Working in the office has taken on new meaning since 2020, when the temporary move to working from home during the global pandemic led to a complete reevaluation of how and where we should work. As we move into 2025, many employers are pushing employees to come back to the office, and the debate about the merits of working in-person versus in a hybrid or remote arrangement continues.
In this article, we will catalogue the advantages of working in the office and why working together collaboratively in-person is still beneficial in our digital world.
Working in an office environment offers a significant benefit that remote work often struggles to replicate: the advantage of unplanned conversations. Structured meetings and scheduled video calls are useful in the work culture. However, spontaneous interactions allow for sharing valuable information.
It is the spontaneity of the workplace that gives it its tremendous effectiveness. Colleagues run into each other all day long and engage in spontaneous conversations. Ideas do not pop up when they are told there are 10 minutes to think about them – ideas arise when creativity levels fluctuate throughout the day.
Meeting in person helps us understand each other more completely because of facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and other non-verbal signals. These are key parts of how we communicate effectively.
Video calls make it more challenging to notice and understand these non-verbal cues. They are more mentally exhausting than in-person gatherings. This happens because we have to work harder to make up for the lack of non-verbal information. This difficulty can cause misunderstandings, communication errors, and weaker connections between team members.
Virtual meetings have improved, but they’re still not as effective as meeting in person. Many teamwork activities are more efficient when done face-to-face, with people feeling more satisfied and engaged during these meetings.
When working in the office in person, there are usually fewer technical issues, more focus from everyone, and more lively discussions. Using tools like whiteboards and sticky notes also makes it easier to solve problems together.
People tend to share their ideas more evenly in physical meetings. In virtual meetings, a few voices often dominate. The natural way conversations flow in person encourages everyone to participate, which leads to better outcomes.
Office settings are ideal for mentorship. Young workers can learn a lot from being around experienced coworkers, and this type of learning is hard to achieve through video calls alone. In an office, employees can ask quick questions, observe how problems are solved, and receive immediate feedback. This kind of daily interaction speeds up learning. And employees with mentors are more engaged at work.
Professional development works best when people share the same space. The knowledge gained through observation and casual conversation is extremely valuable and difficult to replicate online.
Working with colleagues in an office setting offers valuable chances to learn how professionals operate. You get to observe how others communicate and handle tasks specific to your industry, and this learning happens naturally as you work.
New team members often learn by watching experienced colleagues manage various challenges. For example, they can see how seasoned workers deal with difficult client calls, handle office politics, or present their ideas confidently. These insights occur as part of the daily routine, without needing formal training sessions.
Working in the office where you can be seen by people who make decisions is important. A big survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that “proximity bias” really exists. About 42% of managers said they sometimes forget about workers who are not in the office when they assign tasks. This could mean that people working remotely might have fewer opportunities to advance in their careers
“Proximity bias” is more than just a feeling. Being physically present provides more opportunities to display skills, volunteer for new projects, and show leadership. Talking casually with senior leaders helps create familiarity and trust, often leading to career progress.
Office spaces represent a company’s culture through design, branding, and shared experiences. How an office is set up helps employees understand the company’s values.
Entering a well-designed office quickly shows what the company prioritises. There might be areas for teamwork, highlighting the importance of collaboration. Eco-friendly designs indicate that the company cares about the environment, or there could be displays showcasing the company’s history.
The Global Culture Survey by PwC found that most (67%) survey respondents said culture is more important than strategy or operations. A strong connection to company culture helped these businesses retain their employees, leading to improved overall performance.
Working in the office is important because it helps employees feel connected to their company through activities, perks, and shared experiences with coworkers.
Nice office features like comfortable workspaces, free meals, and fitness centres can enhance positive feelings about the workplace. Company events and celebrations build a sense of community, making the work environment feel engaging and meaningful, rather than just about getting tasks done.
Being in the office helps employees feel like they belong, significantly boosting job satisfaction. Humans are naturally social and seek connections with others. Offices offer important social settings that remote work often lacks.
Remote work can be less of a hassle for workers. However, it often blurs the distinction between work life and personal life. Having physical offices creates natural barriers which can support a better work-life balance.
Being able to actually go “to work”, whether through commuting or having a designated workspace, can help employees “leave work at work” mentally and physically. While sometimes burdensome, the commute time can serve as a transition time that allows one to mentally prepare for work in the morning, and (ideally) decompress from work in the evening.
Habitual schedules with specified beginning and end times create a helpful structure. Working in the office has built-in structures that create predictable rhythms and patterns that drive productivity.
Morning routines help the mind prep for focus work; end-of-day rituals assist with signalling the end. The commute, while annoying, is also a useful transitional period that many former office workers discovered they missed with long-term remote work.
