There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about how to best bring employees back to the office after over a year of working remotely. It’s a conversation that has changed a lot in recent months, with the vaccine becoming more widely available, proven methods of a safe workplace, and cities and towns lifting restrictions on everything from indoor dining and exercise classes to mask mandates and social distancing.

While most of our competitors in the industry, especially on the design side, are working from home and have been for over a year, Clayco and our subsidiaries, Lamar Johnson Collaborative and Ventana, are fully back in the office, and we never left the field. In fact, we were busier than ever on job sites across the country, and we have been leaders in proving that you can work together in-person safely, even during the uncertainty of the pandemic.

I’ve never been an advocate or supporter of remote working, and it’s never something that we embraced at Clayco. Our jobs require us to be at building sites, and we never have time to slow down. Remote work just doesn’t cut it for us, and it’s clear that companies like Apple, JP Morgan Chase, and many others are starting to see things the same way. So many organizations are starting to roll back their work-from-home policies for a reason: it just doesn’t work. It’s even more important for our design and building peers to pave the way by getting off the couch at home and heading back to the office!

Alongside other leaders across industries, we’ve taken the initiative to communicate that there is no replacement for the creativity, cooperation, and innovation that comes from working together in person. Video chats just can’t replace face-to-face interactions and meetings, and we must continue to build on the communities and connections that get us through tough times, including those in our workplaces.

I think that I speak for a lot of my fellow business leaders in saying that we want to see all your faces again, and we really miss the energy that comes with having an office full of talented and dedicated people working hard towards common goals. It’s time to come back, and we have the tools to do it quickly and safely!

This post was also featured in ConstructforSTL.