As managers try to draw people back to the office, they’re wrestling with how to rebuild a sense of community without taking away the focus that often came with remote work. Meanwhile, some workers are getting nostalgic for the silence they had at home, especially because many of the office changes aimed at bringing people back often make it harder to concentrate. (One company, for example, added a rock climbing wall.)Research tends to back up the squishy sense that people get more done outside the office. A study from Stanford of a 16,000-person travel agency found that call center employees working remotely were 13 percent more productive than their in-person colleagues. Another study of 1,600 professionals found that they wrote 8 percent more code working a hybrid schedule compare …