Consistent, in-person interaction with coworkers helps avoid the solitude that many remote workers face. Office environments support daily social connectedness, providing contributing factors to mental health. Daily conversations, however brief, can be satisfying and nourish basic social needs. The workplace creates a sense of belonging as so many people lost during the extensive period of remote work.
Office environments provide comfortable furniture, high-speed internet, and technical support that are often better than what is available at home. This is especially true for jobs that require special equipment or powerful computers.
In an office, there are different spaces designed for various tasks. There are quiet rooms for tasks that need concentration, conference areas for team meetings, and creative spaces for brainstorming and collaboration.
Having IT support readily available in the office helps fix technical issues swiftly, minimising work interruptions.
When it comes to security, working in the office is clearly superior to other workplaces, especially for firms that handle sensitive information. In general, professional office networks have a higher level of security than a home internet connection.
For regulated industries, such as healthcare, finance, and government, the security advantage also has meaningful compliance advantages and risk reductions. A controlled physical environment can limit risks related to overhearing or viewing confidential information by unauthorised persons.
Being near each other in the same space helps remove barriers between departments and teams. When people from various departments regularly interact, they share knowledge better and solve problems more effectively. Ideas move easily between groups when employees meet colleagues from other teams in shared areas.
Innovation often springs from unexpected ideas that link different viewpoints and areas of knowledge. Offices that encourage teamwork help these “creative collisions” happen. Creative moments often occur in relaxed settings, like during lunch, coffee breaks, or casual talks in hallways. These spontaneous exchanges are hard to replicate with scheduled video meetings.
Well-planned places for collaboration boost innovation. Companies with thoughtfully designed teamwork spaces can experience greater creativity and employee satisfaction.
When people tackle difficult problems together in person, they often find better solutions. Being in the same room helps teams solve problems faster because they can feel the team’s energy and teamwork. Drawing, using sticky notes, or moving things in real life helps people think in new ways, unlike just using online tools.
One of the benefits of working in the office, is that knowledge transfers more effectively, especially when it is complex or tacit knowledge that cannot easily be documented. New employees learned more quickly about an organisation’s norms, unwritten rules, and institutional knowledge by being thrown into the office culture, rather than just reading about it.
Effective onboarding is more difficult in a remote environment. This accelerated integration allows employees to be productive faster and have a stronger connection to the company culture.
The future workplace does not have to be an all-or-nothing scenario. Hybrid models can maximise the benefits of both in-office and remote work arrangements.
Many organisations are introducing “collaboration days” as a commitment to bring teams together in person, with the understanding that team members can work remotely on high-focus work. This form of hybrid experience enables organisations to maintain connection and culture while allowing for flexibility.
Having a thoughtful calendar approach to maximise the collaboration potential of in-office work requires coordination among team members. When the team coordinates their in-office days, the benefits of spatial proximity can be leveraged.
Although transporting people creates pollution, many companies are mitigating this through carpooling incentives, subsidies for public transport, and flexible work schedules that avoid commutes during peak traffic hours.
In terms of cost, while working in the office requires a substantial investment, a lot of organisations feel the collaboration and culture benefits are worth it. Other companies are shrinking their overall real estate footprint while re-engineering the rest of their space to be much more conducive to collaborative work.
The best offices are outfitted for a purpose—to allow the types of interaction that best benefit from in-person meetings. To facilitate this, many workplaces now employ desk booking and meeting room booking systems that employees can use to book needed spaces. This helps keep the office organised and avoid any scheduling conflicts, all while supporting effective collaboration in hybrid environments.
When designing modern office space, elements often included are:
These thoughtful elements are designed to maximally utilise the benefits of an office space while also addressing and respecting the most common pain points of traditional workplace environments.
To rationalise the commute, there should be a clear and tangible difference in the benefits of being in an office rather than working from anywhere. Companies that have the most success in returning to office work are making intentional use of in-office days.
While working in the office, the team can schedule team-building activities, workshops, and collaboration sessions with specific utility in being physically present. Social events help people connect with one another and strengthen their culture. Training and development programs can also take advantage of engaging and in-person delivery.
Managers need to understand their roles in terms of the value of office environments. To improve this office experience, you want to train leaders to collaborate productively with team members, understand the value of informal interactions, and model the behaviours we want people to exhibit within the office.
Forward-looking companies focus on results instead of presence, avoiding “presenteeism’ while realising the benefits of physical work. Managers can create effective and productive office cultures when they know how to balance collaborative time and allow individual styles of work.
As we continue to move forward in this new workplace landscape, we can see it is clear that working in the office provides real value that remote work will never replicate. More effective collaboration, enhanced working relationships, improved work-life separation, and faster professional development are just a few of the benefits that are considered to be an in-person work of value.
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