Workplace Design's Widening Gap - And the Clients Caught in It

"How many of your other clients are doing this?" 

That was the question a CEO asked me after I presented their workplace strategy, proposing a shift to unallocated seating. My answer? ALL. OF. THEM. 

Not long after, I was at a workplace conference. A room full of designers, strategists, "workplace specialists," all sharing stories of how their legal, accounting and tech clients were approaching their offices. Every one of them spoke about unallocated seating like it wasn't even a decision anymore. Not even a conversation being had. They'd moved on so far beyond that question that they were navigating entirely new challenges. 

I sat there thinking about my own client list. Some of them are exactly where these companies are. Others haven't touched their office in years, and are still working out whether shared desking is even a reasonable thing to raise with their people. 

That second group wasn't anywhere in the room. Not a position being argued against, just absent from the conversation entirely. That absence is the gap I keep coming back to. 

Our industry has moved forward, as it should. But the pace of that progress means the gap between the clients who've already made the leap and the ones who haven't isn't staying still - it's widening. And I think we've stopped designing the conversation for the clients on the wrong side of it. They're not a small group. 

So what does that conversation actually look like, when a client genuinely isn't there yet?  

It doesn't start with a recommendation. It starts with walking the space. 

My first impression of a workplace never comes from the leadership conversation. It comes from walking the floor. 

Give me an hour in a client's office and a few things become obvious fast: how people actually move through it, where they gather, where they don't, and how much of the floor sits empty on any given day. That's where the real conversation starts - not "should we adopt unallocated seating," but "why are we asking people to come into this building at all?" 

That's also where the resistance shows up. People worried about losing "their" space. Leaders worried about who they're losing (or never attracting) to a workplace built this way. Both are real concerns, and real costs to the business. They need to be tabled and weighed up early, not brushed past. 

What I love seeing, and what I've watched happen again and again, is that when we untether people from one fixed desk, it changes more than the floor plan. Conversations happen more spontaneously. Ideas move faster. Innovation spreads. Mindsets loosen. Agility at a desk level starts compounding into agility at a business level - and that's where the real transformation lies for an organisation trying to stay relevant in a fast-moving world.

What a desk actually means to people. 

Hosting a workshop a few months back, an employee told me that not having their own desk would feel like the organisation didn't respect them. 

Now - this wasn't someone in the office every day. She was a sales rep who spent most of the week on the road, with only a few hours a week at her desk. And still, that desk sitting empty for her felt like a marker of her value. 

I hear a related version of this at executive level too - the belief that a desk signals belonging, and that taking it away would damage culture. 

Here's the reframe I'd offer instead: fixed desks don't protect belonging. More often, they reinforce silos. Same seat, same people, same conversations. Every. Day. 

What I see shift when we loosen that up is people start overhearing different problems, and it challenges their thinking. They sit with a different team for an afternoon instead of sending an email nobody follows up on. They finally connect with someone from another floor they haven't met, despite both having worked in the same organisation for two years. 

Belonging comes from how people are included, how they connect, and how they're heard. Not from a nameplate on a desk. 

We solved hybrid work. We just haven't redesigned the office for it. 

Most organisations settled the "will people split their time between home and office" question a while ago. What's still unresolved is whether workplaces have actually evolved to fit that new rhythm - or whether everyone just went back to the same desks, at a lower density, and called it done. 

As an industry, our conversations have moved on to what's next, and they should - that's where the innovation lies. But that pace is exactly what's widening the gap. It's left a cohort of clients out of the room. Those in more traditional or regional industries, still highly attached to owning a desk as a form of identity. Still grappling with what this means for their people, their ability to compete for talent, and the balance between protecting culture and staying relevant in a fast-moving market. 

Moving this conversation forward is the right call. We need to be looking at what's next. It just can't come at the cost of failing to show up for the clients who aren't there yet. 

What I still ask myself, every time. 

One of my first clients to embrace an agile work model was moving from thirty-six offices to a space where nobody would own a desk. 

It was one of the most doubt-inducing projects I've worked on. 

❌ What if I've got this really wrong? ❌ What if this damages a business with a genuinely great culture? ❌ What if their people hate it and leave? 

Now, every time I start this conversation with a new client, some part of me is still asking myself those same questions. Is this approach genuinely right for them, or is it my agenda? Do I actually have the full picture of what this means for their people, their culture? 

With that first client, it didn't go the way I feared. Their culture didn't just survive the change - it thrived. Their agility didn't just show up in how people worked day to day. It showed up in hard numbers: revenue, and their ability to move through a major merger and several acquisitions without missing a beat. 

It reframed how I think about the fear clients - and I - bring to this decision. It's almost always about what they might lose. Rarely about what they could actually gain. 

And that's the game changer. Not closing the gap by pushing everyone toward the same answer - but making sure the clients still on the wrong side of it never stop being part of the conversation. 

If you're leading an organisation and sitting with these questions, let's chat. I'm not here to force an outcome either way; but to help you weigh up what's genuinely best for your organisation, your culture, and where you're heading.