One of BalancedWork's foundational beliefs is that every meeting has an ideal location. This is an intuitive concept -- but it's a central focus of our work. We thought it would be a great topic for our inaugural blog post.
Some assume that distributed work can be solved by simply aggregating individual preferences on where to work. But BalancedWork recognizes that great teams are more than the sum of their parts -- and that achieving big objectives requires more than just personal convenience.
That’s why we analyze every hour of collaborative work to identify how much -- and which aspects -- should be in person, tailored for each individual and team. We believe every meeting has an ideal location, determined by the people involved and the expected business outcomes.
Our platform makes specific recommendations -- covering meeting location, timing, attendees, and notice period -- so managers and teams can maximize their time together. Leaders already make these kinds of judgments instinctively. A short status meeting with longtime teammates? That’s perfect for a quick call. An hour-long brainstorm with cross-functional participants, including new collaborators? That’s a session that thrives in person.
These examples are intuitive, but people deal with hundreds -- or thousands -- of meetings per year. It's a lot of work to make these judgments, over and over, balancing many variables. BalancedWork scales these decisions using AI and our proprietary data. The result? Teams discover unexpected opportunities to create time for moments that matter.
Consider this scenario: every week, an operations leader spent an hour in a standing meeting with a trusted direct report. Thinking it was nice to connect in person, they held these meetings on one of the company’s two office days. They reviewed a task list, updated each other on deliverables, and then returned to their desks.
Meanwhile, the company struggled to find time for creative, interdisciplinary work -- the kind of collaboration that fuels innovation and builds culture. BalancedWork flagged the weekly meeting as a “Location issue.” Clicking through, the leader saw why: their structured, routine conversation was exactly the type of meeting that could be handled virtually or asynchronously. By reclaiming that in-office time, they created space for more impactful collaboration with the rest of the team.
BalancedWork scales these insights across teams, providing leaders with a common dataset about which work and relationships truly benefit from in-person interaction. This enables organizations to build data-driven policies aligned with their goals.
Grounding decisions in data, shared objectives and values -- not personal preferences or office politics -- helps ensure teams are intrinsically motivated to come into the office. When days are filled with activities that are suited for in-person work, it's a virtuous cycle of productive collaboration and positive interpersonal interactions.
Stronger culture and higher productivity. Those are big outcomes from something as simple as choosing the right meeting location.
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