What The F* is Happening to The Office?

Work happens on the Metro, at the kitchen table after the kids are in bed, and on a Teams call squeezed between a doctor’s appointment and school pickup. The office was built for nine-to-five at an assigned desk, and most of us don’t work that way anymore. As my guest Becca Landwehr puts it, the office has to be okay with that.Becca Landwehr is a strategic planner and workplace strategist, trained in both communication and interior design, and she’s worked on both the design firm and owner side. What I appreciated most is how pragmatic she is. She isn’t anti-office, but she’s not pretending virtual work is going away either. Her first question about any space is simple: does it actually work for the people using it?We talk about a company with assigned desks nobody uses, plus return-to-office mandates, why core hours and anchor days beat “thou shalt come in,” what to measure beyond badge swipes, and the simple exercise she’d hand any leader facing a lease decision this year.Subscribe for new episodes with the experts shaping the future of work.Leave a comment! Where does most of your work happen these days, and does your office offer the flexibility for it?Subscribe to Work Design for more on the trends shaping where and how we work.https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/Connect with Becca Landwehr on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/beccalandwehr/

Everyone's fighting about where people work. Almost nobody's asking the question that actually matters: why would anyone want to come in at all?In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob Fox sits down with Beth Goff-McMillan, CEO of SKG, one of the largest woman-owned businesses in Texas, and founder of FOLIO, to go past the return-to-office debate and into the business that actually supplies the modern workplace.Beth will tell you a five-day mandate can't fix collaboration, engagement, or culture if the workplace itself never evolved. Getting people back, she argues, isn't a real estate problem, it's a human problem. We dig into how COVID and hybrid work rewired her entire industry: why office furniture became a commodity, why the buying process went transactional, how the floor plate flipped from 80% desks to 60% shared space. We also get into the workplace supply chain, the 50-point audit she ran on 450 manufacturers, how AI is adding jobs instead of cutting them, and the metrics she uses to tell you whether an office is working now that square-footage-per-person is dead.

Happy employees don't necessarily produce better business results.

In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob Fox talks with Dr. Yasmeem Coning, founder of Ember, about why engagement, the metric most companies lean on, may be too sentiment-driven to actually predict revenue, retention, or performance. The real driver, she argues, is something deeper: collective organizational identification, or how strongly people connect their work to their own self-concept.Yasmeem breaks down the science behind identification, how it differs from engagement, and how Ember's Workplace Identification Score (WIS) is helping leaders design offices, operating models, and hybrid work patterns around actual human behavior instead of guesswork. As Yasmeem puts it: "Workforce is the new workplace."If you're rethinking how culture, strategy, and space planning connect to business outcomes, this conversation will change how you measure success.In this episode:- Why employee happiness and engagement don't reliably translate into better business outcomes- How collective organizational identification connects work to self-conceptEngagement as sentiment vs. identification as a stable behavioral signal- How strategy, culture, and identification work together as a stackEmber's six core factors: Core Identity, Connected Leadership, Collective Drive, Aligned, Ambition, Future Affinity, Market Gravity- The Workplace Identification Score (WIS) and how it informs workplace design- How workplace data shapes collaboration areas, innovation spaces, and office consolidation- Why identity-based measurement can support diversity by recognizing the whole person- The first question every headquarters planning team should ask

Every office has that one person who's freezing while everyone else is fine. In this episode, Bob Fox talks with Dr. Nicola Garrett, Ph. D. a thermophysiologist at Gentherm and one of roughly 300 people in the world who study this for a living. Nicola's background is in human performance, soldiers in extreme environments, elite athletes, drivers, and she's now bringing that science into the office. They dig into why office HVAC systems were built around a narrow, outdated user profile; why body size, age, sex, etc. make one "optimal" room temperature essentially a myth; and the difference between behavioral thermoregulation (throwing on a jacket) and the physiological responses — vasoconstriction, sweating, shivering that kick in when behavior isn't enough.From there, the conversation moves into what's actually being built: heated and cooled seats, radiant panels, under-desk heating, and the "microclimate" approach Gentherm pioneered in vehicles; letting each person dial in their own comfort instead of conditioning an entire room. They cover the real engineering headaches (power delivery to a chair nobody wants tethered to a wall), the surprising ways thermal discomfort quietly wrecks focus and typing accuracy, how cooling has been used to keep drowsy drivers alert (and could do the same for you after lunch), and what Nicola took away from her first trip to NeoCon as a scientist walking into the design world. It's a conversation that will change how you think about your own chair.

