How to Make Office Time Actually Worth It

"I go to the office just to sit on Zoom." This isn't a complaint—it's a clue. A clue that today’s return-to-office plans are missing something vital. It’s (usually) not the commute that’s draining people—it’s the lack of something you can’t access alone at home.

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In my work helping organizations build culture through connection, one complaint echoes loudly: “When I go into the office, I end up doing work I could have done at home. So why go in at all?”

It’s a fair question—if the only goal is to get the work done. But what if coming into the office isn’t about doing work? What if it’s about harnessing something invisible that accelerates the work?

That something is called collective effervescence.

A 2022 meta-analysis by José J. Pizarro and colleagues, which reviewed over 50 studies and 182,000 participants, found that collective effervescence—a state of intense shared emotional activation—strongly correlates with increased group identity, motivation, and long-term cohesion. Collective effervescence describes the shared emotional energy that emerges when people come together with a common purpose. It’s that electric feeling you get:

Singing with strangers at a concert.

Cheering in sync at a play-off game.

Marching for a shared cause.

Celebrating a hard-won team victory.