What One Founder’s Bold Call on WFH Tells Us

The debate about working from home has not gone away. If anything, this summer’s heatwave and school holidays have brought it back to the surface, with commuters, parents and business owners all weighing up where work should actually happen.

A recent piece in The Sunday Times put a sharp point on the argument. Linda Morey-Burrows, founder of the interior design and architecture practice MoreySmith, wrote candidly about her decision to bring staff back to the office full-time once pandemic restrictions lifted. It cost her a third of her team almost overnight. Years on, she has no regrets.

Her reasoning is simple: “a good office is not a factory.” It’s the place where a junior designer gets ten unplanned minutes with a director at the coffee machine, or two colleagues cross paths on the stairs and solve a problem neither of them had booked a meeting for.

(Source: The Sunday Times, 1 August 2026.)

Why this matters beyond one design studio

It is easy to read this as one founder’s personal stance. But it touches something bigger: how younger employees actually learn a trade. As routine, junior-level tasks are increasingly handled by AI, the informal, in-person mentoring that used to happen almost by accident is becoming one of the few ways left for graduates to pick up a profession properly.

There is data to back this up. Research from Bupa found that 38 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds say they feel lonely or isolated because of their work circumstances, compared with 24 per cent of the wider workforce. For many young people who started their careers during or after the pandemic, remote work has meant missing out on the everyday relationships that used to come with a job.

Not every business will take as firm a line as MoreySmith. But the underlying lesson is one we hear from tenants across our own portfolio: the office is no longer just somewhere to put desks. It’s a tool for culture, mentoring and connection, and the right space makes all the difference to whether that actually happens.

That is exactly what we think about when we manage our office buildings. A well-designed studio or serviced office with good light, a decent kitchen or breakout space, and room for people to bump into each other naturally can do more for a growing team than any policy document. Whether a business wants everyone in five days a week or a more flexible mix, having a space that supports real, in-person collaboration is what makes the office worth showing up for.

As a family-run, direct-from-landlord business, we work closely with our tenants to understand what they need from their space, whether that’s a small studio for a growing design practice or a larger office for a team building its next chapter. No agents, no middlemen, just a straightforward conversation about what will genuinely work for your business.

If you are rethinking your own workspace, or want to explore what a well-managed office could do for your team, we would be glad to talk it through.

Source: Linda Morey-Burrows, “I banned WFH and lost a third of my staff. It was worth it,” The Sunday Times, 1 August 2026. Additional data: Bupa UK workplace loneliness research.