A consulting firm spent 18 months designing the perfect workspace. Six months after move-in, they tore it out. That one moment launched Adam Morgan on a mission to rethink everything about how offices get built — and why most of them are still getting it wrong.Adam is co-founder of Bureau, a company that designs and builds soundproof booths for modern workplaces. But his perspective goes far beyond the product. Coming from a finance background, Adam thinks about the office as a performance system — and the data he's seeing tells a clear story: focus spaces are running at 56–57% utilization while open collaborative areas sit at 25–30%. Workers aren't broken. The spaces are.In this conversation, Bob and Adam dig into:- Why the open office was built for a way of working that no longer exists- What CO2 levels are quietly doing to your afternoon productivity- How AI companies are reshaping office demand — and what the rush to spec suites signals- Return-to-office mandates: what actually works, and what quietly backfires- The real reason people come to the office (hint: it's not the ping pong table)

Somewhere right now, a talented designer is copy-pasting details, finishes, and door schedules into a set of CDs — instead of designing the inspiring workplace needed to bring a fragmented team back to the office. That's not a people problem. That's a time problem.In this episode, Bob Fox sits down with Valerie Trent, a licensed designer (NCIDQ, LEED AP ID+C) who spent about a decade practicing before starting a technology company. She realized firms were burning most of their hours on documentation — coordination, redlines, cut-and-paste work — instead of the design thinking that actually shapes how a space feels to work in. That observation led her to start building AI tools aimed at reducing the repetitive production work, so the people trained to solve physical, spatial, and human problems can spend their time solving them.They dig into what's really driving the industry's shrinking margins, why production work has quietly replaced real apprenticeship for a generation of designers, and two firsthand stories of firms using freed-up time to rebuild mentorship from the ground up — one through a rotating shadow-a-principal program, another through a weekly group redlining session that's become the most valuable hour of the week. Valerie also makes the case that AI doesn't create a firm's culture — it amplifies whatever culture is already there, for better or worse.

What if the single most powerful thing you could do to bring people back to the office had nothing to do with perks, mandates, or the latest collaboration tech and everything to do with trees, light, and the patterns found in nature?In this episode, Bill Browning and Catie Ryan of Terrapin Bright Green, authors of Nature Inside and 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, make the case that biophilic design and biophilia in the workplace are no longer optional extras but essential workplace strategy for anyone serious about the future of work. From fractal lighting and fractal fluency to daylighting office environments and dynamic lighting that shifts brain states from calm to engaged, they reveal how a nature-inspired office and green office design can transform workplace productivity, drive return to office, and create a workplace experience that no ping pong table can replicate. Drawing on cutting-edge biophilia science, including new research on epigenetics and nature, biophilic design research, and neurodiversity in the workplace; Bill and Catie show how human centered design and biophilic architecture are reshaping the office environment to support employee wellbeing and workplace wellbeing across every setting, from hybrid work environments to corporate real estate portfolios. With real case studies this is the conversation on nature at work and what sustainable workplace design actually looks like when the science drives every decision.About the guests:Bill Browning is a founding partner of Terrapin Bright Green and one of the world's leading experts on biophilic design and sustainable economics.Catie Ryan is a principal at Terrapin Bright Green and co-author of 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design.Purchase the book here: https://amzn.to/4vVIlMU

What if your office could tell you who to sit next to based on what you're working on? What if the building knew you were stressed before you did?In this episode, Bob Fox sits down with Melissa Marsh, founder and CEO of PLASTARC. With 25+ years in the field and clients like Microsoft, Google, Lululemon, and Logitech, Melissa is an expert on where the workplace is headed and why most organizations are still behind.They cover the shift from designing space to designing experience, the rise of smart buildings and occupancy sensors, why digital twins are changing how we operate and plan buildings, and the uncomfortable question: are return-to-office mandates about people or about protecting the value of real estate?Melissa also unpacks why HR, IT, and Real Estate speak entirely different languages, what new metrics like experience density actually measure, and why real estate is, in her words, "profoundly unprepared" for the organizational impact of AI.This is one of those conversations that makes you rethink what a building is, what an office is for, and who should be designing both.Subscribe for new episodes with the experts shaping the future of work.Leave a comment — what's your biggest challenge with the workplace right now?Download our State of the Workplace Report → https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry-report

