How we turned an "empty office" fear into a thriving collaborative hub by dodging restrictive policies.
During the peak of COVID, the company invested in a high-quality office space. The immediate fear from leadership was: "Will anyone actually use it?" The knee-jerk reaction was to mandate attendance through a formal "Return to Office" policy.
I argued that a forced policy would backfire. It would punish the people who actually enjoyed the office by stripping away their flexibility, creating resentment where we actually needed connection.
Instead of a mandate, we treated the office as a product. We focused on making the environment superior to home. Better hardware, intentional collaboration spaces, and social anchors like 'Breakfast Friday'.
We gave teams the authority to customize their environment. By focusing on why people should come in. Better tools, better gear, and better human connection. We removed the need for top-down rules.
We empowered teams to organize themselves based on results, not desk time.
We implemented social "anchors" like Breakfast Friday or dedicated team spaces, to make the office a destination for community.
We ensured the office was the place to solve problems easier, stocked with gear that couldn't be replicated at home.
Two years later, the office was no longer an expense to manage; it was a resource at capacity.
The same founder returned to me, no longer worried about empty seats, but worried about hitting the maximum limit. We didn't create a "Back to Office" mandate, but we also didn't create the "Working from Home" policy because we had reached critical mass.
The takeaway: The office should not be the reason why people come in. The value of what happens inside it must be the only sustainable driver of presence.