The positive effect a 2-week in-person visit to a remote office had on the collaboration over the next year or so astonished me.
Turns out humans are social animals, people with social bonds work together more effectively, and you don't build those via Zoom and Slack. And I'm not talking about "partying together every night, living at the office", just "being around each other and talking outside of the rigid confines of scheduled meetings".
What you are describing sounds like scheduled socials to me, just in the office instead of over zoom. But I would not be surprised if mostly wfh with a few in-person days turns out to be the optimal setup for most offices.
You can't schedule a social for 8h/day though. The trick is the informal interactions, e.g. over lunch, or between tasks, or when you overhear something interesting.
Compare e.g. a language course that you go to once per week or day for an hour vs. in-country immersion. similar thing.
Turns out humans are social animals, people with social bonds work together more effectively, and you don't build those via Zoom and Slack. And I'm not talking about "partying together every night, living at the office", just "being around each other and talking outside of the rigid confines of scheduled meetings".
No, scheduled socials aren't the same.