Return to Office Mandates Will Not Fix Productivity. Smart Infrastructure Will. As Featured in Entrepreneur UK.
- Chris Gore
- May 3
- 5 min read
SPOR Group CEO Chris Gore writes in Entrepreneur UK: return to office mandates fail without strategy, technology and proper implementation
Chris Gore \ Updated 2026
Press Feature
This blog is based on an article written by Chris Gore, CEO of SPOR Group, published in Entrepreneur UK on 29 April 2026. The original article is live at the link below.
SPOR Group CEO Chris Gore was featured in Entrepreneur UK this week, writing about one of the most consequential business decisions organisations are making right now: how to bring people back to the office without losing the ones who adapted well to working from home.
The piece makes a case that most return to office strategies fail not because the goal is wrong but because companies execute steps one and three while completely skipping step two. Strategy, technology, implementation. The middle one is where most organisations are falling short.
Why Most Return to Office Strategies Are Failing
Post-pandemic, employees flooded back into offices that were never designed for the way they now need to work. Companies commissioned consultants, analysed commuter data and built detailed policies. What very few of them did was upgrade the technology that employees would use when they got there.
The issue is a straightforward one. During 2020, employees became their own technology managers. They tested their own connections, ordered their own equipment, set up their own spaces and got on with the job. The home environment worked because they made it work and because necessity moved at pace.
When those same employees return to an office where the meeting room AV requires three attempts to connect, where the camera is pointing at the ceiling and where the audio drops out mid-call, they have a valid argument that they work better from home. And the data that was used to justify bringing them in cannot be trusted if the environment that data was supposed to improve is not fit for purpose.
The Three Steps and the One That Gets Missed
Step one: Strategy
What does the goal look like and what will shape it? This is where most organisations spend the most time and often do the best work. Defining the objective, understanding the workforce, modelling the attendance patterns. The strategy work is visible, measurable and presentable to a board. It gets done.
Step two: Technology, the one that gets missed
This is the step that most organisations overlook entirely. They focus on encouraging people back and rely on data to justify the decision, but they fail to upgrade the technology stack to support the new way of working. Pre-COVID setups will not meet current expectations. The office is now a hybrid environment. The meeting rooms need to work for people in the room and people on the call simultaneously, reliably, every time.
Employees are rightfully demanding more. Office design, the right fit-out, furniture, AV and infrastructure all play a vital part in showing employees that their new environment works for them rather than against them. When AV systems are unreliable, requiring constant reconnections or causing missed meetings, the mandate loses its credibility. For more on what a properly specced meeting room environment looks like, read our guide to why your AV budget is probably wrong.
Step three: Implementation
Implementation must align with both the overall strategy and the specific needs of different teams. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Get this wrong and the strategy fails regardless of how strong it looks on paper. Without clear and effective implementation at site level, no amount of data or commuter analysis will make a meaningful difference.
The consequences of getting implementation wrong are serious. If the first time someone acts on the return to office mandate the technology in the meeting room does not work, the business has lost the employee in more ways than one. They now have a valid argument that they work more effectively from home. The data used to justify the return cannot be trusted. And the strategy itself looks poorly conceived and executed.
Is Your Office Technology Ready for the Return to Office?
SPOR Group designs, installs and monitors workplace AV technology for businesses across the UK. Start with a conversation about what your offices actually need.
What Employees Are Demanding Now
The hybrid model worked for most people. It offered flexibility where there had been none for years. Productivity held. The mental load of commuting every day to an office that did not function at a strategic or technological level was reduced. Employees adapted quickly. They became proficient at managing their own technology.
What they are demanding from employers now is the same level of infrastructure and pace of delivery that companies demonstrated in 2020 when the entire workforce was sent home. Nobody waited for a board meeting to approve a laptop policy. Equipment was ordered and delivered in days. It worked because it had to.
Employees want the same urgency applied to the return to office environment. Meeting rooms that are monitored remotely and are confirmed working before anyone walks in. Office design built to support technology rather than to look impressive in a property brochure. And above all, actual commitment to delivering an environment that works consistently rather than sporadically.
The Solution Is Not Complicated
The solution Chris outlines in the Entrepreneur piece is not complicated. Ensure the technology works consistently and reliably without friction. Address issues proactively and minimise downtime. This is what drives productivity, not the mandate itself.
SPOR Group delivers the technology layer that makes return to office strategies work at a building level. Every meeting room commissioned properly before handover. SPORTrack monitoring every connected device in real time, confirming rooms are online and optimised before the team walks in. Infrastructure designed around the strategy rather than procured as an afterthought.
The full article is worth reading. It lays out the three-step framework clearly and explains why the organisations currently struggling with return to office are almost always the ones that moved straight from step one to step three. Read it on Entrepreneur UK.
For more on the thinking behind workplace technology strategy, read Buildings Are Broken. Here Is How to Fix Them.and Your Office Is a Living Organism. Are You Treating It Like One?.
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