A Closer Look at Remote Work: From Implicit Work Systems to Explicit Work Design
Over the past few years, remote and hybrid work have been widely cited as sources of organisational strain. Declining engagement, reduced accountability, communication breakdowns, and inconsistent performance have all, at various points, been attributed to the absence of physical offices. The narrative is familiar: something that once functioned effectively began to falter when people were no longer in the same place. While this explanation is appealing in its simplicity, it overlooks a more fundamental question. Did remote work introduce new problems into organisations, or did it make existing ones more visible?
In many cases, what appears to be a breakdown is better understood as an exposure.
Traditional office environments provided more than shared space. They created conditions in which work could function, even when the underlying systems were not particularly robust. Visibility played a central role in this. The ability to observe employees, witness activity, and engage in informal interactions created a sense of continuity and control. Yet, visibility is not synonymous with performance. Presence often serves as a proxy for productivity, despite offering little insight into actual contribution. When work shifted out of the office, this proxy disappeared. Managers could no longer rely on observation as a signal of progress and were instead required to depend on systems, structures, and clearly defined outputs. For organisations where these were already in place, the transition was manageable. For others, it revealed how much had previously been inferred rather than defined. Research supports this distinction, with studies showing that remote work, when properly structured, does not inherently reduce productivity and can, in some cases, enhance it (Bloom et al., 2015).
A similar pattern emerges in how work is coordinated. In office environments, coordination often occurs informally. Questions are resolved in passing, decisions are clarified through conversation, and work progresses through unplanned interactions. While this can create a sense of fluidity, it also means that much of the organisation’s functioning relies on proximity rather than intentional design. When proximity is removed, the absence of structure becomes more apparent. Tasks that once flowed easily now require clearly defined roles, processes, and expectations. Where these are not in place, friction emerges.
This is not a new challenge. Organisational theory has long emphasised the importance of formal structures in managing complexity. Galbraith (1974) argued that as uncertainty increases, organisations must rely more on structured information-processing systems rather than informal communication. In distributed environments, this becomes critical. Without clearly articulated processes, work slows, decisions become ambiguous, and accountability becomes diffuse. Remote work, in this sense, did not disrupt coordination: it revealed how much of it had never been designed.
The same dynamic applies to management. In environments where oversight was achieved through presence and observation, managers were required to adopt alternative ways to understand performance and support their teams. This shift has proven difficult, not because managers lack capability, but because the systems supporting them were not built for this mode of operation. Without clear performance frameworks, structured feedback mechanisms, or defined expectations, managers are left to interpret performance with limited visibility and inconsistent signals.
This highlights a critical distinction between management as observation and management as system design. Effective management in distributed environments relies less on seeing work happen and more on creating the conditions for work to happen consistently. Research on virtual teams reinforces this point. Gibson and Gibbs (2006) demonstrate that effectiveness in distributed environments depends on clarity, shared understanding, and well-defined processes. Where these are absent, misunderstanding increases and performance declines. What is often interpreted as reduced managerial effectiveness is, in many cases, the removal of informal mechanisms that previously compensated for a lack of formal structure.
Organisational culture has been similarly affected. Much of the concern surrounding remote work centres on the perception that culture has weakened in the absence of shared space. While this observation has some validity, it also raises a more fundamental question about how culture is defined. If culture is primarily experienced through proximity, it is inherently fragile. Why? Because when those conditions change, so does the experience of culture. By contrast, culture embedded in systems, behaviours, and shared expectations is less dependent on location and is reflected in how decisions are made, how work is structured, and how people are supported. Edmondson’s (1999) work on psychological safety accentuates this, highlighting that effective team environments are built on shared norms and interpersonal trust, rather than physical co-location.
Together, these shifts point to a broader conclusion: Remote work did not fundamentally alter how organisations function, it altered the conditions under which they function. In doing so, it removed a set of compensating mechanisms: visibility as a proxy for performance, proximity as a substitute for coordination, observation as a stand-in for management, and shared space as a carrier of culture. Without these, organisations were left with their underlying systems. Where those systems were strong, performance remained stable. Where they were weak, challenges became more visible.
This interpretation aligns with broader perspectives on organisational complexity. In dynamic environments, systems that rely on implicit coordination tend to become less effective over time (Maley, 2024). The shift to remote work accelerated this process, not by introducing instability, but by removing the conditions that allowed instability to remain hidden.
While many established organisations have spent the past few years adapting to remote and hybrid models, a different group has emerged under entirely different conditions. Organisations founded in the post-pandemic (post-in-office) era have not had to transition into distributed work, they have built within it. This distinction is significant. Where traditional organisations have had to adapt structures designed for proximity, newer organisations have had the opportunity to define their operating models from the outset, without legacy assumptions.
In these environments, visibility is not treated as a proxy for performance because it was never available to begin with. Ideally, performance is defined more explicitly in terms of outputs and expectations; coordination is structured through systems and processes rather than informal interaction; and management focuses on alignment and enablement rather than oversight. While these organisations are not without challenges, they are not required to unlearn the same patterns that more established organisations must now confront. They are, in many respects, designing for current realities rather than adapting to them.
For established organisations, this presents an important point of reflection. The challenge is not simply to adapt to new ways of working, but to reconsider the assumptions that informed how work was designed in the first place. If remote work has exposed structural gaps, the question is not whether to return to previous conditions, but how to move forward with greater clarity.
This begins with redefining performance. Where it has historically been inferred through presence or activity, it must now be articulated more explicitly in terms of output and contribution. Coordination must be designed rather than assumed, supported by clearly defined roles and structured decision-making processes. Management must shift from monitoring activity to enabling systems, creating clarity and supporting effective work rather than relying on observation.
It is worth noting that this transition is not only structural but also generational. Many senior leaders developed their experience in environments shaped by proximity, visibility, and hierarchical oversight. While these models were effective within their previous context, they were built on conditions that no longer apply in the same way. Moving forward requires a willingness to examine which aspects of that experience remain relevant and which may limit the ability to design for current realities. This is not a rejection of experience, but rather an evolution of it.
Ultimately, the debate around remote work is unlikely to resolve itself quickly. Organisations will continue to experiment, balancing flexibility with structure and autonomy with alignment. Yet, the most valuable insight from this period may not be about remote work itself, but about what it has revealed. Organisations have been given an opportunity to see their systems more clearly. The question is whether they will use that clarity to redesign how work operates, or attempt to recreate the conditions that previously allowed those systems to function without being fully understood.
The future of work will not be determined by where work takes place, but by how deliberately it is designed. And for many organisations, progress will depend less on adopting new models and more on letting go of assumptions that no longer hold. Why? Because the issue is no longer whether remote work works, it is whether organisations are willing to work differently.
Sources:
Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2015). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), 165–218.
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
Galbraith, J. R. (1974). Organization design: An information processing view. Interfaces, 4(3), 28–36.
Gibson, C. B., & Gibbs, J. L. (2006). Unpacking the concept of virtuality. Administrative Science Quarterly, 51(3), 451–495.
Maley, J. F. (2024). Performance management in a rapidly changing world. Human Resource Management International Digest.