I recently had the chance to read In Praise of the Office as an advanced reader copy, and I have to say—it really gave me a lot to think about. The book dives deep into the evolution of remote work, particularly how it exploded post-COVID and reshaped the American white-collar workforce. While some of the findings might feel like common knowledge (yes, we all know Zoom fatigue is real and spontaneous collaboration is harder when you’re stuck in a Slack thread), I still appreciated how thoroughly the author explored the issue.

Much of the book focuses on defining remote work—what it is, how it came to be, and most importantly, what it’s doing to us. The author doesn’t shy away from critiquing the negative consequences, especially the loss of social interaction and innovation that come from people actually being together. I work in education, not a traditional office, but even I’ve noticed how hesitant people are now to engage socially at work. That “relational muscle” has weakened.

What I especially appreciated was the final section of the book. The author shifts from diagnosis to solution, encouraging managers to be intentional about reintroducing in-person collaboration—not just dragging people back to the office, but creating spaces that actually make it worthwhile to be there. It’s not about recreating 2019; it’s about evolving into a hybrid model that’s smarter and more human.

That said, I do wish this section had gone a little deeper. There are a few strategies mentioned for rebuilding social connection at work, but I was left wanting more. I’d love to have seen more actionable ideas for how leaders can reduce the friction of in-person interaction and foster meaningful collaboration again. The argument was solid—it just needed a bit more weight behind the “how.”

Overall, In Praise of the Office is a timely and well-researched read, especially for anyone in a managerial role or just trying to make sense of the post-remote-work landscape. It’s not anti-remote, but it is pro-people—and that’s a distinction worth making.

“In Praise of the Office” is a smart, thoughtful, thorough review of the research and context surrounding the pandemic-compelled shift towards remote work that has fundamentally shifted the nature of how much of white-collar work is done today.

This book is rigorously researches, offers ample data to back its arguments, and pulls from a wide variety of examples from across organizations and industries. It also pulls from qualitative research they did with a group of 720 individuals from across a number of companies. I really appreciated the rigorous approach they took, as I haven’t seen a thorough review of this debate until this book!

I found it interesting that the title of the book implies that this is a book all about the benefits of in-office work… but in reality, the authors do an excellent job of offering a nuanced and thoughtful critique of all the sides to the return-to-office vs. fully remote vs. hybrid work debate. I was expecting it to be much more heavy handed but was pleasantly surprised by how fairly they evaluated all the arguments for and against in office vs. remote work.

The authors are explicit up front in pointing out that this book is specifically looking at this topic through the lens of the pandemic disrupting white collar work, rather than looking at the history of remote work in its entirety. With that in mind, I was surprised that there was minimal mention of DISTRIBUTED work in this book. I’ve spent the last 12 years of my career in large big tech companies and have always been on globally distributed teams. Even before the pandemic, every project I worked on required collaboration with colleagues in other offices in different cities and often in different countries. While those colleagues might not have been remote, the way we worked was still fundamentally “hybrid” in that way — we rarely saw each other in person and that created many of the same work conditions that the authors describe in this book as being the result of pandemic-driven shifts in ways of working. It would have been great to have had a bit of acknowledgement of how distributed work in this way differs from the challenges of hybrid work in the context of people all located in the same city/office but choosing to come in on different days.

Overall, I was very impressed by this book. I have been trying to have productive conversations on this topic with colleagues and friends for years and have always gotten frustrated by not having adequate evidence and data to speak to the truth of what is happening. This book solves that need! I will be recommending this strongly to friends and colleagues whenever this topic comes up. A must read for anyone in HR or organizational development!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early access copy to this book in exchange for an honest review.