh leaders’ concerns about productivity, and shares how to approach collaboration in a hybrid world. Nicholas Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Nick’s research focuses on working from home, management practices and uncertainty. He previously worked at the U.K. Treasury, McKinsey & Company and the IFS. He has a BA from Cambridge, an MPhil from Oxford, and a PhD from University College London. Nick is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of the Guggenheim and Sloan Fellowships, the Frisch Medal and a National Science Foundation Career Award. He was elected to Bloomberg50 for his advice on working from home. Caroline Walsh is a vice president in Gartner’s HR practice.Her teams help HR leaders build and execute talent, diversity, rewards, and learning strategies and programs. Caroline has also led Gartner research teams on commercial banking strategy and leadership. She holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Columbia University, and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University.