The post-pandemic push to bring workers back to the office has left many nostalgic for more flexible arrangements, such as hybrid or remote work.
But a wealth of data since the pandemic now suggests that workplace factors like feeling appreciated and having a good relationship with your manager are much more tied to job satisfaction than the actual time spent in the office.
To understand this insight, it’s important to recognize that a return to the office can mean very different things to different workers. Someone who values uninterrupted time at home may resent the commute. A younger trainee struggling to learn the job may welcome easier access to colleagues. An employee who dislikes their manager may lament having to see them in person.
These differences help explain why the return-to-office debate often produces conflicting answers.
As a researcher of the ways technology is changing the workplace, I co-authored a study with business and accounting scholar Jason Schloetzer that analyzed responses from nearly 165,000 U.S. employees between 2020 and 2023 from the database Payscale. These surveys let us look beyond location to ask whether employees felt appreciated; considered pay fair and transparent; received useful communication; had chances to develop; and enjoyed a good relationship with their manager.
Once we accounted for these and other job-specific variables, we found that
the edge in satisfaction for fully or mostly remote workers disappears. The only group of employees who felt more satisfied on the job were those who sometimes worked remotely – and that difference was modest.
In other words, long-standing factors shaping job satisfaction outweighed workplace format when it came to making employees happy.
The workplace behind the work arrangement
Semi- or fully remote workers may appear more satisfied. But other factors, such as having better pay or more supportive workplace practices, need to be taken into account, we argue.
Employees’ relationships with their managers is one of those variables. We asked employees to rate the statement “I have a great relationship with my direct manager” on a 5-point scale, with 4 or 5 indicating favorable. The measure reflects the employee’s own assessment rather than a checklist of managerial skills; questions about communication, appreciation and development opportunities were asked separately.
A favorable manager relationship was tied to higher job satisfaction across work arrangements, we found. But that association was stronger among employees working on-site than among those who always or sometimes worked remotely. One possible explanation is that working together gives employees more opportunities to benefit from a supportive manager who mentors and offers development opportunities, while distance can offer some relief when the relationship is less favorable.
We also used data from the Gallup Workplace Panel to study the same workers over time. These results reinforced our findings: It’s important to consider the workplace as a whole when evaluating remote or hybrid work.
Burnout and happiness are different questions
Feeling satisfied with a job, however, doesn’t necessarily mean feeling well overall. Someone can like their job while feeling exhausted, or they may appreciate working at home while feeling socially disconnected. That’s why we treat job satisfaction, burnout and happiness as separate values, and why we distinguish stress on a particular day from persistent work exhaustion.
Looking at stress, for example, we found that it’s common across work arrangements. According to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, 41% of fully remote employees reported substantial stress the previous day, compared with 46% of hybrid employees, as well as 46% of on-site employees whose jobs could be done remotely.
Feeling satisfied with a job, however, doesn’t necessarily mean feeling well overall. Someone can value their work while finding its demands exhausting. Job satisfaction, daily stress and burnout capture different aspects of that experience.
Physicians are one example. Among physicians whose organizations participated in an American Medical Association survey in 2024, about three-quarters reporting being satisfied with their job, while almost half reported feeling a great deal of stress because of their job, such as from burdensome paperwork or staff shortages.
The published summary doesn’t identify exactly how many doctors reported both, but it shows that satisfaction and widespread stress can coexist within a profession.
Meanwhile, separate Gallup research on nearly 7,500 full-time U.S. employees helps explain why working conditions deserve attention. The factors most closely tied to burnout included unfair treatment, crushing workloads, unclear expectations, poor communication and support from managers, and unreasonable deadlines.
Work location may ease some pressures while introducing others. Working from home can remove a draining commute, for example, while making it harder to get timely help from colleagues. But neither arrangement automatically resolves an excessive workload or uncertainty about manager expectations.
Those problems require attention wherever employees work.
Working apart can carry social costs
The expression “work-life balance” implies that it’s healthy to engage in social activity with friends and family outside work.
But as other research of mine shows, more flexibility for office work doesn’t necessarily translate into more time with other people. Among younger workers in occupations that can readily be done remotely, I found that the share of leisure time spent alone rose from about 25% to 40% from 2017 to 2024. For workers who also spend their workday alone, that means fewer opportunities for socializing both on and off the job.
Time alone doesn’t have to lead to loneliness. But the finding raises a concern: Just because you gain more control over your schedule doesn’t mean that friends, family or colleagues will be available to share that time – or that you’ll make the effort to see them.
Related research suggests that these concerns about social connection deserve more attention. The expansion of remote work has been tied to increases in isolation and mental distress, according to new research published by economists Natalia Emanuel, Emma Harrington and Amanda Pallais. In a nonrandomized experiment covering almost 600,000 people, they compared changes in mental health before and after the pandemic in jobs that could and could not readily be done remotely, excluding 2020 and 2021. Remote workers living alone fared the worst.
Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash, CC BY
The next steps
These findings raise a practical question for employers: How can time together at work become more useful?
For employers considering a return to the office, a useful starting point is to first identify what employees gain from being together and then organize office time around it. Teams that depend on frequent collaboration need overlapping schedules. Newer employees need access to colleagues who can teach them. Managers need to provide useful feedback and address workload issues wherever people work, and employees need to be responsive to managerial efforts to engage them.
Employee preferences and job requirements differ across organizations, so managers need to determine which arrangements suit their teams. But regular, useful feedback matters across on-site, hybrid and remote settings. That means discussing priorities, recognizing employees’ contributions and helping them work effectively with colleagues.
As Gallup workplace researcher Jim Harter has suggested, this kind of feedback should become a weekly habit.
“These conversations don’t have to be long; 15 to 30 minutes, done consistently, is enough,” he wrote.
