For decades, the measure of work has been presence. The assumption was simple: if people were in the office, they must be working. The sight of busy desks, full meeting rooms, and people tapping away at keyboards reassured managers that work was happening. Yet that assumption has always been flawed. And in the post-pandemic era, when office occupancy is being scrutinised more than ever, it is time we challenged the myth that attendance equals productivity.
The link between presence and performance is weak at best. Productivity is about outputs – what is achieved – not inputs such as hours spent or seats filled. When companies equate attendance with productivity, they risk optimising for the wrong outcomes. It can feel comforting to see people back at their desks, but comfort is not the same as performance.
The legacy of presenteeism
Presenteeism – the culture of staying visible at work regardless of actual contribution – has long been a drag on productivity. Employees clock long hours to prove commitment, not because they are achieving more. Studies have shown that presenteeism costs economies billions in lost productivity every year, as people show up sick, burned out, or disengaged, but still present.
Ironically, presenteeism was already being questioned before Covid-19. The pandemic then exposed its flaws more starkly. Teams delivered projects, signed deals, and supported clients from kitchen tables and spare rooms. Work carried on, often with fewer distractions, more focus, and in many cases higher engagement. That experience should have permanently broken the link between visibility and value.
Yet in 2025, some leaders are falling back on old instincts. Attendance mandates, daily badge scans, and occupancy dashboards are once again being used as performance proxies. The danger is that companies end up enforcing the wrong behaviours while ignoring the real enablers of productivity.
What really drives performance
The factors that drive productivity are well documented: trust, clarity, collaboration, and well-being. Employees perform best when they have autonomy, when their goals are clear, when they can access resources and expertise, and when they feel healthy and supported. These are outcomes of leadership and workplace strategy, not the by-product of attendance policies.
Trust is especially critical. When leaders trust their teams, performance thrives. When they don’t, they default to monitoring and control, which erodes motivation. Tying productivity to presence signals a lack of trust. It implies employees cannot be effective unless overseen in the office. That message undermines engagement and risks driving talent away.
Equally, collaboration is not guaranteed by co-location. People can sit side by side without sharing knowledge or ideas. Effective collaboration requires intentional design: spaces that encourage it, technologies that support it, and cultures that reward it. Attendance alone does not create collaboration – it only creates proximity.
Data without context
One reason attendance metrics persist is the abundance of data. Sensors, turnstiles, and digital booking systems generate endless charts on who comes in, when, and for how long. Dashboards look compelling, but they are often misleading. High attendance does not mean high performance, just as low attendance does not mean low engagement.
The danger of focusing narrowly on occupancy is that companies miss richer insights. Employee surveys, performance outcomes, client satisfaction, and innovation metrics provide a more accurate picture of workplace effectiveness. When organisations reduce workplace measurement to attendance, they are mistaking activity for achievement.
A new lens for workplace productivity
The challenge for leaders is to shift from measuring presence to measuring performance in a way that reflects modern work. That means adopting a new lens:
- Output, not occupancy – Judge productivity by what is delivered, not where it is delivered.
- Experience, not enforcement – Create environments that people choose because they enable their best work.
- Trust, not tracking – Replace control mechanisms with clarity of goals and accountability for outcomes.
- Balance, not binaries – Recognise that hybrid models offer the flexibility to align individual and organisational needs, without reducing performance to a single metric.
Workplace strategy has a central role in this shift. Offices must be designed and managed as enablers of performance – places people choose because they add value. That means supporting focused work, energising collaboration, fostering community, and reflecting organisational purpose. When workplaces succeed in these areas, attendance follows naturally, and performance rises as a result.
Moving from myth to maturity
The myth of attendance as productivity is deeply ingrained, but clinging to it is costly. Companies that overemphasise presence risk disengagement, attrition, and even reputational harm. The future belongs to organisations that take a more mature view, recognising that productivity is complex and multi-dimensional.
This maturity involves integrating leadership, workplace design, HR policy, and technology into a coherent strategy. It requires measuring success through a balanced set of indicators, from employee experience and engagement to business outcomes and innovation rates. And it demands the courage to move beyond the comfort of visible busyness to the less visible – but more powerful – drivers of performance.
The return-to-office debate has obscured a simple truth: offices don’t create productivity, people do. When we stop confusing attendance with performance, we can start building workplaces that truly deliver it.
