When I think back to my early years in practice, one of my first assignments was working late in a glassy tower where every desk was in perfect formation. The space looked impressive, but it didn’t feel alive. Conversations were hushed, the lighting was harsh, and there was nowhere to step away from your desk without feeling you were being watched. Unsurprisingly, turnover in that office was high - talented people came, delivered, and quickly left.

That experience has stayed with me. Now, after more than a decade leading design teams on commercial and residential projects, I’ve come to see office design not as a backdrop to work, but as an active participant in shaping how people behave, collaborate, and ultimately whether they stay with a company.

Good design doesn’t just create a nice place to sit. It builds culture. And culture - more than salary, perks, or job titles - is what determines retention.

1. The Psychology of Space

Humans are profoundly shaped by their environment. Think about how your mood shifts when you walk into a cathedral, a bustling café, or a quiet library. The same principle applies to workplaces. The layout of a floorplate, the height of ceilings, the acoustics, the texture of materials - these elements silently communicate values to the people within them.

An office that feels closed-off, rigid, and joyless signals a culture of control. One that feels porous, light-filled, and warm conveys openness and trust. Employees read these cues instinctively, and they respond in kind.

In one refurbishment I led for a media company in Soho, the biggest cultural shift happened not through new branding or leadership workshops but simply by reconfiguring the floor. We replaced a forest of partitions with shared tables, added a café counter in the centre, and softened the finishes. Within weeks, senior staff reported that silos were breaking down. People started lingering longer after meetings. That was the design working as an invisible manager.

2. Retention Is About Belonging

Most HR teams will tell you that the cost of losing a valued employee is staggering: recruitment fees, lost knowledge, slower delivery, disruption to teams. Yet so often the physical environment is left out of the retention strategy.

The truth is, people stay where they feel they belong. Office design can either support that sense of belonging - or undermine it.

Take simple elements:

Communal spaces that are genuinely comfortable, not just oversized corridors with a few sofas.
Personalisation of workstations so employees feel they have a stake in their surroundings.
Visibility of leadership in shared zones, signalling accessibility rather than hierarchy.

In one Chelsea townhouse conversion I worked on (adapted for a boutique investment firm), we integrated a kitchen table into the heart of the plan. At first, leadership worried it would feel “too domestic.” Six months later, they were hosting weekly breakfasts there. Staff told me that this one table, more than the salary bump they’d recently received, made them want to stay. It gave them a daily ritual of connection.

3. Designing for Diversity of Work Styles

One of the most damaging myths of open-plan offices is the idea that one layout suits everyone. In reality, the most resilient cultures give employees choice.

When I design offices today, I think in terms of neighbourhoods:

Quiet zones for deep concentration.
Collaboration hubs with writable walls and flexible furniture.
Casual lounges for chance encounters.
Wellness rooms for decompression or private calls.

This layered approach mirrors the way cities work: you wouldn’t expect every citizen to thrive in one identical building. Why would employees?

A tech client of ours in Shoreditch saw attrition among software engineers drop after we introduced small “focus pods” away from the social core. They didn’t leave because they finally had an environment that respected their need for uninterrupted flow.

4. The ESG Imperative

Culture today isn’t only about how employees feel inside an office, but also about how they perceive the company’s values. Younger generations in particular look closely at sustainability.

As an architect with a background in sustainable design, I see ESG not as a checkbox but as a cultural signal. When staff see reclaimed timber panelling, natural ventilation, or smart lighting that responds to daylight, they don’t just see eco-consciousness. They see a company making deliberate choices about its footprint. That alignment between corporate values and physical environment strengthens loyalty.

On a recent heritage refurbishment, we salvaged marble from the original lobby and re-set it into new meeting rooms. Staff loved the story: it connected them to the building’s past while projecting a sustainable future. Retention doesn’t get more powerful than that - people want to work for organisations with a narrative bigger than quarterly results.

5. Small Interventions, Big Impact

One misconception is that culture-shaping design requires vast budgets. Often, small interventions deliver disproportionate uplift in morale and retention.

Lighting: Swapping fluorescent strips for layered LED with warmer tones.
Acoustics: Adding felt wall panels or soft furnishings to dampen echo.
Biophilia: Introducing planting not only softens space but improves air quality.
Art: Commissioning pieces from local artists creates identity and pride.

At a law firm project, we replaced a sterile corridor with a series of small alcoves containing benches and shelves of books chosen by staff. Cost was minimal; the cultural impact was enormous. People lingered, talked, and began to identify the office as “theirs.”

6. Designing for the Hybrid Era

The post-pandemic shift to hybrid working has thrown design into sharp relief. If people can work from home, why come to the office?

The answer: because the office offers something home cannot. That might be the buzz of creative exchange, the reassurance of face-to-face mentoring, or simply the joy of being in a beautifully designed environment.

For one international hospitality brand, we created a “clubhouse” model: fewer desks, more shared lounges, better coffee, art-lined walls. Staff attendance, once patchy, rose steadily because the office became aspirational. They came in not out of obligation but because it felt like a privilege.

This is where retention and recruitment merge. A well-designed office isn’t just a tool for keeping people; it’s also a magnet for talent. When candidates walk in and instantly feel the culture, half the persuasion is done before the interview starts.

7. The Human Layer

Ultimately, office design isn’t about furniture, finishes, or floorplates. It’s about people. As designers and developers, we’re translators: turning a company’s values into spatial experiences that shape behaviour.

I’ve learned that the most successful offices don’t dictate culture; they enable it. They give employees permission to be themselves, to collaborate, to retreat, to connect. They send a daily message: You matter here.

And when people feel that, they stay.

Conclusion

Retention isn’t solved by ping-pong tables or glossy lobbies. It’s created in the quieter details: the curve of a stair that encourages eye contact, the softness of a chair that invites lingering, the daylight that tells you this is a place of life, not just labour.

As a Design & Development Director at Tabaco, my job is to balance beauty with commercial value. But the deeper reward is knowing that design can do more than increase asset worth. It can make people happier in their work. And in the end, that is the truest measure of value.

How Office Design Shapes Culture - and Retention