Legal Roundtable: What Do Employees Really Want? Reframing the Workplace in the “Age of Experience”

This article captures key insights from our latest roundtable hosted by Chris Moriarty (Audiem). The panel featured legal and workplace experts including Tim Rayner (Hill Dickinson), Peter Brewer (HCR Law), Merissa Bend (Obtain), Guy Barnett (Consultant), Dipika Mistry (Weightmans), Kym Robertson (Audiem), and Adrian Gleeson (Rhino Interiors Group).

The current expectations employees have around the workplace are possibly the most divided they’ve ever been. With a split of workers being accustomed to a non-negotiable five day working week in the office mixed with the new wave of younger workers who see working from home as a standard, not a luxury, the rules of engagement in the workplace have changed.

This change is a fundamental shift in how employees view coming into the office and what their working environment does for them. Plus, there is now an acknowledgement that the office is just one of many places work can happen, not the only place to work. With this shift impacting industries in various ways, we wanted to understand how the legal sector, which has been defined by traditional desk-based work in years gone by, is adapting to new expectations of the office.

To explore this question, we brought together legal and workplace professionals for a roundtable conversation that would promote debate, challenges and the opportunity for leaders to share their insights. What emerged was a clear consensus that the desired experience of the workplace is evolving and that the changing views of the workplace are so stark that the office must now earn its place in people’s lives.

What do we mean by workplace experience?

To help us shape our conversation we wanted to establish a definition of what we mean by workplace experience. This would then help us move towards the type of environment, or features within an environment, that would shape employee requirements.

By “workplace experience,” we mean the sum of elements — environment, technology, culture, and emotional impact — that shape how employees feel about where they work but we also agreed that it is not just how an office looks, but how it feels to use. As with many things like experience, it is difficult to nail down one single element that bears sole responsibility and there were a number of ideas shared that demonstrated workplace experience is developed by a number of factors.

The way to achieve a strong workplace experience requires time and consideration as it doesn’t just suddenly appear. Many of our current methods limit us to ‘star ratings’ and feedback forms which help build the picture, but they only tell part of the story. There is a need to dig into what people are saying and understand their needs on a more personal basis. This itself can be limiting and difficult to achieve but the important discussion we had was that people want meaning, and to feel like they’ve been acknowledged. Being seen in the workplace today is becoming increasingly difficult due to hybrid working but part of the secret to creating a great workplace experience comes from people being listened to and incorporating their needs into the workplace.

The Workplace as an Experience

After arriving at the definition we needed as a foundation for the roundtable, it became apparent that workplace experience is certainly more than just ‘things we want to see in an office’. One of the brilliant ideas shared was ‘the experience economy, and how the workplace is seen as an experience, not just a location you’re expected to go to.

The term ‘the experience economy’ was defined by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore as the shift from selling products and services to selling memorable experiences to customers.  This economic shift from valuing a physical thing to valuing the way a thing makes you feel is highly relevant to the current state of the workplace in 2025. In this example which would usually refer to customers, instead responds to employees. It is the employees that are searching for a meaningful experience from the workplace – a huge leap away from the necessity of working a 9-5 job at a desk.

As Chris Moriarty from workplace analytics platform Audiem put it, “People exchange time, effort, and energy for value. If they don’t feel it, they will become disengaged.” That value equation has shifted. Commuting into an underwhelming office with bad coffee, glitchy Wi-Fi and no sense of community simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

“The sacrifice-to-value ratio is off balance when commuting to a sub-par office.”

Chris Moriarty, Audiem

While these basic level provisions don’t cut it, Peter Brewer explained that experience-led ‘perks’ are, or should be, viewed as strategic inclusions within an office that mean employees are in the building for longer.

Peter referenced Allen & Overy who provide gyms or swimming pools and other facilities in their locations as a way of keeping people in the building longer and in turn, working longer. Merissa Bend from Obtain stated that “COVID gave people a new kind of presence – they realised they could work, and be present elsewhere.” This creates a huge challenge for businesses trying to communicate the benefits of being in the office as the more time you spend working and being present elsewhere, the less compelling the workplace becomes.This is where office design and workplace experience has a big role to play. In days gone by, employees may not wish to stay in the office for longer than necessary but particularly Post-COVID, employees are calculating whether it is worthwhile commuting to the office and how much that benefits them. This is a weighing up of time, and money, which can be hard to justify if the experience levels are not present.

