Remote Work In Planning Is Fizzling Out

When remote work exploded in 2020, planners everywhere got a taste of something rare: uninterrupted hours, meetings without commutes, and the revolutionary ability to mute someone mid-rant. It was glorious. It felt like maybe, just maybe, the profession was entering a new era—one where productivity didn't mean proximity, and planning could finally embrace a little flexibility.

Fast forward to now, and the pendulum is swinging back. Cities and consulting firms are nudging (or shoving) staff back to offices. The argument? “We need collaboration.” “Planning is local.” “Face time builds trust.” And sure, there’s truth in all of that. But let’s not pretend remote work was the problem.

Here’s what’s really going on:

Planning never fully adapted. Many agencies treated remote work like a temporary blip rather than building real infrastructure around it. Laptops?

Maybe.

Clear remote workflows?

Not so much.

Some departments clung to outdated processes, relying on physical paper trails, in-person plan reviews, and internal systems that couldn’t be accessed remotely. Others scrambled to patch together solutions using personal devices, makeshift VPNs, or software no one was trained on.

The result?

A fragile setup that made remote work feel like a burden rather than a long-term investment. When tech hiccups happened, and they did, planners were blamed instead of the poor systems that set them up to fail.

A 2021 American Planning Association (APA) survey found that while 91% of planning professionals experienced some form of remote work during the pandemic, only 38% said their organization had a long-term strategy for supporting it. That lack of intentionality translated into friction, burnout, and in some cases, a full retreat from remote options once emergency policies expired.

I was fortunate to work for a planning department that was able to pivot and deal with a remote work environment quite successfully, and ultimately maintained a hybrid  system. But that has not been the case for most planning organizations.

Supervisors missed control. Some managers just like to see bodies in chairs. It's more about perception of productivity than actual results. In planning, where timelines stretch and deliverables aren’t always visual or immediate, some supervisors felt uneasy unless they could witness work in action. The irony? Micromanagement often slowed things down. When the focus is on who’s logged on instead of what’s getting done, quality takes a backseat.

According to Gallup’s ongoing research, 53% of U.S. employees with remote-capable roles are now working on a hybrid schedule, 27% fully remote, and only about 21% fully on site. Yet many managers still evaluate performance based on physical presence instead of outcome-based metrics.

In the planning world, where project timelines can span months or years, progress doesn’t always show up in daily reports or status check-ins. That ambiguity made some supervisors nervous. Instead of adapting to more results-based evaluation, they defaulted to surveillance, more check-ins, more screenshots, more digital micromanagement. Case in point: one midsized planning consultancy (which shall remain unnamed) quietly rolled back its hybrid policy after a director insisted on daily video calls, citing “team cohesion,” which ironically led to more burnout and turnover within six months. Control might feel like leadership, but in remote work, it’s often just fear wearing a headset.

Culture got lazy. In-person offices didn’t automatically create community, but at least proximity forced it. You had breakroom chats, hallway updates, shared lunches—small things that kept teams feeling human. Remote teams?

They need intentionality, check-ins, shared rituals, digital norms. Most orgs skipped that. Slack channels got quiet, meetings got longer, and slowly, a sense of belonging eroded. Remote culture isn’t a side effect, it’s a strategy. And planning departments, already stretched thin, rarely made time to build one.

A 2022 randomized study by Stanford economist Nick Bloom found that hybrid work reduced employee attrition by 35% and improved job satisfaction without hurting performance. However, the same research highlighted the importance of structure, without intentional practices to support team culture and collaboration, even hybrid environments risk drifting into disengagement.

We forgot the perks. How many planners used the extra time saved from commuting to dive into deeper analysis, write better reports, or finally respond to that one resident who always types in all caps?

(Really, all caps...how is that necessary?)

Quiet mornings, fewer office distractions, and the ability to focus deeply, these were precious gifts. Yet many agencies didn’t track or showcase these wins. Without a narrative of success, leadership saw remote work as invisible. We sacrificed real gains in favor of appearances, and now we risk losing them altogether.

According to Owl Labs’ 2022 State of Remote Work report, 62% of employees said they felt more productive working remotely, while only 11% reported decreased productivity. Moreover, organizations offering remote or hybrid options generally experienced around 25% lower employee turnover than companies without these policies. Those aren’t just perks—they’re retention strategies. But if no one measured them, they didn’t count.

So what now?

Remote work in planning doesn’t have to vanish, it just needs to evolve. If we're going to keep some of its benefits, here's what we should do:

Train managers for digital leadership. Stop managing presence. Start managing outcomes. That means teaching supervisors to set clear goals, track real deliverables, and build trust without hovering. The best leaders in remote environments are facilitators, not enforcers. They know how to communicate expectations clearly, offer support without micromanaging, and create psychological safety for staff to share challenges early. This shift requires a change in mindset, from managing time and tasks to managing trust and performance. Digital leadership also means understanding the tools and rhythms of remote work: how to lead a video meeting that doesn’t kill energy, how to check in without creating pressure, and how to recognize contributions that aren’t always loud or visible. Without this training, managers may unintentionally sabotage the very productivity remote work enables.

Design hybrid on purpose. Hybrid doesn’t mean “show up a few days a week and pretend it’s the same.” Instead, it should center around moments that matter: co-creating policy language, reviewing complex plans together, or walking neighborhoods. Not sitting in adjacent cubicles answering email.

Invest in asynchronous tools. Shared docs, comment threads, video walkthroughs, whiteboard platforms, they let planners collaborate without clocking in at the same time. That’s gold for a field built on long timelines and deep thinking.

Treat remote as a skill. Remote work takes practice and is a significant skill. Clear expectations, structured onboarding, and even training on video etiquette or time blocking can go a long way. Planners get training on zoning codes. Why not on how to work from home well?

Is Working on Remote Work Worth It?

Short answer: yes.

But only if we treat it as something worth investing in. Remote work isn't a shortcut or a stopgap. You have to have a strategy, and like any strategy, it needs structure, intention, and follow-through. The benefits of a remote work system are extensive. It can boost productivity, widen your talent pool, reduce overhead, and make room for deeper focus. But if not careful, remote work can go sideways—fast.

Planning is a collaborative field, and it's fair to say that not all of it translates cleanly to remote. Think walk audits, public meetings, site visits, those still need a physical presence. But a large portion of the work, things like research, writing, plan review, GIS analysis, project coordination, can absolutely be done remotely, and often more effectively.

The key question isn't “Is remote work worth it?” It’s “Are we willing to do the work to make remote work…work?” That means investing in leadership, tech, team culture, and the policies that make remote a sustainable option—not just a pandemic-era patch.

Because done well, remote work isn’t just worth it. It’s transformative.

Bottom line: Planning is about people and place, but it’s also about process. If we can plan entire cities, we can plan how we work too. Remote work wasn’t a fluke. It was an invitation, an opportunity to shift planning into a higher, more efficient gear...supercharge planning so to speak. Let’s not send it straight to the recycle bin.

Remote work revealed what needed fixing in planning and if we ignore that, the real loss isn’t flexibility. It’s progress.

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Up next: How To Talk About Zoning Without Losing The Room

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