Quit or Don’t, There’s No Escaping Return-to-Office Trends

As expected, employers perceive the return-to-office trends to be a good thing while employees are resisting being forced back to their office buildings. The distinct divide between employers and employees has never been as wide as it is on the matter of returning to the physical workspace and the divide is only likely to grow. ResumeBuilder recently found that 25 percent of employers plan to order employees to return to office in 2025, which doesn’t include the larger number of employers who have already mandated employees return to workspaces full-time. 

RTO’s increasing demands on employees are inevitable as organizations pursue productivity and project-oriented gains, but employees don’t seem to be on board with these unnecessary policies when they can work out of their homes just as effectively.

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Return-to-Office Trends Ensue Despite Risk of Losing Top Talent

The ResumeBuilder study spoke to 756 employers about the current return-to-office trends and how they feel about their implementation. The results showed that 1 in 4 employers are committed to increasing the required number of days at the office in 2025, despite losing talent due to policy. Half the companies require employees to work from the office 4-5 days per week. 

To break it down more accurately, 23 percent require employees to come in for 5 days and 26 percent require 4 days of work from the physical workspaces. In addition to this, 38 percent of employers already have policies that mandate three-day in-person work. These numbers make it very evident that employers prefer in-person and that preference is not about to change. 70 percent of companies will increase or maintain the number of days the employees work out of the office in 2025. 

The study was also able to capture RTO’s impacts on staff who have already been put through these policies. Of the employers who have enforced the policy, 8 in 10 lost talent at the organization. Of these, 14 percent lost a lot of talent and 36 percent lost some talent. Only 16 percent was able to say there was no talent loss as a result of the employer’s adherence to return-to-office trends. 

Despite these numbers, employers are not to be deterred. Many already have 4-5 day in-person work requirements, but 25 percent plan to ask employees to come in more frequently. They evidently perceive more benefits from having employees work from the office over any benefits from retaining said employees. These factors confirm an increase in return-to-office policies in 2025 as inevitable.

Why Do RTO’s Increasing Demands Affect Employees?

Of the respondents who participated in the return-to-office trends study, 21 percent claimed they were not going to ask employees to come in as frequently. Their reasons? 86 percent of them cited employee well-being as the top reason for the decision and they may be onto something with that detail. Employees have reportedly said that they prefer being rid of the stress of traveling to work or dealing with office politics, both things that reawakened as a result of return-to-office trends. 

A study by Pew Research found that 34 percent of workers who are currently working from home most of the time would like to do so all the time if possible which makes it obvious that there are benefits that they perceive from the experience of working from home. Of the teleworkers who were surveyed, 71 percent said working from their homes helped them with their ability to balance their work and personal lives. 

Not only that, 56 percent found it easier to get their work done and meet their deadlines, which is a key stress factor for most workers. The major downside to working from home was seen as the connection employees had with co-workers. Still, depending on what is important to employees, that factor may not be enough to make them return to the office in 2025. 

Will Employers Consider Ending RTO Mandates?

Many employers who are not considering making workers return to office in 2025 are doing so to save money on office space—approximately 49 percent of them according to the Resume Builder study. This reasoning makes sense as well, considering the large number of employers who have an extended lease on their office space and want employees to come back and utilize the space that is already paid for. 

This thinking is flawed to a degree as the employers only stand to lose more money on rehiring in addition to the money that has already been spent on the office building. Forbes claims that by 2028, we’ll see the end of RTO mandates and also witness “no-office” trends rise. When companies have their workplace leases come to an end they may perhaps realize the meaninglessness of investing in an office space that gets little use. “Unless management is dead set on making their employees miserable whatever the cost, there’s no reason to believe that RTO mandates will become nothing but memory by the turn of the decade,” the editorial states, and we’d have to agree.

Now that employees are staying on at their jobs rather than switching roles, some employers might see it as a good time to test the impact of RTO policies on staff as they are unlikely to move to new positions. This might work in the short term with employees staying on in their roles, but unhappy workers can never lead to productive work environments. Any gains from forcing employees to work from the office will be undone by their desire to be there at all. 

Of the employers joining the return-to-office trends, 7 in 10 provide incentives to convince workers to embrace the new policies. This is a good sign at least, as having employees voluntarily adhere to the rules is better than their submission out of pressure. Employers who do not plan to end RTO mandates should perhaps look into how they can communicate the benefits of returning to the office to their employees convincingly.

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