Are we designing offices that are already obsolete before anyone moves in? Workplace strategist and circular economy advocate Celeste Tell joins Bob Fox to challenge one of workplace design's most embedded assumptions — and make the case for a fundamentally different approach.Celeste Tell, co-founder of Epicycled, argues that in an era of constant organizational change, designing a workplace for a fixed outcome is designing for failure. Instead, she makes the case for treating the workplace like a kit of parts — think original Lego, not the themed sets — that can be reconfigured again and again without tearing everything out and starting over.In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob and Celeste dig into why architects and contractors walk away on day one while owners are left holding a space that no longer fits, why landfill economics are the real obstacle to circularity in workplace design, how the auto industry mastered producer responsibility while office design hasn't, and what it would actually look like to design a workplace for a 50-year lease.If you work in corporate real estate, architecture, workplace strategy, or facilities — and you've watched a perfectly good space get scraped because things changed, or it was custom for a specific organization. — this conversation is for you.Like, subscribe, and share with anyone working to build better work environments.Download our State of the Workplace Report → https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry-report

What if the biggest threat to your organization's performance isn't your people — it's the space you put them in? Rebecca Swanner is workplace sector leader at HED, and she and her team have been not just asking how AI is changing how we work, but what that actually means for the physical spaces we design.Here's what their national research study found. Spaces for collaboration? Actually working fine. But focus and restoration are the two things that matter most as AI shifts humans toward higher-cognitive-load work and are critically underserved. Only 15% of respondents felt restoration was properly supported in their workplace. And there's a massive disconnect between what leadership thinks the office is for (presence and visibility) and what employees actually need (the ability to think deeply and recover from it). That gap is costing organizations more than they realize in burnout, resistance, and lost innovation.Rebecca walks us through the research, the design implications, the emerging role of responsive and wearable tech in the workplace, and what she calls the potential "death of the open office." She also makes the case that the most important metric shift leaders can make right now is moving from occupancy to outcomes, and what that looks like in practice when you're designing space from scratch or recalibrating what you have.If you're involved in shaping where and how people work, whether you're in architecture, workplace strategy, commercial real estate, facilities, furniture, or organizational leadership this is the conversation you need to be having right now. Subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

The people deciding the future of your company… aren’t talking about the workplace.And it’s costing more than anyone realizes.Not in real estate—but in performance.In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Phil Kirschner explains why the workplace has become one of the biggest blind spots in modern organizations—and what leaders are getting wrong.At major conferences, CFOs, CHROs, and CIOs shape strategy, but rarely discuss the workplace. Meanwhile, workplace and real estate conversations happen without them.So who actually owns the workplace?This isn’t a design issue—it’s a leadership problem.We dig into:Why workplace strategy keeps getting ignored at the topThe real reason offices feel generic and underperformWhy companies are “fixing the past” instead of building the futureThe hidden conflict between HR, IT, Finance, and Real EstateWho should own the workplace (and why no one does)What the workplace should actually be doing todayPhil brings a rare cross-industry perspective from his work across McKinsey & Company, WeWork, JLL, and Credit Suisse—along with his research through The Workline.If you're responsible for the future of work—or trying to be—subscribe.We focus on the conversations most people aren’t having.McKinsey Organizational Health Index: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-organization-blog/hybrid-can-be-healthy-for-your-organization-when-done-righthttps://walktheworkline.com/article/all-ceos-agree-where-work-happens-mattersSubscribe to The Workline:https://walktheworkline.com/Download the State of the Workplace Report:https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/indust...#futureofwork #workplacestrategy #hybridwork #leadership #corporaterealestate

About Work DesignWork Design explores how work, the workplace, and the office are changing—and the forces driving that change before it shows up in the built environment.What the F is Happening to the Office?* is a video podcast featuring real conversations with the leaders shaping the future of work across corporate real estate, architecture, design, technology, HR, and organizational leadership.We focus on the issues that matter:The shift from office as a place to office as a tool for performanceHybrid work, distributed teams, and the “return to office” debateThe impact of AI and emerging technologies on how work gets doneWorkplace experience, wellbeing, and human-centric designThe changing role of corporate real estate and facility managementCulture, connection, mentorship, and organizational effectivenessMeasuring performance, engagement, and return on the workplaceThis is not about trends or finished spaces. It’s about the thinking, decisions, and trade-offs shaping the next generation of work environments.

What if the office isn’t underperforming… it’s just never been aligned with how people actually work?In this conversation, I sit down with Ken Baker, Regional Managing Principal at Gensler, to unpack what’s really changing in the workplace, and what most organizations are still getting wrong. Ken brings a unique perspective, not just as a designer, but as someone leading a global firm while navigating the same pressures his clients are facing.We discuss the real issues shaping the next generation of work environments:-Why the office is struggling to keep up with how people actually work-How AI is amplifying human interaction, not replacing it-The shift from efficiency → experience, performance, and connection-Why the best workplaces are becoming “magnets, not mandates”-The growing role of hospitality, learning, and focus spaces-How better design is directly tied to profitability, retention, and performance-What leaders are missing about their own organizations-And why the future may depend on how we rethink and reuse our citiesDownload the State of the Workplace Report - https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry-reportA synthesis of insights from leaders across design, research, and workplace strategy.

