Hybrid working policies are making interns lonelier in the office

• Hybrid working policies mean interns turn up to empty offices and feel more isolated.
• More experienced employees are choosing to work from home because it's convenient and easy.

Hybrid working policies are popular because they provide flexible working options, but for young people who are just entering the workplace, it can create a more isolating experience and pose barriers to career progression.

22-year-old Martha Storey told the Financial Times that she was excited about her internship at one of the UK's biggest financial services firms in the summer of 2022 after being stuck at home during her university years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Most of the team lived outside of London and commuted in one or two days a week ... I was living in a tiny flat that was baking hot, so it was sometimes unbearable to work from home," she said. "[But] there were some days when I was the only member of my team in the office ... It made the office a lonelier place to be."

27-year-old Thomas Harbor echoed Storey's sentiments saying that an internship during the pandemic "killed" his interest in the consulting industry because the social aspect was lacking: "You don't share any of the office talk, lunch talk, and the way you make friends, and with that, it can start to feel very lonely," he said.

Because of this, some companies are implementing new guidance for younger employees to help them integrate into the workforce. Law firm Linklaters requires its trainees to be in the office four days a week, while other employees can work from home for two days, per the FT.

This is because "a lot of the learning happens in and around doing actual work, by watching senior lawyers," Linklaters partner Mark Drury told the FT.

Linklaters and HSBC pair interns with mentors as part of a "training buddies" system that socializes its younger workers. Meanwhile, KPMG increased its induction for young hires to five days and launched a new social mixer.

Several firms across the accounting, banking, and law industries told the FT that interns wanted to be in the office as much as possible despite being allowed to work from home.

"Interns are super keen to be on-site, to have as much proximity to senior leadership as possible and really dig their hands into proper work," Louise Fitzgerald-Lombard, head of HR for global markets at BNP Paribas told the FT.

Working from home and operating virtually can stunt career progression and growth. PWC and Deloitte previously told the FT that they're providing extra training to new recruits who graduated during the pandemic because they struggle more with teamwork and collaboration.

Some younger workers are pushing for more in-person work because it enables them to integrate into the culture more easily, make friends, learn the social norms of their workplace, and learn from more senior employees, Insider reported in May.

Meanwhile, older and more experienced workers may prefer working from home because they might have more comfortable work setups at home and find it easier to tend to childcare responsibilities.

Entrepreneur Jake Wood said in a recent LinkedIn post that remote work doesn't just harm junior employees, it can impact teamwork overall.

"Top performers raise the performance of those around them. This is severely degraded when those top performers (who are most capable of thriving WFH) are working from home. This renders much of the rest of the org operating in an inefficient capacity. New hires onboard more slowly. Junior employees don't grow professionally," he said.