Want to Be Innovative? You Need a Water Cooler

Having spent the first two years of the decade rapidly adjusting to remote work and adopting the tech solutions that made this possible, dragging ourselves back into cities and workplaces can feel like time and energy wasted.

The stats reflect this feeling, with more than 60 per cent of workers looking for flexibility in their working arrangements.¹

At the same time, about 60 per cent of firms offering hybrid work.²

While remote and hybrid solutions are appealing in terms of convenience and cost-cutting, the impacts on collaboration – and our innovation – are less thrilling.

The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern points out, “While remote work has many advantages, building trust between employees isn’t one of them.”

“Online, there is no water cooler, no nearby coffee shop for informal brainstorms, no place to grab a drink after work.”³

Apple CEO Tim Cook has long been a proponent of the value of proximity when it comes to healthy and innovative teams.

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“Innovation isn’t always a planned activity,” he suggested.

“It’s bumping into each other over the course of the day and advancing an idea you just had.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon agrees, saying that working from home “doesn’t work for spontaneous idea generation”.⁴

Look at the data

Data is increasingly validating views like these.

Probably the most thorough research examining the impact of remote work on collaboration throughout the pandemic was released by Microsoft in September 2021.

Having monitored the communication patterns across 61,000 employees worldwide, Microsoft’s peer-reviewed study found remote work had hurt cross-functional communication and collaboration. In the long-term, this could threaten innovation.

Remote and hybrid work was also causing employees to rely on “asynchronous communication methods,” such as email and instant messages.

This makes it very difficult to “convey and process complex information”.

The researchers suggest these findings are “a warning sign” to other companies.

“Without intervention, the effects we discovered have the potential to impact workers’ ability to acquire and share new information across groups, and as a result, affect productivity and innovation,” they wrote.

“In light of these findings, companies should be thoughtful about if and how they choose to adopt long-term work-from-home policies.”⁵

Findings like these validate a noteworthy 2017 study by Matthew Claudel at MIT.

The study found clear evidence of the positive relationship between proximity and collaboration.

This is not to say collaboration can’t be done within a dispersed and remote team.

However, there are real benefits to people being in the same physical location and the cross-pollinating of ideas that naturally follows.⁶

Big ideas are birthed in person

One way this manifests is in incidental conversations which organically occur in the ordinary moments of workplaces.

Ironically, it is clear that many of the world’s biggest ideas and most significant social connections are born out of our smallest talk.

One study examining the social and emotional value of small talk tracked a range of employees for 15 consecutive workdays in a pre-pandemic era.

Participants were asked how much small talk they made at work each day, and about their positive emotions such as friendliness, pride, and gratitude.

Each night they were also asked to report levels of well-being and prosocial behaviors.

The results were informative and inspiring.

On days when workers made more small talk than usual, they experienced more positive emotions.

Also, they were less burned out and more willing to go out of their way to help their colleagues.⁷

Numerous organisations have experimented with creative ways to orchestrate informal virtual interactions among employees.

Platforms such as Airmeet and apps like Water Cooler allow employees to engage in a form of online speed networking with colleagues.

Similarly, Culture Amp has created a channel on messaging system Slack called ‘donut’ – employees are randomly paired with someone else in the organisation, every two weeks.⁸

This type of “video-chat roulette” technology has shown great promise in allowing employees to digitally make the sort of random connections they otherwise would in an office.

The UK Civil Service began using this technology during Britain’s first lockdown.

The goal was to foster a sense of cohesion amongst team members who may have otherwise felt isolated and disconnected.

During the first year, more than 3,000 participants were randomly paired up for a 30-minute video chat with a colleague once per month.

The program was dubbed “Coffee Connect” and resulted in 15,000 connections being made.

About 90 per cent of participants reported they found the experience extremely valuable in getting to know people from other departments and areas.⁹

It is undeniable that face-to-face interactions and physical proximity can have significant effects on the collaboration and cohesion within a workplace.

However, whether facilitated physically or remotely, the value of synchronous communication, incidental conversations and small talk is unrivalled in its ability to generate the ideas that count.

1. Renton, S 2021, “The future of work will be hybrid,” McCrindle.

2. Leaver, S. 2021, “Predictions 2022: This Is A Year To Be Bold,” Forrester, 26 October.

3. Stern, J. 2021, “Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2021,” The Wall Street Journal, 1 January.

4. Cain Miller, C. 2021, “Does being in the office boost innovation? There’s no evidence of it,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 June.

5. Bishop, T. 2021, “Microsoft study shows how remote work puts productivity and innovation at risk,” Geekwire, 9 September.

6. 2020, “Covid-19 has forced a radical shift in working habits,” The Economist, 10 September

7. Methot, J. 2021, “Remote workers need small talk, too” Harvard Business Review, 25 March.

8. Waters, C. 2021, “Doughnut meetings and choosing your office days,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July.

9. Russell, A. 2021, “Virtual coffees, real connections with real people,” UK Civil Service Blog, 3 June.

Article supplied with thanks to Michael McQueen.

About the Author: Michael is a trends forecaster, business strategist and award-winning conference speaker.

Feature image: Photo by Mad Fish Digital on Unsplash