What Have We Learned About the Design of Attracting Employees?

"In the two-bedroom apartment that he shared with his wife, he set up his workstation at the kitchen table each morning and put it away for dinnertime, every day for two and a half years. Though he liked waking up later, spared from a transit commute, he longed for his old office, where he had multiple monitors and camaraderie with his team. The initial mandate to return, which required two days per week minimum in their downtown office, was soon expanded to three days."

""They only have two microwaves on the floor that I'm on, and that fills up very quickly. And they also have a fridge policy where you can't leave anything overnight, and they will throw anything left away," he says. There's no free coffee or silverware for his lunches. This is no different from his office life before the pandemic, but like many workplaces that reduced their footprints to save money during Covid, returning to work has meant that more people are using the reduced facilities."

An engineer returned to a downtown office after two and a half years of working at his kitchen table, enjoying later mornings but missing multiple monitors and team camaraderie. The employer increased required in-office days from two to three, producing ambivalence. Shared amenities became strained: limited microwaves, a strict no-overnight fridge policy, and no free coffee or silverware. Many companies reduced office footprints during Covid, so higher occupancy has intensified daily frictions. More than half of Fortune 100 desk workers now face return mandates, prompting consideration of what physical-office changes might re-attract long-term remote workers.

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