Bringing employees back to the office: What really makes an office attractive
Alessandro Nicotra
Working Worlds
In short
— In Switzerland, around half of the employed population works remotely at least some of the time. A broad return to five days in the office is not on the horizon.
— The most important reason for the office is collaboration. Anyone who doesn't find a good space for that stays at home.
— Before setting rules, it is worth taking an honest look at how the team works today and what they are missing in the office.
Many companies want to see more life in the office, and many try to achieve it with rules. But while presence can be mandated, enthusiasm cannot. An office that people enjoy coming to offers something that doesn't exist at home: encounters, learning, and spaces that make work easier.
Presence can be mandated. Enthusiasm cannot.
How many days are employees in Switzerland in the office today?
Mobile working is here to stay. According to the FlexWork Trend Study 2024 by FHNW, 51 percent of employed people in Switzerland work remotely at least occasionally, compared to 34 percent in 2014. About half are on site for at least three and a half days per week. The study does not see a broad return-to-office movement.
Internationally, the picture has settled as well. An analysis by Stanford University covering 22 countries shows that employees in Europe currently work from home about one to one and a half days per week, with a stable trend. In Switzerland, many companies expect around three office days per week, and three out of four leave the choice of days open (JLL).
Why does a mandatory office presence alone achieve little?
Because it increases presence, but not the reason to come. A study by the University of Pittsburgh on large US companies with return-to-office mandates found no improvement in business results following implementation, but significantly lower job satisfaction. Conversely, an experiment with 1,600 employees published in Nature showed: two home office days per week reduced resignations by a third without diminishing performance.
Microsoft summed it up in its Work Trend Index: 38 percent of hybrid workers do not know when and why they should come into the office. The task of leadership is to make the office worth the commute.
pom+ Industriehof, Zurich
What makes an office attractive?
An attractive office offers what is missing at home: connection, collaboration, learning, and quiet when needed. In a Leesman survey, 70 percent of real estate executives cite collaboration and knowledge sharing as the primary purpose of their office space. At the same time, in the Gensler Global Workplace Survey 2025, only 26 percent of respondents strongly agree that their office helps them do their best work. As obstacles, they cite lack of availability, noise, and poor usability.
This results in four characteristics that make an office appealing:
Places for "we". A kitchen where people enjoy eating, a project room that can be transformed, a meeting spot with character. At KAYAK in Zurich, the kitchen with a communal table and sofa is the heart of the office; at pom+, it is the multifunctional workshop room.
Places for "me". Anyone coming into the office also needs to be able to concentrate there. If quiet retreat spaces are missing, the home office becomes the focus room, and the office loses out.
A place that fits the company. Spaces where you recognise your own culture create a sense of belonging. Read more about this in the article Identity you can walk into.
A good way to get there. An office that is hard to reach cannot be compensated for by any fit-out. Read more about this in the article Finding an office location.
How do you find out what your team needs?
By asking and measuring before planning. The IAP study by ZHAW shows: With infrequent attendance, informal conversations during breaks are what people miss the most. Individual companies report that more attractive break areas foster spontaneous exchange, and respondents emphasise that this requires no compulsion.
In our Workplace Intelligence software, employees map out their typical week hour by hour: focused, in meetings, collaborating on a project, in informal conversations, on the move. This reveals which days the team is on site and which activities define the office day. Where room booking or access control data is available, we compare it side by side: what is said and what is measured are often not the same. Only then do we decide together how many spaces for connection, collaboration, and quiet the office really needs.
What are the benefits for the company?
Retention, collaboration, and space that gets used. An office people enjoy coming to is an advantage in the competition for talent. The experiment with 1,600 employees shows how strongly working models influence turnover, and every resignation costs recruitment, onboarding, and knowledge.
At the same time, an honest database prevents costly miscalculations. Anyone who knows which days the team is actually on-site will neither build workstations that remain empty nor meeting rooms that are missing on Tuesdays. Space that isn't used still costs rent.
KAYAK Office, Zurich
Frequently Asked Questions
How many office days are common in Switzerland?
Many companies today expect around three days per week on-site. About half of all employed people are in the office at least three and a half days.
Does mandatory attendance make sense?
Clear team days help ensure that the right people actually meet. In contrast, rigid mandates without good spaces often reduce satisfaction without improving collaboration.
What do employees want from the office?
Above all, good spaces for collaboration and exchange, along with quiet places for focused work and environments that feel pleasant. A brief survey shows what is missing in individual cases.
Do you have to remodel for greater presence?
Not always. Often, re-zoning existing areas brings more benefits than adding square metres. Remodelling is worthwhile where meeting spots or retreat spaces are completely missing.
How do you measure whether the office is effective?
With a survey before and after the redesign and, where available, with utilisation data. This shows whether the new spaces are being embraced.
Sources
FlexWork Trend Study 2024, FHNW School of Applied Psychology, 2025
Working from Home in 2025: Five Key Facts, Stanford SIEPR, 2025
Decoding the Return-to-Office Puzzle in Switzerland, JLL, 2024
Return-to-office mandates, University of Pittsburgh, 2024
Hybrid working from home improves retention, Bloom, Han and Liang, Nature, 2024
Work Trend Index 2022, Microsoft, 2022
The workplace why, Leesman, 2025
Global Workplace Survey 2025, Gensler, 2025
IAP Study 2023: Hybrid Working, ZHAW IAP, 2023
A great office doesn't need to convince anyone. It's simply the place where working together just works better.
Contact
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Every project begins with a conversation. Tell us what you have in mind: a new working environment, a restaurant, a space for the future. We bring an open mind, curiosity, and experience in strategy, interior design, and lighting. We'd love to meet at our studio on Gutstrasse in Zurich. Or wherever your project is coming to life.