Community over compliance: The future of the office

Nobody is winning the return-to-office argument - because it's the wrong argument.

The debate about hybrid work has been running for four years and most organisations are exhausted by it. Mandates have been issued, walked back, reissued and contested. Policies have been written, ignored and rewritten. The energy spent on where people work has been, in many cases, significantly out of proportion to the outcomes it has produced.

What is emerging on the other side of that exhaustion is more interesting though. The organisations building cultures people want to be part of - where attendance is high not because it is required but because being there is worth it are winning on building a community feel.

What has actually changed

Hybrid is no longer a debate in the sense that most organisations have settled into some version of it. The argument about whether people should be allowed to work from home has largely been resolved by the reality that they do, and that reversing it entirely carries costs most businesses are not willing to pay.

The question that remains is what the office needs to offer that working from home doesn't. And the honest answer is that most offices, as currently experienced, don't offer enough to make the commute feel like a worthwhile trade on the days when the calendar is full of calls that could happen anywhere.

What we are seeing, both in the businesses we work with and in the broader cultural signals around us, is that people are seeking connection in a way that has intensified since the remote work shift. The rise of run clubs, community fitness groups, social events built around shared interest rather than obligation - these are not lifestyle trends in isolation. They are signals that the atomisation of remote work has created a genuine appetite for belonging that a screen cannot provide. People are seeking community outside of work in part because they are not finding enough of it inside it.

What this means for organisations

The office, at its best, can provide that. Not a place where attendance is monitored and compliance is managed, but a place where something is happening that people want to be part of - where the energy, informal conversations and collaboration that doesn't get scheduled create and add value.

Building this environment is a leadership challenge. The organisations getting it right are investing in what the in-person experience offers - events, rituals, spaces and cultures that make coming in feel like a worthwhile choice rather than a concession to management preference. Mandating attendance and providing nothing worth attending for is the fastest way to produce a workforce that complies and disengages simultaneously.

The leaders who are navigating this well have also recognised that the case for the office has to be made through experience, not enforcement. The most powerful driver of in-person attendance is a team that people want to spend time with and a culture that makes them feel they are missing something when they aren't there. That is built through deliberate investment in the human experience of work.

How candidates feel about it

A year ago, how many days in the office was often the first thing candidates asked about. That question has become less binary. What candidates are increasingly asking is what the culture is actually like - whether the in-person time is meaningful, whether the team is one they want to spend time with, and whether the organisation has done the work of making connection a part of how it operates day to day.

The organisations that can answer those questions specifically and honestly (with proof) are the ones attracting and retaining and winning talent.