Bringing people back to the office does not automatically create collaboration. In this episode, Ben Waber breaks down why the design and use of the physical workplace can have a major impact on communication, innovation, and organizational success.In this conversation, Bob Fox talks with MIT Media Lab lecturer and researcher Ben Waber about what collaboration really is and why most organizations misunderstand it. Ben explains that collaboration is not just what happens in meetings or teamwork, but the larger pattern of how communication, knowledge transfer, and relationships flow across an organization. One of the biggest takeaways is that the physical workplace still plays a major role in shaping those patterns. Proximity matters. Who sits near whom, how teams are arranged, where shared spaces are located, and how easily people can move between groups all influence the likelihood of interaction. The workplace is one of the strongest levers organizations have to reduce silos, and support the kinds of informal encounters that often lead to trust, idea-sharing, reduce risk, and better long-term performance.He also makes the case that simply requiring people to come back to the office is not enough. Attendance alone is not collaboration. The real value of the workplace comes from how intentionally it is designed and used to support the right kinds of connections. For hybrid organizations in particular, the office should not just be a place for individual work, but a tool for fostering meaningful interaction across teams, functions, and levels of leadership. Ben suggests that future headquarters may need to be more dynamic, more adaptable, and more focused on creating the conditions for collaboration rather than assuming it happens automatically. The message is clear: if organizations want better performance, innovation, and alignment, they need to think much more carefully about how the physical environment supports the way people actually work together.Check out Ben's Book: People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us About the Future of Work: https://amzn.to/4sQEQ8rDownload our State of the Workplace Report here: https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry-report

What if the biggest challenge facing the workplace today isn’t mandates, hybrid policy, or productivity… but loneliness?In this episode of *What the F is Happening to the Office?**, I sit down with sociologist and Steelcase VP of Workplace Insights Dr. Tracy Brower, Phd to explore how convenience, technology, and even AI may be quietly reducing real human connection.Her research is compelling:• Proximity measurably improves performance.• Gathering spaces increase wellbeing.• 77% of Gen Z actually want to be in the office — largely for mentoring and growth.And then there was one line that shocked me:“I’d already had all my conversations with AI on the way home and I didn’t have anything to talk to my wife about anymore.”That’s worth thinking about. If the office is no longer just a container for work, but a neighborhood for belonging and building self esteem, what does that mean for how we design it?Key TopicsLoneliness epidemic and its impact on workThe importance of proximity and physical space in building relationshipsThe influence of the built environment and furniture on social interactionThe role of leadership in fostering community and trustThe future relationship between AI and human connectionPurchase Tracy's new Book: Critical Connections: Build Relationships and Harness the Power of Community in Work and Life: https://amzn.to/4cZwl65Download the 2026 State of the Industry Report: https://workdesign.beehiiv.com/industry

What if we could look into a crystal ball and design the future workplace today?Are we preparing for what’s next, or redesigning yesterday’s office?In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob Fox sits down with Mark Bryan, Chief Research & Strategy Officer at IIDA, to explore why most “future of work” conversations are stuck debating layouts, policies, and attendance - instead of how work itself is fundamentally changing.Mark introduces strategic foresight, a data-driven discipline focused on preparation, not prediction, and explains why organizations must design for measurable human outcomes: trust, wellbeing, learning, social cohesion, and performance.We explore:• The convergence of AI, connected devices, and digital twins• Why utilization data can mislead decision-making• How immersive environments go beyond headsets• The coming technology “supercycle” reshaping work• Why the workplace must evolve from container to trust platformIf you're a workplace leader, architect, designer, CRE executive, or strategist trying to prepare your organization for the next 10 years, this conversation will expand how you think about work, technology, and human potential.Subscribe for weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future of work and the built environment.Special thanks to Global Furniture Group for supporting this episode.https://www.globalfurnituregroup.com/

Hybrid work broke the old playbook—but leaders never agreed on a new one. In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, Bob Fox, Founder of Work Design, sits down with Amanda Schneider, Founder and President of ThinkLab (Sandow Design Group), to explore why workplace culture is failing—and how Gen Z may hold the key to fixing it.Drawing on years of research, focus groups, and real-world experience, Amanda explains why today’s workplace is stuck in “hybrid purgatory,” where policies don’t match reality, trust is eroding, and burnout is rising. Together, Bob and Amanda unpack what Gen Z is really asking for—flexibility, transparency, purpose, and empowerment—and why these demands reflect what all generations have wanted all along.Amanda also shares personal insights from building a successful remote-first company, raising a family while leading a research organization, and writing her upcoming book Work for What’s Next. She offers a practical framework for helping individuals, teams, and organizations design healthier, more effective ways of working.Pre-order Amanda's new book: https://amzn.to/4sXq6oW

What if the next evolution of work isn’t an office — but a marketplace of hidden genius?

