As the hybrid work conundrum continues to play out, it’s refreshing to read something novel.

Unworking is a ‘just-in-time’ read for anyone interested in the future of the office. It’s progressive and provocative, presenting a new vision for both hybrid work and co-located working. Starting with an illuminating history of office-based working, Myerson and Ross provide a distilled analysis of the limitations of conventional office design in the knowledge economy age.

Most importantly, they consider a comprehensive suite of work trends to present options for the future of the office that play to the socio-cultural shifts of the Internet age. They write:

“Office planning and design used to be primarily about what people do at work; today it’s all about what they feel about work.”

Success in the future of work is as much about emotion, connectedness and belonging as it is about agility, speed, metrics and outputs. Those employers willing to invest in the intangible soul work of building and sustaining human-first business cultures are most likely to withstand the tests of the coming decades.