The Post-COVID Office Isn't Coming Back. And That's Terrifying.

Let's start with what most people got wrong about the last few years. Everyone called it "the remote work experiment." As if we were all trying something out temporarily. As if at some point—when the crisis passed—we'd flip a switch and go back to the before times.

That's not what happened.

What happened is we accidentally discovered something about how work actually works, and we can't unsee it now. We can't un-experience having control over our environments. We can't un-learn what it feels like to not have a manager staring over our shoulder. We can't un-know that we can be productive without the theater of presence.

And the organizations that think they're going to force everyone back into offices? They're going to be shocked at who leaves.

I recently talked with Laila Von Alvensleben, who works at Mural as the head of culture and collaboration. She's lived this from inside a company. She's also lived it as someone trying to help other organizations figure out what the hell comes next.

And what Laila has learned is that the question everyone's asking—"Will people go back to offices?"—is the wrong question. The real question is: "How do we design work for a world where people aren't going back to the same things?"

The Illusion of Control

Laila said something that stuck with me: When people ask her if she'll ever go back to working in an office full-time, her answer is no. Not because remote work is better in some objective sense. But because of what remote work gave her that office never did.

Control.

Control over her environment. Where she works. What she can see. What music she listens to. Who she talks to and when. Whether she has to make small talk during lunch about things she doesn't care about.

She worked in basement offices where there was no window. Where she couldn't see what the weather was like. Where her manager would sit behind her and look over her shoulder. And she described it as almost claustrophobic.

Then remote work came, and she could choose. She could work from where she wanted. She could design her space. She could decide how much human interaction she wanted and when.

And once you've had that? Going back isn't an option. It's an imposition.

Here's what most organizations don't want to admit: The office was never about productivity. Offices were about control. They were about making sure people were "really working." They were about presence as a proxy for commitment.

Remote work exposed that the proxy was wrong. People worked. People worked differently, and sometimes they worked better.

But more importantly, people got a taste of autonomy. And autonomy, once experienced, becomes a non-negotiable.

The Hybrid Trap

This is where it gets interesting—and where most organizations are about to make a massive mistake.

Laila worked at a company called HANO that was fully remote. And then she moved to Mural, which was hybrid. Some people in offices. Some people remote. Some people traveling between the two.

She describes what happened: The people in the office had one experience. They collaborated in person. They had conversations that weren't documented. They had quick hallway discussions that solved problems. They had a rhythm to their day that included co-location.

The remote people? They had a completely different experience. They had to document everything. They had to default to async communication. They couldn't just walk over and ask a quick question. Everything took more time.

And here's the kicker: The office people assumed everyone could see and participate in everything they did. But they couldn't. The remote people were systematically excluded from the spontaneous decisions and quick collaborations. They only heard about things after the fact.

This is the hybrid trap. It's not "the best of both worlds." It's "the worst of both worlds, simultaneously, for different people."

Laila's insight: People who work from home already know what it's like to be in an office. They've experienced both contexts. They understand office culture.

But people who work in offices don't know what remote is like. They don't understand why things have to work differently. So they blame the remote people for "not being as connected" instead of recognizing that they've built a system that systematically disadvantages them.

The Cultural Relearning

Here's what I think is going to surprise a lot of leaders: The hard part isn't the technology. The hard part is the culture shift.

When everyone is distributed, the culture adapts. You have to communicate differently. You have to be more intentional about clarity. You have to default to documentation. You have to over-communicate about what's happening and why.

It's not natural for humans who came of age in office environments. But it's learnable. And once a team learns it, they get really good at it.

The problem is going to be in the transition. Organizations are going to try to go "back to the way things were." And that's where they'll fail. Because you can't actually go back. You can only go forward into something new.

Laila talks about this: "Assuming people become more flexible with working from home, when a team is fully distributed, everybody's on the same page. Everybody's going through the same experience."

But when you have some people in offices and some people remote, that shared experience disappears. People stop being equals. They become "office people" and "remote people," with the office people automatically having more access and influence.

What Happens Next

Laila's prediction, and I think she's right about this, is that what emerges will be somewhere in between. It won't be fully office-based. It won't be fully remote. It'll be intentionally designed for specific purposes.

And that's actually the sophisticated response.

Some work genuinely does benefit from in-person collaboration. Certain types of creative problem-solving. Onboarding new people. Building deep relationships. These things are harder at full distance.

But most work doesn't need that. Most communication can be asynchronous. Most decisions don't require everyone in the same room. Most productivity doesn't depend on being visible.

The organizations that win will be the ones willing to ask: "What are we actually trying to accomplish here? And what mode of work best serves that purpose?"

Sometimes the answer will be "office." Sometimes it'll be "remote." Most of the time, it'll be "a hybrid, but designed intentionally instead of haphazardly."

The Introvert Advantage

Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough. The traditional office was designed for extroverts. For people who got energy from being around others. For people who thought through talking. For people who could navigate ambiguity because they were good at reading room temperature.

Remote work designed the playing field slightly differently. It gave an advantage to people who could think independently. Who could write clearly. Who could self-manage without external accountability. Who got drained by constant human interaction.

Laila describes herself as a "fake extrovert"—someone who can present as social and outgoing but is fundamentally introverted. She can do public speaking. She can facilitate. But it takes energy. Remote work gave her a break from that constant performance.

What's fascinating is that this isn't about whether office or remote is "better." It's that different contexts advantage different people. And for decades, the office context advantaged a specific type of person.

Now we have a choice. And the choice itself is the revolution.

Why This Matters

The real story here isn't about logistics. It's not about productivity metrics or Zoom fatigue or the best way to run a meeting.

It's about what kind of autonomy people are willing to accept once they've experienced more.

Laila is clear about one thing: She's not going back. Not because remote work is perfect. But because the alternative—giving up control over her environment and her time—isn't acceptable to her anymore.

And she's not alone. Thousands of people have had the same realization. The office was never as inevitable as it seemed. It was just the only option we'd been given.

Now we know there are other options. And that changes everything.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here's what I think most leaders haven't quite accepted yet: You can't force people back. Not in any meaningful way. You can threaten their paychecks. You can mandate office days. But you can't force the mindset.

What you'll get is presence without engagement. People sitting in offices checking boxes. The high performers leaving to work for companies that respect their autonomy. The people who stay resenting you.

That's not a strategy. That's a death spiral.

The organizations that win in the next decade will be the ones that recognize something fundamental: Autonomy is now non-negotiable for high performers. The question isn't "How do we get people back to the office?" The question is "How do we organize work in a way that respects autonomy while still building the culture and connection we need?"

Those are two different problems. And they require two different solutions.

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Want the Full Story?

Laila Von Alvensleben has lived this transition from the inside. She was part of the fully remote HANO, which was designed around radical openness and transparency. Then she moved to Mural, where she's working on how to maintain culture while scaling a distributed team. And she's been helping clients navigate this exact problem.

If you want to hear the full conversation—including what actually changed during the pandemic and why "going back to normal" isn't actually an option—listen to Yaniv Corem's interview with Laila on The School of Innovation podcast. This is part two of that conversation, and it digs into exactly these questions.

Because here's the thing about the future of work: It's not predetermined. It's not already decided. It's being decided right now, in thousands of organizations, by leaders who are either going to try to recreate the past or who are going to have the courage to design something new.

The question is: Which kind of leader are you?