Jeremy Hunt today said workers will lose their “fizz and excitement” if they continue to work from home.
The former health secretary said people “need a bit of office banter” as he encouraged commuters to go back into work.
The senior Tory MP also said it was proving a “bit more of a struggle” to get people back into offices because some had found it productive not having to commute.
Downing Street has been encouraging people to go back to their offices as some parts of central London remain quiet following the coronavirus lockdown.
Mr Hunt told Sky News: “The big problem is all those jobs in city centres that depend on people going back to work.
“As someone who ran their own business for many years, there’s a creativity you get, a buzz in an office which you don’t get when you’re doing meetings over Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
“There’s only so long you can carry on working completely remotely or you start losing the fizz and excitement that you get in a really good work place.”
He added: “In any creative industry, you need that buzz of being near people, you need a bit of office banter, a bit of fun, bit of change from the home environment.”
It comes as Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said "more than half" of staff are "fully back in the offices" at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
She told BBC Breakfast: "But even then, we have capacity on how many people can be in a Covid-safe environment within our workplace."
Ms Coffey said that 799 of the department's 804 sites are open, and hoped that children returning to school would give parents more opportunities to go back to the office.
She added: "There'll be more opportunities for parents to go back into the office if that's what is the best thing for them and their employer."
The Prime Minister’s spokesman has said: "You can expect to see more civil servants return to the office over the coming weeks with the return of Parliament and children to schools.
"We've been clear with departments that they need to ensure Government workspaces are Covid-secure and permanent secretaries have been undertaking the work to return civil servants to the office or workplace."
