Sarah Davis is a Workplace Strategy Lead at HED and a National Thought Leader on AI + Workplace Performance. The workplace has long been misunderstood, and today, that misunderstanding is becoming a performance risk. As organizations push return-to-office mandates and refine hybrid policies, many are encountering employee resistance, declining engagement and a growing disconnect between how people work and how the office is best suited to support workers. This challenge is not simply policy-based.