“The office has to earn its purpose.” – Interview with Dr. Hans Rusinek

Dr. Hans Rusinek, author, researcher, speaker, and advisor.

Featured Image Credit: Laurin Schmidt

Introduction

You research various topics around work, meaning, productivity, and transformation – in your view, to what extent does the office as a physical space influence productivity at work?

A: It has a major influence. The office is not a neutral backdrop, but a silent co-player in productivity. Its greatest strength lies in providing proximity: where people can see each other, feedback emerges faster, learning happens faster, decisions are made faster. That is precisely why the office remains relevant – as a place for what cannot be digitized: complex collaboration and social resonance.

But the office also has a quiet dark side. It can fragment attention, interrupt us every few minutes, distract us, and tempt us into “performative work,” where visibility becomes more important than problem-solving – and all of that has, by now, been quite successfully digitized as well.

What is particularly interesting is that the Mindspace study shows: employees do not want the office at any cost, but when it works – meaning quiet, light, ergonomics, genuine workability rather than a pretty facade. The consequence is that the office is losing its sense of being taken for granted. It must earn its purpose.

In your dissertation, you examined Volkswagen as an example of transformation. What can large corporations learn from the flex-office world in terms of workplace culture?

A: Culture does not happen on posters or purpose statements – it happens in what you do, and indeed where you do it. In this context, large corporations can learn from the flex-office world how to move away from perfected planning in silos toward continuous learning from and with one another. Secondly, the flex-office world makes it very clear how important protecting attention is. Productivity does not emerge in back-to-back meetings, but where people can think without interruption. Good flex offices consciously design spaces for interaction, but also for concentration.

Hybrid Work & Presence

The Mindspace study “The Office of the Future” shows: up to 20% of respondents would trade salary for a better workplace. Does that surprise you, and how do you interpret this figure? What other metrics or observations would you recommend for understanding the value of an office for productivity and employee retention?

A: It does not surprise me – on the contrary: the figure makes visible how profoundly our relationship to work is shifting right now. People do not want to simply serve their time, but to derive meaning from it, to do their work well and willingly. Better working conditions are also spatially grounded: less noise, more focus, more belonging. The study shows exactly that – that factors such as quiet, light, and ergonomics are decisive for productivity. There is nothing more unpleasant than when someone who actually enjoys their job realizes that the circumstances are preventing them from doing it as well as they could. Unfortunately, that happens quite frequently. Failing to meet one’s own standards is a major driver of frustration. Nobody started their career as a quiet quitter, but far too many were turned into one. Good spaces can bring us back to good work. I would read the study’s findings this way: the office is no longer a “nice-to-have,” but a part of meaningful work – or opposite of it. If we truly want to understand the value of good spaces, we need to measure differently: not utilization, but learning rate – how much implicit knowledge is being created. Not attendance, but speed of problem-solving on complex issues. Not square footage, but social capital – how much trust and exchange is being generated here? And most centrally: how well does the office protect attention? Are there genuine periods of focus, or only constant interruption? That is why the figure above all shows one thing: the office must and can be worth it – emotionally, socially, and cognitively.

Return-to-office mandates continue to cause conflict. What does the research say: do we need attendance requirements, or do we simply need better reasons to come into the office?

A: The research is fairly unequivocal here: attendance mandates do not produce a performance boost, but they do cost trust and motivation. The real lever is not the place, but how work is done – collaboration, tools, culture. The problem is not the office, but the rationale: forced office days are like group hugs on command – physically close, emotionally rather a disaster. At the same time, research also shows: physical proximity, when it is not coerced, still has an irreplaceable value. The conclusion, therefore, is not attendance mandates, but: finding better reasons. The office must be a place where something happens that cannot happen elsewhere: exchange, collaboration, development, and the celebration of successes. We do not need mandatory presence. We need presence that is worthwhile.

You call yourself a “pracademic.” How do you personally structure your own working environment – do you prefer working from home, the office, or on the go?

A: Much like with cocktails, I prefer a good mix: I work a great deal from the train, because I have given up trying to take online calls from there – it is, so to speak, a rolling offline office. Then I enjoy being in the office because I meet people “in real life” there and simply start and end the day with a different feeling (and can leave work there more easily). And home office on days when my social battery is drained, and as a flexible option when caregiving responsibilities are important.

Meaning, Culture & Generations

The study shows: those under 30 tend to look for relaxation and inspiration in the office, while older employees seek belonging. What does this mean for companies trying to build a shared culture?

A: I would read this less as a generational question and more as a life-stage question. Younger people seek inspiration and orientation, older employees seek stability and belonging – and both are legitimate. For companies, this means: culture does not emerge through uniformity, but through thoughtful spaces. Spaces that allow for retreat and focus – and others for genuine encounter. The interesting challenge is then not to separate these different needs, but to connect them – for example through shared rituals or projects that both create meaning and generate belonging. Spaces that bring both groups together are crucial here, because good organizational culture is a matter of intergenerational collaboration. And that is always also a matter of spaces. Good culture emerges where different expectations are not smoothed over, but brought together productively.

Informal mentoring – learning through observation in the everyday office environment and building culture through intentional togetherness – suffers greatly in remote settings. How serious is this problem in your view for organizations?

A: In remote settings, organizations lose an important resource: learning from one another. Junior employees receive less spontaneous feedback because incidental learning disappears. What used to emerge through observation now has to be actively organized – and often simply does not happen. I do not want to say it is impossible in principle, but remote work is, in terms of organizational culture, very demanding. It is like learning to dance without music – you can practice the steps, but the rhythm is missing. What is lost is the “campfire quality” – the shared experience that carries culture – and social capital erodes. As a result, people feel like a function rather than part of a whole. Cynicism and quiet quitting become more likely. When work is only coordinated digitally, what actually makes organizations strong is lost: relationships. A product or service is always only as good as the relationship and communication of the people involved in it – I read that somewhere once, and I believe there is something to it.

Your book is called “Work-Survive-Balance.” Is the office in 2026 part of the problem or part of the solution for a healthier work culture?

A: The office can be both part of the problem and part of the solution – what is decisive is how it is designed and used. It becomes a problem where it primarily produces distraction and rewards fake work. When people are constantly interrupted and visibility becomes more important than actual value creation, not only productivity suffers, but also the quality of work and wellbeing. The office becomes a solution, on the other hand, when it plays to its specific strengths: as a place for trust, for learning, and for collaboration that is difficult to replace digitally. Particularly informal exchange and the opportunity to learn from one another are central resources of a healthy work culture. The office must consciously deliver on its added value. That does not happen by itself.

Closing / Outlook

What is your most important recommendation for companies that want to rethink their office strategy in 2026?

A: My central recommendation would be to stop thinking of the office as a place of control, and instead think of it as a deliberate space for resonance. In times of AI, value is increasingly created where “human intelligence” can also become effective – where people enter into exchange, learn from one another, and jointly create meaning. If machines are becoming better machines, humans must become better humans. Physical spaces are precisely what is needed for that.

If you imagine the world of work in ten years – what gives you hope, and what concerns you?

A: What concerns me is that we remain stuck in “business as usual,” continuing to overwhelm both people and the planet. The danger is real that work becomes increasingly boundless – a quiet form of self-exploitation – while we simultaneously begin to delegate our judgment to machines.

What gives me hope, on the other hand, is that this very disruption is also an opportunity. If we shape it well, technology can free us from routine – and open up space for what “human intelligence” truly is: empathy, creativity, moral judgment. Is there intelligent life in the office? We should go looking for it.