The college campus is the model for return to office — from by Jiani Zeng Honghao Deng
Using tech to map the spaces we need for the future of work
Excerpt:
Yet while the emergence of new variants continues to frustrate efforts to resume in-person work, the Delta variant alone does not explain why major employers continue to struggle to bring workers back in person. It seems that employees have lost faith in past models of working, which naturally prompts an examination of what a future “ebb and flow” will actually look like.
Well, it’s likely we already know what this new office environment will look like: the university campus.
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College campuses have spaces that foster collaboration, community and culture — labs, open areas, cafes, not to mention auditoriums and arenas for events, sports and other rituals. But these are opt-in — no one forces you to go to the basketball game. You choose to go. So too companies will want to use their space to foster collaboration and culture for employees to opt into.