It’s been five years since the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 disrupted traditional office spaces. For a while, COVID-19 seemed to kill the office.

Now, more and more companies are returning to the office. As professors who have studied remote work and collaboration for decades, we have our own counterarguments. But we can learn from what we call the “office forward” approach, where companies encourage employees to work in the office most of the time.

Return to (onsite) work

We looked at an office-forward company headquartered in the Midwest with multiple satellite offices across the U.S. that was leading the way before the pandemic, during lockdown, and during the return to the office. We stayed at the company for more than two years and conducted field observations, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews with a total of 56 employees. We were struck by the way employees talked about where they work:

"This is my place. I feel very cared for here."

“Every time I come in, I feel welcome.”

“It’s a very welcoming place to come back to and work from every day.”

These comments reflect the company's positive culture. But they also hint at something very interesting: Employees may consider the office space to be a welcoming place.

This is important because research across disciplines, from anthropology to organizational science, shows that people become attached to places rather than spaces. Think of a house versus a home. A house is a structure; a home is a place of community.

So while an office is not a home, we understand that office-oriented strategies can be successful if employers transform their workspaces into workplaces or community spaces. Here are three transformation strategies we discovered:

1. Provide storage space

Can the office support the community? Can a workplace be a workplace?

Our research shows that when employees’ needs are met, they view the office as a positive place. The more goals people can achieve in a space, the deeper their attachment to it becomes. As one employee told us: "If you want to work independently, there's a space. If you want to collaborate with others, there's a space. If you want to have lunch with 50 people, you can do that. Or if you Just want to have one-on-one time, you can do that too - it just depends on your mood and maybe what you need to get done that day.”

We believe this shows the value of redesigning “space” as a “place” that meets multiple work-related and human needs.

We also documented the importance of providing each employee with a workstation. It's simple: humans are territorial. If you can't put a picture of your family on the table, you feel dehumanized. One employee shared: "I know a lot of companies make you jump around. That sounds terrible to me. Here, I have my cubicle and I love it."

Not to mention the huge inconvenience of having to truck your stuff—even your mugs and mice—to and from the office every day. Hot desking is antithetical to placement attachment because it treats people like cogs.

2. Pass the baton of placemaking to workers

People are the ones who turn space into place. In order to achieve this, a certain number of people must share the physical infrastructure.

The companies we studied envisioned their offices as a social space, not just a place to work. It dreams up all kinds of engagement opportunities. It hosts breakfasts and lunches, hosts movie nights, invites food trucks and ice cream trucks, hosts silent dance parties and more.

Employees tell us they enjoy both the “informal, organic interaction of coming downstairs for coffee in the morning” and the “energy they feel when there’s activity in the office.” Incorporating social opportunities of all shapes and sizes into the office means people can create memories together in the office. This means they are building community.

But the company goes further. It passes the baton of placemaking. Employees can personalize the space. One team installed a mini golf course; another painted a mural on an office wall in the center of the building. Employees can use the space how and when they want. Some people do walking sessions on treadmills; Others play video games after lunch.

Best of all, employees host their own events in the office. We don’t just mean events like baby showers; We mean inviting a nonprofit's board of directors to meet in the office or inviting a group of students to visit the office. Transforming space users into place makers means that people develop a sense of shared ownership of the spatially transformed place. No wonder we keep hearing possessive language: “This is our place and it makes us very proud” and “In slogan style, this is the people’s building.” The office has become a community place.

3. Use technology to create communities

Technology is an integral part of the post-pandemic workplace. With increased flexibility, employees no longer need to be in the office all the time, even in companies with in-person policies. Since 2022, many companies (recent examples include Amazon, AT&T, Tesla, and others) have implemented strict in-person requirements, demonstrating how disruptive technology is for the office community. But technology can be a place-maker. It can actually extend the sense of community from the corporate office to the home office.

The companies we studied ensured employees continued to feel connected to the office while working from home during the pandemic. Executives created videos, HR staff created newsletters and mailed company swag and gifts to employees’ homes, and team leaders hosted virtual events and games to keep everyone connected.

Even after the pandemic, the company still set up Zoom rooms that are conducive to hybrid team meetings so that all employees can feel present. It creates branded virtual backgrounds and adds branding to virtual meeting rooms and software systems to remind people of the office. It even hired an intern to post updates on company happenings on the company's social media channels. The result? We hear things like: “I feel welcome in this virtual office too!”

The prize for all this

Placemaking does work, but it’s not for everyone. The majority of workers in our research were what we call “permanent” workers before the pandemic. But in the wake of the pandemic, some people have lost that sense of connection to their offices and the sense of community they used to feel there. These place-agnostic employees feel like “I’m just there” and “sensitive feelings are not where I get my value.” We estimate that after the pandemic, about 30% of the company's employees feel disconnected from the company's culture and emphasis on office work.

But considering how many people have found themselves preferring to work from home during the pandemic, 30% is actually a pretty low number.

Surprisingly (at least to us), approximately 70% of employees at the companies we studied will still be attached to their office spaces in 2025. In other words, 7 out of 10 people continue to look for community in the office. Our research further parses this abstract concept: What does it mean to “find community”? What results does it translate into?

The answer is that permanent employees derive intrinsic satisfaction from working in the office. "It's like going to the gym," one employee told us. “It’s hard to get around, but the energy is much higher here.”

They feel more integrated into the company's social fabric: "Having a cup of coffee and talking to colleagues makes you feel connected to the company."

They feel more productive: “I feed off other people’s energy in the office.”

They feel seen: "We work hard, but we're here to celebrate each other."

Most importantly – they gain a sense of meaning and purpose: “Going into work as if someone needs me and I have a place to go, a place with purpose.”

So, contrary to our preconceived notions as remote work researchers about the benefits of remote work, we learned that the pre-office workplace needs to be part of the post-pandemic workplace mix. While some employees value working from home, others value working in the office. What we hope employers take away from our research is that for office-forward ways of working, workspaces must transform into workplaces or community spaces.