Why the office has to earn its visitors now

Here's an uncomfortable truth for anyone in HR, workplace, or real estate: telling people to come back to the office doesn't actually bring them back.

Research from Sodexo/YouGov has foundthat only a third of employees have full autonomy over their own working arrangements, and just 60% even know who's responsible for deciding attendance policy. Meanwhile, Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 shows global engagement has now dropped for two consecutive years, sitting at just 23%.

So if mandates aren't working, what is?

The office is now optional. Act like it.

Hybrid work has changed the deal. Employees no longer weigh salary and benefits alone - they weigh the whole experience of work against the very real comfort of staying home. Every commute now gets measured against what's waiting on the other end.

That's the shift our new report, The State of Workplace Hospitality 2026, is built around: the office isn't a default anymore, it's a destination. And destinations only work if they earn their visitors.

What actually gets people through the door

It isn't the free snacks or the standing desks. According to our own member survey, 90% of people cited belonging and team connection as their top reason for going into the office - not equipment, not location, not the commute subsidy.

The report digs into what that means in practice:

• Hybrid workers report the best outcomes of any arrangement - higher engagement, higher thriving, and lower loneliness than either fully remote or fully office-based staff, according to Gallup. But that only holds if the office offers something home genuinely can't.
• The generational gap is real and widening. 44% of Gen Z and 42% of Millennials expect their manager to actively help them with work/life balance but only around a quarter say they actually get that support (Deloitte).
• The cost of getting it wrong is steep. Replacing a mid-level London professional can run to £75,000–£100,000 once you factor in recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity.
• The upside of getting it right is measurable. Organisations with embedded workplace hospitality report satisfaction scores 33 points higher than those without, plus a noticeable lift in on-site attendance.

Hospitality isn't another line on the amenities list

Workplace hospitality, as we define it in the report, is less about adding perks and more about removing friction—the small, accumulating admin and inconvenience that quietly wears people down. Think a warm, personal welcome, consistent and reliable service, and support that adapts to what someone actually needs rather than a one-size-fits-all policy.

We also look at where AI and workplace tech genuinely help (real-time sentiment tracking, smarter concierge services) versus where they backfire - UK workplace surveillance has hit 85% of employers, and it's already showing up in higher employee stress and distrust.

What's in the full report

The State of Workplace Hospitality 2026 covers:

• Why return-to-office ownership is so often unclear - and who should actually hold it
• Generational and geographic differences in what people expect from the workplace
• How to build a measurable ROI case for hospitality investment, including real case studies with results like a 48% jump in office occupancy and a 95 NPS score
• Six practical priorities for embedding hospitality as a strategic capability, not a nice-to-have

If you're responsible for bringing people back into the office or figuring out why they're not coming, this is written for you.

Download the full report to see the data, the case studies, and the six-point action plan in full.

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