The Value of One Office Day a Month

By Cevat Giray Aksoy, Nicholas Bloom, Steven Davis, Victoria Marino and Cem Özgüzel

Remote work has expanded rapidly, but the value of regular in-person contact remains unclear. We report a randomized controlled trial in Türkiye in which a large multinational assigned 248 customer service employees either to remain fully remote or to work from the office together one day per month. Monthly office days gradually increased productivity, with treated employees handling 7.8% more calls per hour at the end of the intervention. Office days also strengthened workplace communication: treated employees spent 36 additional minutes communicating with colleagues in the week after an office visit, were more likely to report receiving frequent manager feedback, and employee pairs randomly assigned as desk neighbors were 11 percentage points more likely to communicate afterward. In addition, monthly office days reduced attrition from 21.0% in the control group to 13.7% in the treatment group. The resulting gains in productivity and retention generated a benefit–cost ratio of 5:1. These findings show that even limited but coordinated in-person contact can improve communication, performance, and retention in fully remote teams.