A Magnet Not A Mandate

By: Jason Hall

The dreaded return-to-office mandates are here. What seemed unthinkable just a couple of years ago is now normalized with companies like Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and X (formerly Twitter) requiring office attendance five days per week.

Taken on their own, RTO mandates are generally thought to be unsuccessful. According to Brian Elliott’s recent article for MIT Sloan Management Review, mandates have shown no impact on the financial performance of companies, but they do significantly reduce job satisfaction. Gleb Tsipursky tells us in a recent article for Forbes, “[While] employees may physically be in the office [as a result of mandates]… their hearts and minds are not. When employees feel forced into a work model that doesn’t suit their needs or preferences, their motivation and productivity can plummet. This not only impacts their individual performance, but can have a ripple effect throughout the team and organization.”

Alternately, hybrid workplace policies are viewed as more employee-centric, “recogniz[ing] the diverse needs and preferences of today’s workforce, and seek[ing] to accommodate them in a way that benefits both the individual and the organization.” (Tsipursky) But policies alone, without the proper attention to the design of the workplace, may still leave employees feeling begrudgingly obligated to come to the office.

Which leads to the question, can we createworkplaces that are magnets, so that employees feel compelled to come to work, thereby doing away with mandates all together? Can the workplace itself be the incentive for returning to the office? I believe the answer is a resounding YES!

It may sound elementary, but the office should be the absolute best place for work to happen. It should be designed with a deep understanding of the activities and behaviors that are intended to occur there. It should promote deep focus, active collaboration, and social connection, and the design should be supported by policies that allow for autonomy and agency.

We know that one of the main reasons that leadership gives for bringing employees back to the office is the need for in-person collaboration, both planned and spontaneous. But in a recent article, HKS reminds us that, “the office isn’t just for collaboration – workers need space deliberately designed for focus work.” The article goes on to say that employees consistently give low marks for acoustics and environmental control in their current workplaces. Mitigating distractions to allow for deep focus is critical in creating the successful offices that draw people to them. This can be done in a multitude of ways, but one interesting suggestion from a recent “Tell Me More” podcast on the Intentional Office is to rethink the hybrid strategy of maximum spatial flexibility to bring back spaces that are dedicated to specific activities like head-down, quiet work. One of the reasons that remote employees give for not returning to the office is the lack of space for tasks requiring deep thinking and focus. To be a magnet to these employees, dedicated spaces that allow for concentration (and the policies to support these spaces and activities) should be provided as they return to the office.  

While it’s true that “the office isn’t just for collaboration,” in-person, active collaboration is a major reason for returning to work. For the office to become a magnet, collaborative spaces must provide experiences so valuable that employees are compelled to come to the office to meet with colleagues rather than meet remotely. And if some meeting attendees are remote, the experience should be so equitable that remote attendees feel part of the collaborative action. Collaborative spaces should be provided to support formal, planned meetings as well as spontaneous brainstorming sessions, with meeting tools and technology that are appropriate to each.

Social connection is critical at work, especially in knowledge-intensive organizations. According to HKS, “connecting with others [boosts] a sense of belonging and provide[s] a sense of purpose.” It also builds trust which leads to increased knowledge sharing, collaboration, and innovation. To build social connections at work, the office must always feel like a community worth belonging to. We’ll take a deep dive into this topic in an upcoming journal entry.

An office that acts as a magnet to employees must include a full range of intentionally designed spaces based on activities, from deep focus to active collaboration to social connection, aligning tasks with physical and digital environments. Providing employees with a choice of where and how they work while at the office (and the agency to make those choices) drives employee satisfaction. This strategy only works with robust technology to support it. Holistic digital integration enables behaviors like communication and collaboration. But organizations should beware of digital fatigue and make interfacing with technology as simple as possible.

Creating an office that’s a magnet means making the workplace more attractive than employees’ homes. Amenities (like health club memberships, catered lunches, and chair massages) and policies can help, but for the office to be the absolute best place for work to happen, the design of the office must be intentional, thoughtful, and curated. This requires a deep understanding of the people using the space and the activities going on there. Investing the time to identify a company’s drivers and how they can be satisfied through design goes a long way in creating an incentivized office. It won’t happen overnight. Building consensus never does. But it is worth it, because the workplace is only worthwhile with people in it.