In January 2026, an organizational transformation company made an announcement: mandatory return to the office, five days a week.
The reason was clear, or at least that's what they believed: "Culture is built in the office."
Two weeks later, three of its best consultants left. All of them with offers from competitors where they could work fully remote. The irony is brutal: in the name of "protecting the culture," the organization lost it.
This repeats itself in hundreds of companies. And it reveals an uncomfortable truth many organizations still don't want to look at: being in the office doesn't guarantee culture. In fact, in global post-merger contexts, rigid in-office requirements can be lethal.
We live in a corporate contradiction:
Real need: organizations need global talent to compete. That talent is distributed — in Singapore, Barcelona, or Buenos Aires.
Old belief: culture is built in the office, so if you want strong culture, you need people located in the same place all the time.
Operating reality: in a context of globally distributed teams, or even different offices in the same location, full in-office presence is operationally unsustainable. Asking someone in one location to work hours that aren't theirs — or, in M&A cases, to sit in an office designed for a different company — is a way of saying "you don't matter as a person."
The paradox is that the more organizations insist on in-office presence, the more talent they lose. And the more talent they lose, the more they insist on in-office presence because they believe it will "bond" whoever's left.
It's a vicious circle.
There's a deep bias in many organizations: remote work erodes culture. That without in-person presence, without seeing people face to face, cohesion falls apart.
But that confuses two different things: communication and physical proximity. It puts the responsibility on people, instead of recognizing that in a world that has changed radically, organizations need to reinvent how they build culture — with rituals, symbols, and artifacts fit for this new reality.
Culture isn't built because you see someone five days a week. It's built because:
All of that is possible remotely. In fact, I've seen organizations with distributed teams where culture is stronger than in some fully in-office ones.
The difference is in the design. Organizations that achieve solid remote culture do very specific things:
They don't say "come in five days." They say "here are the moments where we need to be together in the office, why, and how the rest of the time works." Typically, those moments are:
Onboarding: to build first relationships and trust.
Strategic planning: for deep, often complex conversations, or long-duration strategic exercises.
Conflict resolution: because it requires reading the emotional register during difficult conversations or handling matters tied to potential crises.
The rest of the time can be flexible, depending on the type of work or tasks in each role.
In short, the company should focus on communicating: "We're not asking for in-office presence to validate that you're working. We're asking you to be present in moments that genuinely require presence."
Many organizations fail remotely because they try to replicate office dynamics. If they do daily standups in the office, they also do them remotely. If they talk in the hallways, they think Slack replaces that.
Organizations that work well remotely build communication protocols that respect the fact that people are in different places. They document decisions, create spaces for asynchronous reflection, and let people participate in their own time zone without penalty, or with prior agreement when needed.
It's not "everyone comes in on Fridays." It's designed and planned: monthly collective reflection sessions; an annual retreat where the year's achievements and lessons are logged and the next one is planned; regular conversations between leaders and teams where things are shared openly. What matters is that they're intentional, not accidental.
In merger contexts, the tension between remote and in-office gets even more complex.
Imagine two companies at opposite extremes: company A worked 100% remote, while company B worked in-office all week. The companies merge, but the big question is: who defines the model?
If the in-office model wins out, they lose the talent from the remote company that chose that company precisely because it was remote — the rules of the game change. If the remote model wins out, the leaders of the in-office company feel they're losing the cohesion they built.
Both perspectives are right. Both cultures are real. Both worked. The key is to recognize that the context has changed, so neither one necessarily still works as-is — instead, this format needs to be rethought and redesigned based on the culture the company wants to build going forward.
The organizations that have succeeded in this process didn't get there by imposing a model, but because they:
Name the tension: they tell the truth — "We work differently, so we're going to design something new together that respects what's valuable in both cultures but is realistic for the new reality."
Run pilots; they don't decide for the whole organization overnight. They test models, listen to employees, and adjust accordingly.
Differentiate: it's not a single model. Some roles require heavy synchronous collaboration and need more in-office time, while others have more autonomy and can have more flexibility or even work fully remote.
Honor the diversity of preferences: again, it's about listening — accepting that segmentation and value proposition aren't necessarily by role but by people's preferences. Some want to be in the office, others don't. Some need one day a week, others one day a month. Building models that allow for that variety is how you take care of talent.
One company that did this post-M&A let each team define its own model, within shared parameters. The result: 90% satisfaction, talent retention, and productivity similar to or better than pre-merger levels.
There's something deeper in the insistence on being in-office: the need for control and the power of knowing.
Leaders who insist on in-office presence sometimes do it not because they believe it's best for the business, but because they need to feel in control. Seeing people working, confirming that "they're being productive" (as if sitting in a chair guaranteed that), or maintaining a certain culture through proximity.
But that's a luxury global organizations can no longer afford. If your culture requires people to be in a specific office to exist, your culture is fragile. If your culture is real, it survives geographic distance because it's coded into values, decisions, and rituals — not into seats.
Organizations that embrace more flexible ways of working gain:
Access to global talent: they aren't limited by geography. They can hire the best talent no matter where it's based.
Retention: talent values flexibility. When leaders respect how each person works best, loyalty grows.
Productivity: contrary to popular belief, well-designed remote work improves productivity. People are interrupted less, get more deep-focus time, and manage their time better.
Genuine inclusion: remote work brings in people who would otherwise be overlooked — the person with great ideas who doesn't speak up in groups, the parent who can't do a one-hour commute, the neurodivergent person who needs a different sensory environment.
What these leaders lose is the illusion that seeing someone work means they're engaged. They have to learn to measure by results, by impact, not by presence. However, one of their biggest challenges is learning to create the socializing spaces that used to happen naturally in person — around the coffee machine — in order to build bonds that go beyond screens and create real team.
In 2026, as M&A activity accelerates and competition for talent intensifies, the question leaders need to answer is: is my insistence on in-office presence because it's genuinely better for the business, or because it's what I know how to do?
Because if it's the latter, I have to tell you: you're shooting yourself in the foot. You're losing talent to competitors who understood that culture doesn't live in an office. It lives in people. And people today have options — and the power to choose.
The organizations that win in 2026 will be the ones that design work models that respect where and how each person works best, while building employee experience and a coherent culture despite the distance.
Because that's what talent needs today: freedom, purpose, and belonging. Not necessarily in that order.
By Mariana Socorrós, Partner at Olivia Spain.