What Readers Want to See in the Workplaces of the Future

From mazes of cubicles to plentiful lush balconies , office designers keep re-envisioning spaces to support our professional lives. Not all of their ideas have been…work-friendly, shall we say.

We thought it would be productive to ask the workers themselves—in this case Wall Street Journal readers—for a little brainstorming to see what their employers could be doing better.

We asked, What office-design change would you most like to see?

Their responses covered a lot of ground, from workplace conventions to technology to the environment itself.

Put your phones away

Similar to a lunch break, I wish we could have a phone break each day. Staff members would place their phones in a box that would then be removed and face-to-face conversation would be encouraged instead.

This is an important cognitive disconnect. People are responding more slowly to face-to-face conversations as their minds alternate between concentrating on their device and in-real-life interactions.

This no-device speakeasy would be less structured around work and more like a hangout: Someone just kicks off a conversation and folks follow on.

• Desmond Latham, Pearly Beach, Western Cape, South Africa

No hoteling

One way companies could make the return to office smoother would be to have assigned offices and desks.

Having a consistent space provides employees with stability and a sense of belonging, rather than navigating the uncertainty of finding a spot each day.

• Gabriela Valdez, Prosper, Texas

Some place like home

I would like to see office buildings that blend seamlessly into residential neighbourhoods. I

nstead of towering corporate headquarters in city centers, companies would operate from house-like suites scattered across communities.

Employees could walk to work, bring their children or pets along, and enjoy flexible hours without the grind of daily commuting.

Walls would be lined with immersive video screens, allowing teams across the country to collaborate as if they were in the same room.

This model could save trillions in transportation costs, road construction and pollution while offering workers a healthier and more affordable lifestyle.

By eliminating the need for massive skyscrapers, corporations would redirect capital into smaller, interconnected hubs that foster community integration.

The environmental benefits are equally striking: fewer cars on the road, reduced emissions, and less strain on public infrastructure.

• Michael Lowery, Colorado Springs, Colo.

One size doesn’t fit all

I’d like to see a focus on the actual employees.

Why aren’t employers asking them what spaces they need to do the most productive work?

What environments are most conducive to enjoying the work they do? Private offices aren’t the answer for everyone but most workers need more than a traditional cubicle.

Same with artwork and furnishings. One size or style isn’t appealing to everyone.

• Nancy Sanders, Phoenix

Quiet, please

I want an actual functioning cone of silence at work. This would be used so workers that are on conference calls for many hours every day don’t disturb their co-workers with all of their talking.

At many firms, offices with hard walls and doors are only assigned to managers with a minimum number of direct reports.

I think they should be assigned instead based on how many hours a day the person is on conference calls.

And that’s not for the benefit of the projects they manage but for everyone else who otherwise has to listen to one side of a conversation for four to six hours a day.

I know many companies are enthusiastic about open-office plans, but I don’t know any engineers who like them, so many have no choice but to wear headphones and play music to drown out the distractions, which leads to isolation even in a well-populated office.

• Paul Egan, Milwaukee

Private time

I’m gobsmacked that there is no mention of bathrooms in these stories about future office design. If you want to get employees back to an office, offer more privacy there.

• Lisa Hale, Los Angeles

Double down on fitness

Standing desks are passé if not accompanied by an under desk treadmill.

• Taylor Archibald, Provo, Utah

Bring back the cubicle

I’d like to see a return to cubicles or small alcove-style workspaces and a step away from the fully open-office concept.

Open layouts were meant to spark collaboration, but in practice they often create constant noise, distractions and a sense of being “on display.”

Most knowledge work requires periods of sustained focus, and people do their best thinking when they have a bit of privacy and control over their environment.

Cubicles and alcoves don’t eliminate teamwork, but simply give employees a dedicated space to concentrate, recharge and hold quiet conversations without disrupting others.

When combined with designated collaboration zones, these semiprivate spaces create a healthy balance between focus and teamwork.

In a hybrid-work world, the office should be a place that enhances productivity and restoring a sense of personal space would help achieve that.

• James Wright, Grand Rapids, Mich.

A little colour

I’d love to see the addition of some colour. Any colour at all besides gray and beige. I’ve worked in offices for most of my life, and the “grayge” neutrals are suffocating.

I would also like to have more powered standing desks in the office. The hand-operated ones are too complicated or too fragile to allow for regular lifting and lowering. Every one I’ve had has broken.

• Tony Holmes, Prince William County, Va.

Keep us moving

I wish we had more flex space.

That would be where office designers create a variety of workspaces: standing desks, treadmill desks, quiet rooms, lounge areas, etc., so the team can move through different ergonomic worksites throughout the day and keep their bodies and minds flexible and active.

• Sam McNulty, Cleveland

Help us want to be there

I believe that companies should focus on how to make the workplace more comfortable, even homey.

We spend more of our time at the office than we do awake at home. The office therefore should be a place that one looks forward to going to.

This could be achieved with upholstery that shows the company cares that you’re there.

Comfortable chairs and desks, up-to-date technology, a subsidized kitchen and a dining room that invites collaboration and connection between co-workers.

• Andre Mora, Miami

Restorative options

We need nap areas, like pods or mini-bedrooms as well as gym and shower areas.

