An Ode to the Office

For the last four years, most of us here have enjoyed the joys and freedoms of WFH/hybrid working. Personally, I feel fortunate timing-wise; with two young daughters, it has given me opportunities to spend much more time with them than I ever thought possible.

As a relatively old man in the game, I feel I could comfortably get on with my work even in a fully remote working environment. But do I think I would have got to where I am if I had started off in a hybrid world? No, I do not.

I remember joining Fluid as an intern and having my mind blown by what my new colleagues were doing with the Adobe holy trinity ??. Fortunately, they were more than happy to share their knowledge every time they walked past my desk and saw me struggling or taking a longer route, and I absorbed it all. I felt I learnt more in my first week than in three years at university.

The amount of readily available YouTube tutorials is, of course, a good alternative, but if you naively think you're doing it the most efficient way, you probably won't think to look.

This experience taught me the value of being a bit nosy and trying to help others along the way, something I try to instil in the team here at Inkling. Even if it’s not your “job” or your “client”, you can still add value and make a difference.

At my first job in London, I spent too much time in the office.

As a designer out to prove myself, I was grabbing every job I possibly could and set a terrible precedent for myself by working late most nights. I found myself gravitating towards people with similar “values” and thus helped create a perpetual cycle of staying late to get on with work, just because your mates were doing the same.

This, of course, is not ideal, but it did give me a great deal of exposure to the founder and senior directors, who would also put in extra effort to make sure we got things just right. They learned to trust me to do the same, which opened more opportunities to change my direction and grow into a role I hadn’t even considered.

This taught me another invaluable lesson: put faith in junior members of the team across all levels of the business to get the best outcomes, be it client work or team growth. This is certainly how we do our very best work here at Inkling. We try our best (and quite successfully, might I add) to ensure the team aren’t pulling late ones on the regular.

The third benefit of office life, and possibly the most important, is the friendships you can forge.

Be it the late nights to finish a pitch, the team Greggs-run after a night out together, or just the occasional shared passion discovered through a playlist selection, the office is a hotbed for meeting like-minded souls and creating a human connection.

These bonds, as pointed out in Mintel’s 2024 Consumer Trend Report, can be hard to achieve through a screen. As such, we find ourselves in a year where the Relationship Renaissance is a key trend us marketeers need to be aware of: “Consumers who find comfort through screens at the cost of meaningful, real-life relationships will seek new forms of intimacy for the sake of their physical and mental health.”

In conclusion, while the flexibility and convenience of WFH and hybrid working are undeniable, the office environment offers some unique advantages that are hard to replicate remotely. From spontaneous learning and mentorship opportunities to building strong relationships and friendships, the office plays a crucial role in personal and professional growth which we all must make the most of.

However, as mentioned at the start of this newsletter, I realise I’m an old man in the game. So this millennial would love to hear more opinions from the Boomers and the Gen-Zs about if they share the same experiences and feelings towards The Office.

How is hybrid working for you?