Your boss wants to recreate an office culture that never existed: People were avoiding their desks long before lockdown

6 May 2025, 08:05

The ‘Return to Office’ conversation is everywhere right now.

Whether you've been back ‘in’ for five years already or have now adopted a hybrid approach, it’s still commonplace for us to think about how the office used to be before the pandemic.

But let's think really hard about that pre-pandemic office for a moment. Was it really the buzzing hub of collaboration and productivity we often hear about from employers? Our data tells a different story. On average, more than 40% of office desks were empty on any given day. That doesn’t exactly scream thriving, does it?

The reality is, long before 2020, many people had already found ways to work that suited them better – meeting rooms, coffee shops, or even at a client's office if their own wasn't up to scratch. The traditional office wasn’t working, and not many were asking why. People were in because they were contracted to, not because it was the best place to get things done. And even then, many weren’t truly in. We would simply see ‘signs of life’ – a bag on a chair or a coffee cup on a desk while they found an alternative, more inspiring place to work within the building.

Fast forward to today, and businesses are investing heavily in making offices more visually appealing – think Nordic furniture, plants, and soft lighting. These ‘Instagrammable’ upgrades might look great in a brochure, but are they solving the right problem? Or are we heading straight back to where we started: empty desks and disengaged employees?

The opportunity now isn’t just to redesign how the office looks – it’s to rethink how it works. Truly attractive workspaces are built around function, not fashion. That means understanding what different people actually need to perform. The tools, space, and atmosphere that help an engineer get in the zone will be completely different from what motivates someone in sales or marketing. If employers ignore that, they risk repeating the same mistakes – and, believe me, workplace friction will resurface within a few weeks.

The ‘Return to Office’ doesn’t have to be a repeat of the past, it can be a turning point: a chance to create flexible, functional spaces that genuinely support people in doing their best work – wherever they’re based. If we focus less on how offices look and more on how they work, we can turn this moment into progress, not nostalgia.

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Dominic Dugan is Group Creative Director of Oktra.

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