• Sara Jones, Hillsborough, N.C.

Let it shine

Get the private offices with doors away from the perimeter windows! Move those offices to the interior of the floor plates so more light can flood the workspace and everyone can look out the windows!

Our office was reworked this way and our copy/print/supply area ended up along a perimeter window.

Everyone looks outside while they wait for the print jobs to finish.

We also used low-rise desks so it’s possible to look out the perimeter windows from the private offices.

Our private offices are glass-doored and glass-walled, so there’s a lot of visibility throughout our offices.

• Andrew Skotdal, Everett, Wash.

The ultimate perk

I’m hoping for a coffee-delivery drone robot that lets me stay on a two-hour call without a BRB (Be Right Back) coffee break.

• John Dabbar, Oyster Bay, N.Y.

David Beckham was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday with Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan to promote their new partnership. But all anyone wanted to talk about was his son.

After the obligatory questions about business and the World Cup, a host on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” lobbed Beckham an out-of-left-field query about how young people can preserve their mental health in the age of social media.

“Children are allowed to make mistakes,” Beckham, 50, said. “That’s how they learn. So, that’s what I try to teach my kids, but you have to sometimes let them make those mistakes as well.”

Just a day earlier, his 26-year-old son Brooklyn Beckham had posted a series of accusations about his soccer-famous father and pop-star-turned-fashion-designer mother, Victoria Beckham.

He said that his parents had controlled him for years, lied about him to the press and sought to damage his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham. Their goal, he said, was to affect the image of a “perfect family.”

“My family values public promotion and endorsements above all else,” he wrote on Instagram. “Brand Beckham comes first.”

That brand has been burnished over decades of professional triumphs, tabloid scandals and slick dealmaking.

Recently, both David and Victoria Beckham put their legacies on-screen in docuseries that cast them as hardworking entrepreneurs and devoted parents. Their image appeared stronger than ever. Now their firstborn child is throwing stones.

Representatives for David Beckham, Victoria Beckham and Brooklyn Beckham did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Nicola Peltz Beckham declined to comment.

In the U.K., the Beckhams are as close as you can get to royalty without sharing Windsor DNA. David is perhaps the most famous English player in soccer history, while Victoria parlayed her Spice Girls fame into a career as a respected fashion designer.

Their partnership was forged in the cauldron of 1990s celebrity gossip, with their every move—in their careers, their bumpy personal lives and their adventurous senses of personal style—subject to tabloid scrutiny.

“They were Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce before Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce,” said Elaine Lui, founder of the website Lainey Gossip.

Over time, the couple became savvy managers of their own brand, a sprawling modern empire including a professional soccer team, fashion and beauty lines, investment deals and commercial partnerships.

In recent years they each released a Netflix docuseries—“Beckham” in 2023, “Victoria Beckham” in 2025—featuring scenes from their private family life. (Brooklyn and Nicola appeared in David’s series, but not Victoria’s.)

“The way they’ve performed their celebrity has been togetherness,” Lui said: Appearing and engaging with the world as a happily married couple, in both relative calm and amid scandal. And as their family grew, their four children became smiling ambassadors for Brand Beckham, too.

Until Monday night. In a series of Instagram Story posts, Brooklyn accused his parents of “trying endlessly to ruin” his marriage to Nicola, an actress and model, and the daughter of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz . Brooklyn declared, “I do not want to reconcile with my family.”

Where Victoria and David seemed to see press scrutiny as part of the job, Brooklyn and Nicola are operating in a manner more typical of their own generation. Brooklyn’s posts call to mind the “no contact” boundaries some children have enforced with their parents in recent years to much pop-psych chatter.

Andrew Friedman, managing director of crisis communications at Orchestra, said he’d advised many clients through family drama. “Going public,” he said, should be a “last resort.”

He’s also warned clients that using social media to air grievances opens a can of worms. “Nuance is not welcome in social-media feeding frenzies,” Friedman said. “Sensational and unusual details will overshadow the central issue.”

Brooklyn, the eldest of the Beckhams’ four children, has built a following in his parents’ image, though without the benefit (or burden) of a steady career.

He’s worked as a model, photographer, cooking-show host and most recently founded a hot-sauce brand. Brooklyn and Nicola went public with their relationship in 2020 and married in a lavish 2022 ceremony at her family estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

Rumors of a family feud flared almost immediately after the wedding, including whispers about the fact that Nicola didn’t wear a dress made by her fashion-designer mother-in-law.

Brooklyn on Monday recounted further grievances related to a mother-son dance and the seating chart. In the months and years that followed, celebrity journalists and fans closely tracked both generations of the family, looking for cracks in the relationship.

But official dispatches from Beckham World suggested that things were just fine. In a scene from the final episode of David’s Netflix series, the Beckham family, including Brooklyn and Nicola, joke around on a visit to their country home. It’s a picture of familial bliss.

“We’ve tried to give our children the most normal upbringing as possible. But you’ve got a dad that was England captain and a mom that was Posh Spice,” David says in voice-over.

“And they could be little s—s. And they’re not. And that’s why I say I’m so proud of my children, and I’m so in awe of my children, the way they’ve turned out.”