Pfizer's chief commercial officer says that although the company developed its Covid-19 vaccine with many remote employees, working in person is 'critical' to office culture

• Nearly 2 years after the company helped to develop the Covid vaccine, Pfizer's Angela Hwang said it's time to get back to the office.
• Though many worked from home during the vaccine's development, Pfizer's culture was "banked" from years of in-person work, she said.

Pfizer's chief commercial officer weighed in on the ongoing debate around remote work, saying it's essential for an in-person element of the workplace to exist.

Angela Hwang, also the president of Pfizer's global biopharmaceuticals business, told Insider that although Pfizer was able to help develop an effective vaccine for Covid-19 in less than a year with many employees working full-time from home, the situation wasn't "the ideal way to work."

"As much as technology has enabled us to be incredibly effective in working remotely, there are some things that cannot be substituted, and that is the personal connection, the human touch. The ability for me to look you in the eye, see your smile, understand your body language," she said.

"All of these unspoken words are critical to being able to trust one another, to being able to get to know someone well," Hwang added.

One of the primary reasons the part of the team at Pfizer worked effectively from home during the pandemic was because trust between employees was "banked from the years of us working together," she said. Pfizer teamed with BioNTech to develop their Covid vaccine.

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, working in person was widely considered risky, especially in jobs deemed "non-essential." Now, nearly two years after Pfizer and other drugmakers introduced effective vaccines against the virus, requiring workers to return to the office doesn't seem as far-fetched.

However, many business leaders face a dilemma regarding remote work.

A recent survey from Microsoft found that 85% of managers don't trust that their employees are productive when working remotely, but companies like Apple and J.P. Morgan have faced backlash from workers after mandating a return to the office.

Hwang said she believes a hybrid work option could be the solution in some cases.

"Remote working is effective for certain kinds of work," she said.

"But there is also a time and place for us to come together and to get to know one another differently, and I think that human touch is absolutely essential if we're going to continue to build strong teams and build trust," she added.