I'm a sales engineer. Given that a big chunk of our job is face-to-face, I can answer this.
We are a social species. Body language, eye contact and facial expressions are more important than the spoken word during a conversation. They're also extremely subtle. You don't think about someone leaning in or mimicking your position (that's a thing!) when you're saying something interesting, but we instinctively pick up on these cues and use them to steer conversations (or, in this case, know to double-down on whatever we're talking about).
None of these transmit well over VC.
Consider eye contact, for example. Maintaining eye contact with someone means that you're staring almost directly at your webcam's lens, which is at best unideal (if you're use to being on camera) and, at worst, impossible (since you're, naturally, staring at the facsimile of a person in the box on the lower-left-hand corner of your Zoom window). Webcams are AWKWARD.
Furthermore, a Zoom meeting has to compete with the billions of other things that you're doing on your computer. A face-to-face meeting competes with your calendar and your inner thoughts. This matters a lot for key conversations.
The point we branched from was to ask what specifically generated the new ideas, out of spontaneous social situations in work places.
There’s definitely roles which have to be in person, and those people should come to office.
Everyone else - they don’t need to in the same way sales people would.
Not all conversations lead to insights, what’s going on then?
There’s some specific things happening to lead to the productivity benefit. Because this is what it is in the end, it’s productivity we care about, not socializing.
We are a social species. Body language, eye contact and facial expressions are more important than the spoken word during a conversation. They're also extremely subtle. You don't think about someone leaning in or mimicking your position (that's a thing!) when you're saying something interesting, but we instinctively pick up on these cues and use them to steer conversations (or, in this case, know to double-down on whatever we're talking about).
None of these transmit well over VC.
Consider eye contact, for example. Maintaining eye contact with someone means that you're staring almost directly at your webcam's lens, which is at best unideal (if you're use to being on camera) and, at worst, impossible (since you're, naturally, staring at the facsimile of a person in the box on the lower-left-hand corner of your Zoom window). Webcams are AWKWARD.
Furthermore, a Zoom meeting has to compete with the billions of other things that you're doing on your computer. A face-to-face meeting competes with your calendar and your inner thoughts. This matters a lot for key conversations.