The single best reason I come across for why offices are still critical to business strategy is that they are enablers of collaboration. Specifically, when people are together, it can generate moments of spark and connection, leading to innovation and creation. I cannot fault this reasoning because I have personally felt and experienced those sparks myself. Being in the room interacting with others opens me up to considering things from entirely new perspectives. My best ideas often occur when I am on the move and away from my remote environments.
For those that are unaware, I have worked full-time remote for well over a decade now. I was doing it before it was popular. My role at the time already had me traveling every three weeks or so and my physical location when I was not on the road was not all that important as the people I worked with most often were not in the same city as me to begin with. The way so many people are currently learning to work is how I have been working for more than half my career. I have personal, direct experience with it. The reality is that I experienced more moments of spark and connection after going remote than I ever did when I worked from an office five days a week. Looking back, the reasons are obvious. And those reasons are just as pertinent for employees today.
Humans are creatures of habit. We like routine because it allows us to be efficient and comfortable. But innovation does not come from routine. It comes from trying new things and being in uncomfortable moments. We innovate when we are presented with a problem we do not know how to solve. We push for something new when we are staring down a situation that cannot be fixed by what we have always done. When a person is in an office five days a week, they are less likely to seek out true innovative moments because they are in a comfortable, safe environment. Making the office a space for innovation requires us to separate ourselves from it when we are doing our mundane, normal tasks.
Mandates hinder the goal of innovation. Mandates impede the ability to create moments of spark and connection. They are a mechanism for building stronger social and network ties between people who encounter each other regularly in an office, but that is not shorthand for innovation. If the office is made part of the every day, it moves further away from being the place of the new.
Flexibility is to work as silence is an essential part of jazz. Music that is all improvisation will sound muddled without some degree of silence to separate it from the main piece. Similarly, employees who have the flexibility to build their schedules will be more innovative and engaged. Working remotely (and not just on Mondays and Fridays, this means potentially for a week or more at a time) provides the separation to make the days in the office full of spark and newness.