We need an honest conversation about this persistent myth that assistants must be physically in the office to understand their executives.
The newest Stanford research studied 16,000 workers across two years and found that remote workers were thirteen percent more productive. They quit 50% less often.
For a profession that is 98% female, with the bulk of life’s invisible labour falling on your shoulders, this is not just interesting data. This is a lifeline.
Because the debate about remote work has never been about whether the work gets done. Assistants have always delivered, regardless of location.
An office day often looks like this:
• Two hours of deep work at best
• Five to six interruptions per hour
• Constant context switching
• Energy gone by mid afternoon
• Family receiving your leftovers
A work from home day often looks like this:
• Four to five hours of real focus
• Interruptions you control
• Energy that lasts into the evening
• Family getting the real you
This is not just productivity. This is human sustainability. And as a profession that carries the emotional and logistical weight of so much, sustainability is not optional.
Open offices trigger cortisol all day.
Your brain treats interruptions as threats.
You become exhausted long before the end of the day.
Home environments trigger oxytocin.
Your brain recognises safety.
Focus deepens. Judgement sharpens. Anticipation improves.
One environment drains you.
One environment sustains you.
If organisations were honest, many would admit that return to office mandates are not about performance. They are about trust.
They prefer visible exhaustion to invisible excellence. They want to watch you work rather than measure what you deliver.
Yet the research shows remote workers deliver better results. They stay longer. They are healthier. They are happier. They have actual lives.
And yet assistants have been carrying an outdated assumption that real support must be physical and visible. Except your executives are in global meetings, travelling, hybrid, unpredictable. You are already supporting people who are not next to you.
You do not understand your executive because you sit nearby.
You understand them because you pay attention. You build trust. You observe patterns. You listen to what is said and what is not said. You know how to respond because you know how they think.
That is skill, not proximity.
And in a profession that is almost entirely female, flexibility is not a perk. It is the difference between sustaining a career and burning out of one.
And yes, some of you genuinely prefer the office. You feel energised there, connected, grounded. That choice matters too. The point is not to pull everyone home. The point is to recognise that assistants thrive in different ways, and you deserve the freedom to choose the environment that allows you to do your best work and still have a life.
