05/30/2024

What Makes Offices Compelling in a World of Flexible Work

Intermittent in-person work can build culture

Many organizations have spent the past few years wrestling with how to clearly define the best uses of in-person time when the COVID-19 pandemic showed that work can be done remotely. Offsite meetings bringing colleagues together clearly have an important role in establishing team trust and engagement.

New research shows that intermittent in-person work—working remotely and coming together for regular meetups— improves a team’s collective intelligence.

Amid these evolving understandings of what should be done in offices, how should we think about the role of the space itself? We spoke with Kevin Ervin Kelley, author of the book Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places that Bring People Together and cofounder of the strategic design firm Shook Kelley, which has designed offices for companies including Bank of America, JM Smucker, Cadbury, and USAA. Here are key excerpts of Kelley’s comments, edited for space and clarity.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.