One of today’s hot-button issues is whether to mandate a return to the office (RTO) and with many companies instituting policies, even highly in-demand tech workers are not immune. But for IT workers who continue to work fully remotely, the question becomes, are they missing out on critical face time with colleagues, and hurting their careers?

The answer, it seems, lies somewhere in the middle.

Late last month, tech workers at the New York Times planned a walkout to protest the company’s RTO policy. Other companies, including Amazon, Twitter and Goldman Sachs, have also seen broad employee protests over RTO policies this year.

For some IT professionals who work remotely, overall, the pros outweigh the cons.

Finding a Work/life balance

“Personally, I would never want to go full-time in an office,’’ says Stephanie Sheldon, a senior technology consultant in the SAP data and analytics practice at Ernst & Young. Sheldon started working at EY right out of college during the pandemic in the fall of 2020. It helped that she interned at the company in person the prior summer.

The benefits of being fully remote are work/life balance and having more control over her schedule. “I can work in comfy clothes -- a huge benefit for me – and I don’t need to ‘pretend’ to be busy if I really don’t have much to do,’’ she says.

Sheldon also likes having the ability to travel while working from anywhere in the U.S. But she also finds there are several negatives.

“In this people-facing career of technology consulting, not having that in-person interaction with clients is challenging, but even more negatively impactful is not having those relationships with our internal EY team(s),’’ Sheldon says. “Not having in-person interactions definitely makes it harder to establish trust with each other and the client, as well as gauge and understand each other’s work habits/styles. Not to mention the day is dull without random coffee runs with coworkers.”

Another issue is not being able to have conversations with people in other areas of the firm who could offer perspectives on her work, she says. That would help propel a horizontal move into another area of the firm, which Sheldon says she could see herself enjoying.

Being fully remote also impacted her ability to learn early on. “Being remote made it significantly harder to learn SAP, especially at the beginning of my time at EY. This was a new and complex world of tech I didn’t know much about,’’ she says. “It is way easier to understand platforms and other software through in-person conversations, hand gestures, whiteboards, etc.”

Luckily, she adds, EY does a good job providing mentorship programs and reliable promotion schedules. “However, I do feel I am missing out on building professional relationships at a personal level, having the excitement of day-to-day banter with colleagues, and serendipitous opportunities.”

Remote workers lose exposure to senior staff

Sam Blank, a software engineer level two, joined fintech company Advisor360 also during the pandemic. That hurt him early on because he was new to the industry and being fully remote meant he “didn’t get a chance to work with senior engineers and get the value of that face time.”

Once the pandemic ended, Blank went into the office twice a week, which was to his advantage in building a case for going fully remote. “I was able to develop a rapport with those guys and elevate my status in the company and socialize and have face time with upper management,” he says. “That propelled me forward and got me promoted” less than a year after he started.

After that, Blank gained further street cred by taking on a project that “no one wanted to touch,’’ because it was code that had been neglected for years. He spearheaded a team of five other developers and the successful conclusion of the project ultimately landed him another pay bump.

Recently, Blank moved from Massachusetts, where Advisor360 is based, to Florida, and says he has a close relationship with his bosses now so he doesn’t worry about remote work hindering his career.

But he misses going into the office periodically. “I get a little twirly being home and it would be nice to get out of the house,’’ he says. “I wake up and my computer is right there; I'm a prisoner in my own home.”

Blank says  believes “some sort of hybrid approach” is ideal, and his preference would be to go into the office once a week or every couple of months. For younger IT workers, remote work is somewhat detrimental because the in-person experience is “incredibly valuable,” he says. While it depends on a person’s maturity level, “it’s important if you’re a first-year engineer to go into an office. Obviously, as you gain that experience, working remotely becomes more beneficial.”

Now, “I don’t have to deal with traffic; that was the biggest thing, and I like how I can wake up 10 minutes before my first meeting,’’ he says. “I’m a late sleeper and I love that I can get a little extra sleep.”

Are remote employees more productive?

Stephen Roll has had the benefit of working both in person and remotely and prefers the latter at this stage of his career. Not that he has a choice — Roll is a senior project owner at clinical trial data management company Clario, which closed its local offices so he is fully remote.

The benefit of remote work is that productivity is higher, he says. “There’s no wasted time in commutes and finding meeting rooms. Video meetings still provide face contact.”

Also, he is not confined to a 9-5 workday, especially since Clario has a global workforce, he adds.

That said, “It’s hard to be visible for promotion opportunities. It’s harder to team [and there is] no work social life,” although that could be a positive for some people, he notes.

It’s also hard to whiteboard to an engineer exactly how something should work, Roll says. “I personally miss the interpersonal communications where one's personality and body gestures can help [with] 1:1 communication better, as opposed to a face or voice over Zoom.”

As to whether remote work hinders an IT worker’s career, Roll says it depends on your career goals. “If my career goal was [to be on a] leadership/management track, I think it could hinder it because there's less organizational leadership opportunities.”But as an individual contributor, “being more productive is a career enhancer,’’ he says. “Then again, I see a trend of remote jobs going offshore. So that's a hindrance.”

Echoing Blank, Roll says that “it's far more detrimental to the young IT worker who needs to get the socialized experience in a workplace.

Ultimately, Roll says, “the pros far outweigh the cons with my kind of work,’’ and his preference is to stay remote or go hybrid — if necessary.

Sheldon says if she were to take a new job, she would consider a hybrid model — depending on how flexible it is. “Since I am looking to work while traveling throughout the U.S. and living elsewhere,” she says, “I would like to have the option to go in the office – but not a company mandate with specific required days.”