Opinion: Work from anywhere, belong nowhere

Even the most ardent advocates of remote work often admit to feeling isolated, struggling to maintain professional momentum, or wondering if their contributions are visible in the virtual crowd

By Viiveck Verma

For decades, the promise of work was not only a paycheck but also a place. A place where colleagues became collaborators, sometimes friends, and occasionally lifelong allies. The office was imperfect, often inefficient, hierarchical, and rigid, but it offered something valuable: belonging. In the post-pandemic age of remote work and its sleeker cousin, ‘work from anywhere’, that sense of place is evaporating. While the freedom of location independence is celebrated as progress, it carries a hidden cost: the erosion of workplace community and the weakening of long-term professional ties.

The revolution began innocently enough. The pandemic forced us into home offices, kitchen counters, and bedrooms with laptops propped up on books. What started as a survival tactic quickly morphed into a new normal, embraced by employers who saw cost savings in reduced real estate and by workers who revelled in flexibility. Today, surveys show that more than 70% of knowledge workers prefer hybrid or fully remote arrangements. The fantasy of working from a sunlit café in Lisbon or a cabin in the Himalayas has become a social media trope. But beneath the Instagram-filtered version of this lifestyle lies a reality few talk about: when you belong everywhere, you often belong nowhere.

Social Connection

Human beings are social animals, and professional identity has historically been tethered to institutions, companies, industries, and even physical offices. Shared rituals like coffee breaks, Friday lunches, or post-work drinks may seem trivial, but they form the invisible glue of professional belonging. They create trust, camaraderie, and the chance encounters that spark innovation. Strip those away, and what remains is a transactional relationship with an employer and a Zoom grid of colleagues you may never meet in person. The erosion of this community weakens not only workplace culture but also the durability of professional ties.

Networking in the ‘work from anywhere’ era has shifted from organic to mechanical. Before, relationships were forged in corridors, at conferences, or during late-night project crunches. Now, they are reduced to scheduled virtual calls or Slack messages punctuated by emojis. The spontaneity of mentorship—the serendipitous moment when a senior colleague notices your talent and takes you under their wing—is harder to replicate in a digital-only ecosystem. Data reflects this: studies from Microsoft and MIT suggest that remote workers maintain stronger ties with their immediate teams but weaker connections across the broader organisation. In other words, your professional world narrows even as your geographic options expand.

Thin on Loyalty

This narrowing has consequences. Careers are not built merely on competence; they are sustained by reputation, relationships, and networks that extend beyond the immediate task at hand. Without long-term connections, workers risk becoming fungible—interchangeable nodes in a global labour market. It’s no coincidence that remote-first companies also tend to lean more heavily on contract or gig-based work, where loyalty is thin on both sides. The modern mantra of flexibility often disguises a harsher reality: in a world where you can be replaced by someone logging in from another time zone for half the cost, what anchors you? There is also a psychological toll. A sense of rootlessness can creep in when professional life exists only through screens.

Belonging is not just about having a job; it’s about feeling embedded in a community, with shared goals and collective identity. The rise of coworking spaces was one attempt to counter this, offering a simulacrum of office life with beanbags and artisanal coffee. Yet these spaces rarely replicate the enduring bonds of a workplace where people invest years together. Instead, they function more like airports: transient, efficient, and anonymous. You pass through, but you do not stay. Of course, defenders of location independence argue that the benefits outweigh the losses. Reduced commutes save time and stress.

Fragile Foundation

Global hiring expands opportunities for talent outside major cities. Parents and caregivers find more balance. And undeniably, there is empowerment in being able to design one’s own geography of work. But let us be clear: freedom without belonging is a fragile foundation. Even the most ardent advocates of remote work often admit to feeling isolated, struggling to maintain professional momentum, or wondering if their contributions are visible in the virtual crowd.

The deeper question is not whether remote work is here to stay, it is, but whether organisations and individuals can mitigate its corrosive effects on the community. Some companies are experimenting with periodic in-person retreats, mandatory anchor days, or regional hubs where employees can meet face-to-face. Others invest heavily in digital platforms to replicate ‘watercooler moments’ online. These are useful, but they are also acknowledgements of the obvious, that belonging cannot be fully digitised. Human connection resists compression into bandwidth.

As someone who has spent decades watching workplaces evolve, I worry that we are normalising a model of professional life that prizes flexibility over fraternity, freedom over fellowship. The most successful careers I’ve witnessed were not just about individual brilliance but about being woven into durable networks—people who vouched for you, advocated for you, and pulled you along when opportunities arose. That fabric is fraying in the era of work from anywhere. We may gain mobility, but we risk losing continuity.

(The author is founder and CEO, Upsurge Global, co-founder, Global Carbon Warriors and Adjunct Professor, EThames College)