????有一段時間，在家工作是一項時髦的企業福利。百思買（Best Buy）的“只看成果工作環境”(Results Only Work Environment)計劃允許企業員工在任何地方、任何時候工作，曾經贏得媒體的盛贊。美國聯邦政府接受遠程辦公，部分是因為遠程辦公可以實現緊急情況下的人員迅速組織。而且，多項研究顯示，遠程辦公有助于提升工作表現和員工留任率。

????但過去一年，情況發生了變化。眾所周知，雅虎(Yahoo)新任CEO瑪麗莎?梅耶爾已經宣布取消公司的遠程辦公安排。她在4月份的一次演講中承認，“人們獨處時的生產效率會更高”，但“群處時的合作性和創新性會更好。一些優秀點子正是產生于兩種不同想法的碰撞。”

????通過碰撞實現創新的理念正在日益流行；今年在得克薩斯州奧斯汀舉行的South by Southwest Interactive Festival嘉年華就有不少關于這個話題的小組討論，而包括谷歌(Google)和Zappos等在內的一批公司正在重新設計辦公室，希望激發更多的不期而遇和思想碰撞。

????當然，電梯里的不期而遇需要發生在公司總部的辦公室，而不是穿著睡衣在家中時。

????那么，在家工作和在辦公室工作，到底哪種更好？

????答案是，這個問題很難說，因為兩者都各有利弊。

????當然，很多工作沒法遠程完成。大部分醫療手術和牙科手術仍然需要現場操作，大多數老師都需要在教室里授課。但有不少信息工作不受時間和地點的限制。2013年美國人時間利用調查(2013 American Time Use Survey)發現，擁有大學學歷的美國就業者有38%會在工作日時在家處理部分、甚至全部的工作。

????免除員工上下班途中的奔波是一項很有吸引力的福利，不同的調查都發現，大部分人對此都很感興趣。同時，不用開車上下班也具有環保效應。對于46項調查的綜合研究發現，遠程辦公能帶來更多的工作滿意度，降低離職意愿，而且在一定程度上并不影響到工作場所的員工關系質量。在另一項研究中，楊百翰大學(BYU)的研究人員分析了IBM分布于75個國家的24,436個雇員，試圖發現到何種程度才會導致25%的員工報告工作與家庭生活之間的沖突。在家工作、同時有權自主設定工作時間的人們每周的工作時間達到57個小時的時候才會有相當一部分人感受到工作與家庭問題之間的壓力。而那些必須在規定時間內在辦公室上班的人們，38個小時就會達到上述水平。

????不過，在家工作也存在弊端。對沖基金公司Metropolitan Capital Advisors共同創始人兼總裁、《費爾曼法則》（Finerman's Rules）一書的作者卡倫?費納曼曾經嘗試過在家辦公。她說：“就我而言，在家工作什么也干不好。”家里的功能區分較少，工作時間會被非工作事務侵占，而且孩子們——她有4個孩子——也會不合時宜地打斷她的工作。

????作為一個老板，她表示，她理解人們有時需要在家工作，但“這不是我的首選”。

????“如果有一些緊急事務需要立刻討論，我們不需要到處找人在哪兒，”她說。“共處和互動很重要。”她還發現“遠程管理很困難，”就像一個代課老師要管好課堂秩序一樣。

????For a while, working from home was the hip corporate perk. Best Buy got glowing press for its Results Only Work Environment in which corporate employees could work anytime, anywhere. The federal government embraced telecommuting arrangements, in part for the ability to regroup in emergencies, and several studies showed that telecommuting had upsides for performance and retention.

????But over the past year, there's been a shift. Yahoo's (YHOO) new CEO, Marissa Mayer, famously shut down the company's telecommuting arrangements this winter. In an April speech, she acknowledged that "people are more productive when they're alone," but also claimed "they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together."

????The notion of innovation via serendipitous encounters is gaining popularity: this year's South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas featured panels on the topic, and companies including Google (GOOG) and Zappos are redesigning their office space to spark more chance meetings.

????Needless to say, serendipitous meetings in the elevator require being in a corporate headquarters, not in your pajamas at home.

????So, is it better to work from home or the office?

????The answer is that it's complicated, with upsides and downsides for both.

????To be sure, many jobs can't be done remotely. Most medical and dental procedures still need to be done in person, and most teachers need to be in their classrooms. But much information work isn't time- and place-specific. The 2013 American Time Use Survey found that on the days they work, 38% of employed Americans with college degrees do some or all of their work from home.

????Skipping the commute is a desirable perk, with various surveys finding a majority of people interested in the option. There are environmental benefits to taking cars off the road. One meta-analysis of 46 studies found that telecommuting was associated with more job satisfaction, less desire to leave an employer, and -- at modest levels -- had no effect on the quality of workplace relationships. In another study, researchers from BYU analyzed 24,436 IBM (IBM) employees in 75 countries to identify the point at which 25% of employees reported work-family conflicts. People with the ability to work from home and set their own hours could work 57 hours per week before a significant chunk experienced work-life stress. For those who had to be in the office at set hours, that break point occurred at 38 hours.

????But there are downsides, too. Karen Finerman, co-founder and president of Metropolitan Capital Advisors and author of Finerman's Rules, tried working from home. "For me, working from home was literally the worst of everything," she says. There were fewer boundaries, with work bleeding into non-work hours, and kids -- she has four -- interrupting at the most inconvenient times.

????As a boss, she says she understands if people need to work from home sometimes, but "it is not my first choice.

????"If there's something very timely we need to talk about right away, not having to track someone down is helpful," she says. "Serendipity is important, that interaction." She's also found that "it's hard to manage people virtually," likening it to what gets done in a classroom when there's a substitute teacher.