The office as a place where administrative workers gather emerged for specific reasons, and examining them clarifies what remains of the rationale.
The information problem
Before electronic communication, information existed on paper in one place.
Which meant anyone needing to consult it had to be near it.
Files, ledgers and correspondence were physical objects requiring physical proximity, and that alone required concentration.
Coordination
Work requiring input from several people needed those people accessible.
Which was achieved by putting them in one place, since the alternative was written correspondence with days of delay.
The larger the organisation, the more coordination required, which is why offices grew with firm size.
Supervision
Managing work required observing it, in the absence of any other way to assess output.
Which produced open-plan layouts allowing supervision of many workers, an arrangement borrowed from factory floors.
The private office as a status marker developed alongside, distinguishing those who were supervised from those who supervised.
The technologies
The typewriter, the telephone, the filing cabinet and vertical filing all shaped office work.
Which enabled the volume of paperwork that large organisations generated, and each changed how the work was done.
The transition to electronic records removed the physical file entirely, which was the original reason for proximity.
The layout arguments
Open plan was promoted at various points as improving communication and flexibility.
Research measuring the effects has generally found reduced face-to-face interaction and increased electronic communication after moves to open plan, alongside reduced satisfaction.
Which is the opposite of the stated intention, and it has been replicated in several studies.
Cost per employee is the factor that most consistently drives layout decisions.
What the office still provides
Incidental contact producing information flow across groups.
Faster resolution of complex problems requiring rapid exchange.
Learning through observation, which matters most for people early in a career.
Social connection and boundary between work and home.
And a location for work that is genuinely collaborative rather than individual.
What it provides less well
Focused individual work, where interruption is measurably costly.
Which is a substantial share of most knowledge work, and it is what open plan handles worst.
The current position
Hybrid arrangements have become common, generally with a few days in office.
Which attempts to match the arrangement to the task, and it requires coordination so that people are present simultaneously.
Uncoordinated hybrid, where people commute to sit on video calls, is the failure mode and it is widely reported.
The commute
Time spent travelling is unpaid and is a substantial cost borne by workers.
Which is consistently identified in surveys as among the least enjoyable daily activities.
Research valuing commuting time finds people require substantial compensation to accept longer journeys, which indicates the cost is real.
Property
Office space is a major cost, and reduced occupancy has produced substantial vacancy in some markets.
Which has consequences for property values, for city centre economies dependent on office workers, and for tax revenues in some jurisdictions.
Conversion to residential use is proposed and is frequently difficult given floorplate depth, servicing and daylight requirements.
Surveillance
Monitoring software adoption increased with remote work.
Which measures activity rather than output, and evidence on its effects is generally unfavourable — reduced trust and no demonstrated productivity gain.
Regulation restricting monitoring has been introduced in several jurisdictions.
What the evidence supports
Matching arrangement to task, coordinating in-office days so presence is simultaneous, and measuring outcomes rather than presence.
Which is what organisations that have handled the transition well have generally done.
Coordination costs
Organisational research finds that communication cost rises with distance, including within buildings.
Which is why teams that need to interact are placed together, and why floor separation reduces interaction measurably.
The effect is substantial enough that building layout affects which groups collaborate.
Weak ties
Connections outside your immediate team carry information that strong ties do not.
Which is a well-established finding in network research, and analysis of communication patterns found weak ties reduced in fully remote arrangements.
Deliberate mechanisms to maintain them — rotating groups, cross-team projects, structured social contact — are the proposed responses.
Onboarding
New joiners build networks more slowly remotely and receive less informal guidance.
Which affects early-career employees most, since they depend most on observation.
Structured mentoring and periodic in-person time address this and require deliberate arrangement.
Space per person
Allocated space per office worker has fallen substantially over decades.
Which was driven by cost and enabled by reduced paper storage and by hot-desking.
Research associates density with reduced satisfaction and increased distraction, which is the trade being made.
Meetings
Volume increased substantially with video conferencing, since the practical barriers to scheduling one fell.
Which has produced attention to meeting hygiene — agendas, shorter defaults, fewer attendees, and asynchronous alternatives.
Research on meeting effectiveness consistently finds most attendees regard a substantial proportion as unnecessary.