Mattia Vacchiano, a sociologist at the University of Geneva.
Remote work is not problematic in itself, neither for workers' well-being nor for their social relationships. That is the finding of a study by sociologist Mattia Vacchiano and his colleagues at the University of Geneva, published in July 2026 in the Social Networks, and it runs counter to the fears that emerged during the pandemic. Drawing on the international project The Empty Office, the team collected data across four countries — Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain — on 4,000 workers, and more precisely on 27,000 of their social relationships: colleagues, family, close ties. The problem lies elsewhere: in precariousness and in overwork. Enough to raise questions about the framework Switzerland is currently putting in place.
What motivated you to carry out this research?
It really started with the pandemic. Like many people, it was the first time I was working remotely so intensely, and with new tools. I saw an opportunity to study processes I had always been studying — social networks, social capital — but under entirely new conditions.
What scientific gap does it fill?
During the pandemic, there was a great deal of talk about social relationships: what not going to the office was doing to our colleagues, to mentoring, to the circulation of information, to our children, to our couples. We carried out a large literature review, and I found that no study on remote working used social network analysis, which is my main expertise. Those studies do not collect precise data on personal relationships. That is the gap this project fills: we collected data on 4,000 workers, and more precisely on 27,000 of their social relationships.
What are the main findings?
Remote work is not problematic in itself, neither for workers' well-being nor for their social relationships. It is not directly associated with an erosion of social networks or of social support. It is mostly a question of how it is organised and of the conditions under which you do it. For example, people who work remotely in a home with more space, more natural light, a better chair, are simply better off: those conditions are associated with better well-being outcomes. Interestingly, having such better environmental conditions is also associated with a lower share of conflictual interactions with family and colleagues.
And so, when does it become problematic?
When remote work is performed under precarious conditions — precariousness being the problem, more than the remote working itself. When someone wants to work remotely and the employer does not give them permission. And when remote work becomes a vehicle to work too much, all the time, everywhere. The problem is not doing your work remotely as such; it is using remote work to work anywhere, and to overwork in general.
Did any of the findings surprise you?
We found an association between hybrid work and conflict at home, with household members. Hybrid is the new work model: before the pandemic it did not really exist. It is also the change we consider desirable, and other studies show that it does improve work–life balance. But in this specific dataset, we found this association.
How do you explain it?
We cannot establish a causal link. One possible interpretation: with a fixed schedule everything is clear, you leave home and you will be back at five or six. When you are hybrid, that flexibility has to be negotiated within the household. "What are you doing tomorrow? Can you take the kids? Can you stay at home?" There is a window for negotiation that can potentially become a source of friction. It is also a new organizational model: you need to get used to it, to organise it, and those who work remotely all the time are probably better prepared.
What makes this research original?
The link between social network analysis and remote work. Neither field is new, but bringing them together was new. In practical terms, it is a cross-national study conducted in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, with two rounds of data collection. First a survey including a module on social relationships, the name generator, which allowed us to build a dataset of 27,000 social relationships. A year later, in-depth interviews. The quantitative dataset gives us trends, associations and correlations; the interviews let us go deeper into all of this, in the words of the people who work remotely.
What might the implications be for Switzerland?
In Switzerland, the regulation of remote work is currently under discussion. A new framework has been debated in Parliament [the National Council adopted the bill on 23 September 2025], proposing to extend working hours in order to accommodate remote work.I find this problematic: what we observe is precisely that using remote work to extend working hours is what causes problems. The framework also creates confusion, because it regulates «when we work», whereas remote work is above all about «where we work» . We should concentrate on the where, not on the when — and above all, not extend the when.
What are the limitations, and what comes next?
This is a cross-sectional study: we observe associations at a given moment, but we cannot establish that remote work causes the effects we find — that hybrid work produces conflict at home, for instance. It is a first step. To go beyond this limitation, the research would need to be designed within a longitudinal framework. What is also missing is applying a life course perspective to remote work. Those are the two frameworks I work with: so far I have used social networks to study remote work, and the next step could be to bring all of this together.
Interview by Kalina Anguelova
Vacchiano, M., Fernandez, G., D. Widmer, E. (2026). A personal network analysis of remote workers. Social Networks, 86, 412-422. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2026.04.010