It is also important to consider the difference in requirements or preferences across different generations as we have to be conscious of providing experiences that accommodate younger workers as well as older workers. Dipika Mistry who works in Family Law at Weightman’s shared her personal experiences of her own children and their views on what a great workplace looks like. Dipika said that the new generation wants “snacks, social energy, and [they look at] the overall vibe of the workplace.”

Developing an understanding of what people actually want comes from talking to them and engaging on what creates a great workplace experience, or conversely what doesn’t make the experience level as high as it could be. We know that employees expect comfort, hospitality and belonging which goes beyond just having a desk to work from.

Is the office still valuable?

These ideas are poignant and relevant to the current landscape but many legal practices are aware of the need to offer more amenities and facilities already. One of the missing pieces is the requirement to communicate the benefits of being in the workplace and correctly position the value of the office. It is not simply a case of wanting people to be in, it needs to offer real developmental progression on top of adhering to a preferred working style.

As remote work handed employees greater choice and control over their environment and schedule, their expectations grew. The knock on effect this has had on offices, particularly for the organisations mandating specific days in the office, is that offices have to prove their worth. This debate takes shape in many ways and sayings like ‘earning the commute’ are all based on the same idea that offices should provide staff with an experience they cannot get anywhere else.

For Tim Rayner at Hill Dickinson, this means offices must prove their worth. “If businesses can’t offer a clear reason to be in, why pay for the space at all?” he asked. “Junior staff, in particular, may not see what’s missing until it’s too late.” This spontaneous mentoring, social learning, and quiet confidence-building are hard to replicate online and one of the key elements of in-office development for young workers. This raises the question that maybe we should be asking a different question; instead of is the office still valuable, should we be asking whether people still understand the value of the office?

Defining Work-Life Balance in a Hybrid World

It was clear during our discussion that employees want a better work-life balance within the legal sector but the challenge that remains is how to find that balance. One of the reasons it’s so difficult to find the balance is that it’s a phrase that can mean different things to different people and businesses.

A great example of this variance in balance and what it looks like was evident on the roundtable. On one hand we had Adrian Gleeson and Peter Brewer both sharing their own experiences of Birmingham and other offices in different cities where “signs of recovery and renewed energy in city offices” were evident and that “people have found their rhythm”. Meanwhile, Kym Robertson at Audiem shared her insight on ‘Fridays and Mondays are still quiet” with Merissa Bend agreeing that “Mondays and Fridays are ghost towns.”

“Offices are buzzing again. Walk through Birmingham or Manchester on a Friday and you’ll feel it.” Peter Brewer, HCR Law

The poignant discovery here was that we’re all seeing different things – whether that is purely on perspective, job role/sector or even other factors like geography, there is not a singular experience or view point. This is so important to remember in the process of discovering what employees really want as it is not as simple as asking what another company is doing because that may not apply to how your team works.

Even though all guests weren’t in agreement on this point, it was a fantastic example of how people working in the same sector can see totally different things. However, one thing we were in agreement on is that boundaries have been erased and this ‘always on’ culture where work is essentially everywhere, provided we have our laptops and/or a mobile phone, means that balance is even harder to find. As Barnett reflected, “we traded in structure for freedom but we lost the off switch.” Now, employees are seeking a balance — one where the workplace supports wellbeing as much as productivity. By looking at the idea of balance from this perspective, it was clear that the office needed to become less about making a statement and more about making it inviting and practical.

Designing for Humanity: The Future of Workspaces

Throughout our discussion, there was one topic which kept coming up in various ways that feels like the true conclusion of what we were trying to establish. When tackling questions like ‘what do employees really want?’ you immediately try to think of a tangible solution, something that you can create or purchase that solves the need. Where the discussion landed was that we don’t need flashy offices, they need to be functional, intentional, and human.

As city centres come alive again and workplace patterns stabilise, organisations face a choice: rebuild the status quo, or reshape the workplace around people’s real, lived experiences. This is where office design is positively impacting organisations as there are only so many design features you can create to improve a workplace, but through humanising spaces you can transform an environment.

By designing spaces that support trust, culture, comfort, and care, people will be able to unlock performance and productivity. The modern workplace must go beyond aesthetics — it must be responsive, intentional, and rooted in human needs. By listening and designing thoughtfully, we can create work environments that people don’t just use, but value.