Remote workers report less learning

X user __BreadMaker__ posted on May 19 that remote workers report “considerably less learning and information-sharing” from coworkers than people in the office. The post framed the issue as a productivity problem, arguing that remote setups reduce the kind of spontaneous mentoring and informal knowledge transfer that happens around other people. Replies to the post focused on onboarding gaps, weaker collaboration and the difficulty of learning by observation in distributed teams. The claim is not new, but recent research gives it more backing than a typical workplace argument on social media. ### What evidence is there that proximity changes how people learn at work? Natalia Emanuel, Emma Harrington and Amanda Pallais wrote in an NBER working paper revised in December 2025 that sitting near teammates increased coding feedback by 18.3% and improved code quality. Their study examined software engineers at a Fortune 500 company from 2019 to 2024 and used office closures and later return-to-office mandates as changes in coworker proximity. The NBER paper said the gains were concentrated among less-tenured and younger engineers, the workers most likely to be building skills on the job. The authors also reported a tradeoff: experienced engineers wrote less code when sitting near colleagues, suggesting some of the benefit came through time spent helping others rather than individual output. ### Why do researchers think remote work can reduce information-sharing? Microsoft researchers and academic co-authors reported in a 2021 study that firm-wide remote work made collaboration networks more static and siloed. (nber.org) On Microsoft’s research page, the authors said the share of collaboration time employees spent with cross-group connections dropped by about 25% from the pre-pandemic level. David Holtz of UC Berkeley Haas said in a university summary of that research that a full-time remote workforce may have a harder time acquiring and sharing new information. The study covered more than 61,000 Microsoft employees and found fewer real-time conversations and fewer bridges between different parts of the organization after the shift to remote work. (microsoft.com) ### Is the problem specifically informal learning? Ilmari J. A. Puhakka, Petri Nokelainen and Eija Lehtonen wrote in a 2025 paper that remote work can offer “less rich and more restricted communication” with fewer learning cues and opportunities for informal workplace learning. Their survey of 266 Finnish employees at an international IT company found that remote work intensity was negatively associated with relatedness satisfaction, while the broader results did not show remote work was uniformly harmful or beneficial. (newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu) The same paper said hybrid work may be preferable to full-time remote work in supporting learning and well-being. That is narrower than saying remote work fails, but it supports the argument that full-time distance can weaken the social conditions that help people pick up skills from colleagues. ### Does this mean remote work is worse overall? Hyejin Youn of Northwestern’s Kellogg School said proximity still matters “when it comes to learning through collaboration.” In a Kellogg summary of research on more than 17 million scientific publications, Youn and Frank van der Wouden found that local collaborators were more likely to gain new knowledge from teammates than people working at a distance, especially when knowledge was not yet codified. (link.springer.com) The same Kellogg summary also noted that geographically flexible workers have reported gains in productivity and satisfaction. That leaves the debate where many employers and workers already are: remote arrangements can work for output and flexibility, while in-person contact may still matter more for apprenticeship, tacit knowledge and early-career development. (insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu) ### Why did this post resonate? May 19 was the date of the original post, and its language matched a broader tension in workplace debates: remote work is often discussed as a question of preference, while managers and researchers increasingly describe narrower issues around mentoring, onboarding and cross-team learning. The social-media version was blunt, but the underlying concern appears in multiple studies across software engineering, information work and research collaboration. (insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu) NBER working paper 31880 and Microsoft’s collaboration study remain the clearest next references for readers who want to check the underlying evidence. The original discussion is still visible through __BreadMaker__’s May 19 post on X. (nber.org)