Paolo, many companies are requiring employees to return to the office five days a week. What’s your take on that?

Oh, the return to the office mandate—it’s like watching companies cling to a relic of the past, desperately trying to pull everyone back into a model that no longer fits the world we’re living in. Forcing employees to go back to the office five days a week is not just a logistical move; it’s a power play. It’s about control, about trying to regain a sense of structure that frankly, has become outdated.

Here’s the thing: the world has changed. The pandemic wasn’t just a temporary disruption—it exposed the cracks in the traditional workplace model. It showed that people don’t need to be physically present in an office five days a week to be productive. In fact, many were more productive, more engaged, and more fulfilled working remotely, with the flexibility to balance work and life in a way that suits them. Companies that are now mandating a return to the office are ignoring this reality and trying to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.

To me, this push to return to the office feels like a refusal to evolve. It’s driven by conventional thinking—the belief that productivity can only be measured by physical presence, by people being seen at their desks, working from 9 to 5. But the truth is, that model was inefficient even before the pandemic. The traditional office structure was designed for a different era, one where proximity equaled control, and control equaled productivity. But now we know that freedom, autonomy, and flexibility can create even greater results.

Forcing people back to the office is also tone-deaf to the needs and desires of the modern workforce, especially Gen Y and Gen Z. These generations don’t want to go back to the old way of working—they’ve tasted the freedom of remote work, the flexibility of crafting their own schedules, and they’re not interested in giving that up. For them, the office isn’t a symbol of productivity; it’s a restriction. It’s a constraint on their ability to work when, where, and how they perform best.

So, when companies push for a full return to the office, they’re not just asking employees to come back—they’re sending a message: “We don’t trust you to be productive unless we can see you.” And that’s demoralizing. It shows a lack of vision, a lack of trust, and a refusal to embrace the future of work, which is all about flexibility, creativity, and autonomy. The companies that thrive in the future will be the ones that trust their employees to work on their own terms, not the ones that force them back into a system that prioritizes control over innovation.

My idea is this: flexibility is the future. The companies that insist on returning to five days in the office are setting themselves up for a talent exodus. The best and brightest won’t stay in environments that feel like cages. They’ll go to places that value their autonomy, where results matter more than where you physically are.

If companies want to stay competitive, they need to rethink what the workplace looks like—not as a place where bodies are, but as a space for creativity, collaboration, and innovation that doesn’t depend on presence but on trust and outcomes. They need to offer hybrid models or fully remote options, and trust their employees to be responsible for their own work.

In short, the five-days-a-week mandate? It’s a backward step. It’s a refusal to embrace the future of work, and the companies that keep pushing it are going to lose out to those that understand the new reality: freedom is productivity. The office should be a tool, not a prison.