Growth rarely announces itself. One quarter you have three empty desks; two quarters later the intern is taking calls from the stairwell. The clearest sign your office no longer fits is when space itself starts shaping decisions — hiring slows because there's nowhere to seat people, or teams split across floors and stop talking to each other.
The second signal is meeting-room math. When a four-person huddle needs to be booked two days in advance, collaboration quietly moves to cafes and video calls, and the office stops doing its most important job: putting people in the same room.
Third, watch your operations load. If office admin — snacks, internet outages, AC complaints, housekeeping rosters — consumes more than a few hours of a leader's week, the office is now running you. Fourth, check your lease flexibility: if adding 30% headcount would force a renegotiation or a second address, the structure is wrong for your growth stage.
Finally, listen to your people. Rising 'work from home today' messages are often less about home and more about the office no longer being worth the commute. A workspace that fits — in size, location and energy — is one your team chooses. When several of these signs show up together, it's not a facilities problem. It's a strategy decision waiting to be made.
