Return-to-office mandates have a short shelf life. The companies seeing sustained attendance gains aren't relying on policy — they're investing in the on-site amenities that make in-office days materially better than home. Here's the stack that's actually working.
1. Reliable, good on-site food
The single biggest predictor of how staff talk about their office days. Workplace food infrastructure — a managed smart fridge with chef-made meals delivered multiple times a week, loaded on-site by a designated contact, with snacks and drinks loaded by Compound directly, all purchases app-based — covers breakfast, lunch and the late-afternoon snack window, every day, without staffing.
Layer a 30–50% subsidy on top and you've removed the daily £8–£15 lunch cost from the come-in-or-not calculation.
2. Genuinely working video-call rooms
If staff can't take video calls reliably from the office, the office loses to home for half their day. Enough rooms, good acoustics, fast Wi-Fi, easy booking.
3. Cycle storage, lockers and showers
Materially moves commute mode and cuts the friction of in-person work. Cheap relative to leasing value.
4. Real coffee
Sounds trivial; isn't. Bean-to-cup or proper machines, restocked properly, is one of the most consistently cited reasons staff come in.
5. Light, predictable social programming
Monthly drinks, occasional food trucks, quarterly socials. Light-touch. Doesn't replace daily amenity infrastructure — complements it.
6. Anchor days, then leave the rest alone
Two anchor days backed by the amenity stack above outperforms three mandated days with no investment. Staff come in to anchor days for the people; they come in on other days because the office is genuinely a nice place to be.
Where to start
Food usually moves first because it's the most visible and the cheapest to fix relative to attendance impact. Compound runs free scoping calls to model attendance impact for specific sites.
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