The friction economy: New York’s real workplace problem
New York’s return-to-office debate has stabilised, but new research from Macro and WORKTECH Academy reveals a deeper challenge around operational friction
For the past few years, the conversation about New York’s offices has revolved around how many days a week employees should be expected to attend. Financial institutions, professional services firms and global corporates have pushed attendance expectations towards four- and five-day weeks, all while continuing to invest heavily in premium workplaces, hospitality-led amenities and smarter buildings.
New research from Macro, produced in partnership with WORKTECH Academy, argues that this framing misses the point. Drawing on a survey of 246 workplace leaders across New York and an executive roundtable of 13 senior figures from corporate real estate, facilities management, hospitality and workplace strategy, ‘The Friction Economy’ report makes the case that New York does not have a return-to-office problem, it has a friction problem.
A gap between intent and reality
The research finds that employee frustration with the office is rarely caused by one dramatic failure. Instead, it builds through the accumulation of small, recurring points of friction such as unreliable technology, slow response times, noise, and poor environmental comfort. Just 6% of respondents reported experiencing no workplace friction at all.
The three biggest sources of friction identified were noise and distraction (26%), workplace technology failures (24%) and slow response to workplace issues (24%). Almost 40% of senior leaders said their workplace strategy is now designed primarily to optimise employee experience, ahead of cost efficiency or real estate optimisation. Yet 32% still name workplace experience itself as the biggest gap between what organisations intend and what employees actually encounter.
As one roundtable participant explained, employees increasingly benchmark the office against the frictionless convenience of the rest of their lives. The one-click economy of food delivery, transport and entertainment in their daily lives serves as the new benchmark for workplace convenience. Judged against that standard, many New York offices fall short – not through lack of investment, but because that investment rarely reaches the operational layer that determines whether a workplace actually works day to day.
The paradox of visibility
To explain the disconnect, the report introduces the Workplace Friction Index, a framework that maps investment across two axes: how visible it is to employees, and how much it actually shapes performance. The findings challenge the assumption in workplace strategy that the most visible investments are also the most impactful.
Hospitality-led arrivals, wellness programmes and premium client suites sit in the high-visibility, high-impact quadrant, and rightly attract attention and budget. But the report argues that some of the greatest influences on workplace performance lie in the quadrant employees notice least: operational reliability. Technology that works. Temperature that stays stable. Cleaning that happens on schedule.
Why facilities management sits at the centre
This is where facilities management (FM) enters the story. The report positions FM not as the connective tissue between organisational intent, workplace design and operational reality.
Yet FM remains largely excluded from the decisions that create this gap in the first place. Just one in five respondents said FM was involved from the earliest stages of strategic planning, while 14% said it was brought in only after key decisions had already been made. The result, as one roundtable participant put it, is that ‘the workplace experience breaks down when every function optimises for itself…’
The report’s five recommendations for workplace leaders converge on the idea that workplace leaders should move beyond attendance as the measure of success. Organisations should audit friction systemically across the employee journey, bring FM into strategic conversations earlier, measure responsiveness and reliability rather than occupancy alone, and treat the workplace less like a fixed asset and more like a service that has to earn its use every day.
As New York continues to be a global benchmark for leading organisations, workplace performance will be measured on the small, accumulative moments that build trust and loyalty with employees every day and less on enforcing strict mandates.
Read the full report here.
