Return to Office: The importance of the physical workplace and organisational culture

As a result of the transformation of work, organisations and employees find themselves in a hybrid working world. Due to the perceived personal and work-related benefits, employees prefer to perform large parts of their work from home. At the same time, some organisations would like to see their employees back in the office more often. While, in the accompanying return-to-office debate, some organisations are focusing on restricting employee flexibility, others are asking themselves how they can increase the desire of employees to work in the office again through an attractive workplace design. The discussion about increasing employees' desire to work in the office focuses on improving the physical workplace, but the role of organisational culture has so far been excluded from the debate. Organisational cultures influence employee behaviour; therefore, an office-centric organisational culture could influence the desire to work in the office. Against this background, this study uses hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis to examine the significance of real estate resources and organisational culture for the desire to work in the office. The empirical analysis considers survey data from N = 453 German employees. The study results suggest that employees can be lured back to the office by upgrading the quality of the workplace. In addition, the study demonstrates the moderating influence of an office-centred culture on the relationship between employees' satisfaction with their office workplace and the share of working hours they want to spend in the office. The study thus provides guidance in the debate on strategies for returning employees to the office and offers indications for workplace planning and organisational and management-related adaptation.