We’re applying old thinking to new technology — and wondering why work still feels stuck.

In this episode of What the F* is Happening to the Office?, futurist and executive coach Rex Miller introduces The Fourth Place — a bold new model for how work, learning, and human connection come together in an AI-driven world.

The Fourth Place is a hybrid environment — part café, part makerspace, part internal Genius Bar — designed to unlock the “long tail” of hidden expertise inside every organization. It’s a continuous learning hub where AI, human wisdom, and curiosity converge to solve problems traditional management structures can no longer handle.

Rex joins host Bob Fox to explain why the future belongs to organizations that move beyond command-and-control hierarchies and toward distributed networks of value.

In this episode we explore:

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The Fourth Place, defined — Why the office must evolve into a mashup of Kinko’s, Starbucks, and an internal Genius Bar

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The long tail of talent — How to bypass management bottlenecks and tap into infinite employee capability

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Media rewires the brain — Why generational differences are really media-platform differences

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AI as a partner, not a replacement — Shifting from “expert” to “guide” while eliminating friction

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The loneliness crisis at work — Why belonging drives retention and performance

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“Friday is Fourth Place Day” — A radical way to turn the quietest day of the week into the most valuable

The bottom line:
The next workplace isn’t a place you’re required to go — it’s a place you want to go to learn, connect, and create.

💬 Question for you:
If your organization had an internal Genius Bar where employees taught each other skills, what would you sign up to learn — or teach?

Future of Work · Workplace Strategy · AI and Work · Organizational Culture · Leadership

The modern workplace is in radical flux, driven by hybrid work, AI, and shifting talent strategy. In this essential episode, host Bob Fox sits down with Brian Elliott—CEO of WorkForward, BCG Senior Advisor, and publisher of the authoritative Flex Index—to cut through the noise. Drawing on his experience at Slack and Google, and leading one of the most influential workplace research programs, Brian brings real data and grounded insight to the most pressing questions.

This conversation goes far beyond the "remote vs. hybrid" debate, exploring the critical mindset shift leaders need to navigate change. We unpack how companies are using workplace strategy as a powerful leadership tool, the truth about flexibility and organizational performance, and the transformative role of AI and automation in workplace experience and operations. If you are a workplace strategist, HR executive, or simply asking “Why do we go to the office anymore?”, this data-rich discussion will challenge your assumptions about office space, culture, engagement, and the true future of work.

What happens when Gen Z starts reshaping the rules of work—while the Boomers are still playing by the old ones? In this essential episode, host Bob Fox sits down with generational researcher and leadership expert Warren Wright, CEO of Second Wave Learning (formerly of Gallup), to explore how the newest generation is changing the workplace culture from the inside out.

Warren brings decades of insight to unpack the forces driving this generational shift. Gen Z is challenging traditional norms with a fierce desire for purpose-driven work, radical transparency, and strong psychological safety. We dive into how these values—alongside unique workplace communication styles—stack up against those of the multigenerational workforce (Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers). Learn what organizations must do now to adapt their leadership development, enhance employee engagement, and leverage reverse mentoring to foster effective generational collaboration, ensuring they are ready for the true Future of Work.

What happens when AI meets the office? Host Bob Fox sits down with Jeremy Reding, Global Workplace Leader & Senior Principal at DLR Group, architect, and workplace futurist, to explore the cutting edge of workplace design. Tracing his roots from hands-on design communities to leading global workplace strategy for top tech companies, Jeremy offers an inspiring look at how organizations can navigate the future without losing the human experience.

This essential episode dives into how AI is fundamentally reshaping the office: think small, high-focus AI-driven team rooms replacing large desk banks. We discuss the necessity of a human-first approach, ensuring culture and wellbeing drive the design, with technology serving as invisible, seamless support. From the rise of a low-tech counter-movement (authentic materials, tech-free zones) to the creation of adaptive environments that personalize comfort and health, this conversation is your blueprint for creating high-performing, immersive, and truly connected modern workspaces.