Commentary: Office attendance policy should be built around outcomes, not presence

"Return-to-office mandates are not inherently good or bad management. Their value depends on whether they are based on a genuine understanding of how work is created and supported. The key question for organisations should not be 'where should people work?' but rather 'what type of work is best supported in different environments?'

"Some forms of work benefit significantly from being conducted together. In service industries such as hospitality, tourism and retail, physical presence is often essential because employees need to coordinate in real time, share tacit knowledge, respond flexibly to customer needs and build strong team relationships. A hotel team managing guest experiences, or a restaurant team delivering high-quality service, relies heavily on collaboration, communication and shared workplace culture.

"However, an excessive emphasis on physical presence risks reinforcing presenteeism, where employees are visible at work but may not necessarily be engaged, creative or performing effectively. Instead, organisations should focus on meaningful outcomes rather than attendance alone. For many knowledge-based roles, focused individual tasks may be completed efficiently remotely, while creativity, innovation and relationship-building often benefit from purposeful in-person interaction. Bringing people together can encourage the exchange of diverse perspectives, generate spontaneous ideas and support collective sense-making that may be difficult to replicate through remote working alone.

"Blanket return-to-office policies can fail when they overlook differences between roles, employees and personal circumstances. They may disproportionately affect women, carers and disabled employees who rely on flexibility to sustain their participation in the workforce. They can also undermine trust if employees perceive attendance requirements as a measure of visibility rather than value creation.

"A well-managed hybrid policy should therefore be evidence-based, role-sensitive and built around clear outcomes instead of physical presence alone. The future of work is unlikely to be defined by choosing between remote and office working, but by designing workplaces that enable people and organisations to perform at their best."