Five years since the pandemic began, employees have become accustomed to a script. Their bosses make plans for a return to the office, which are then shelved. And then back on the shelf.
In recent weeks, calls to end remote work have returned with enthusiasm and authority.
On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order requiring heads of federal departments to “end remote work arrangements” and requiring all federal employees to return to in-person work five days a week. He previewed the measure in December when he said federal workers who refused to go to the office “would be fired.”
Some CEOs, who have long been enthusiastic about ditching remote work, have also announced full plans to return to the office. Amazon, JPMorgan and AT&T told many employees they would have to be in the office five days a week this year. Even in popular culture, the office is making a comeback, with “Babygirl” glorifying the CEO blouse, “Severance” returning for a new season exploring the psychological corporate drama, and buzzy newsletters like “Feed Me” declaring that remote working is 'off'.
And some employees, who have returned to in-person work of their own volition, are eager to return to their pre-pandemic work routines.
Two years ago, Ellen Harwick reportedly said she wanted to work remotely forever. Last fall a switch flipped.
Ms. Harwick, a marketing manager for a clothing brand in Bellingham, Washington, worked remotely in Portugal for two weeks while still working Pacific Time. Suddenly she started craving office chatter.
“Something just changed for me,” said Ms. Harwick, 48. “Working from home was really new at first, and then I just felt isolated.” She is now back in the office five days a week.
But many advocates of remote work, highlighting the benefits it brings to those with caring responsibilities, expressed concern about the flexibility disappearing completely.
“It's quite a challenge to find childcare that allows you to be in the office from 9 to 5,” says Sara Mauskopf, CEO and founder of Winnie, a start-up that connects families with childcare providers. Her business is completely remote.
Amazon's return to the office began on January 2, when the company ordered most employees to come in five days a week, up from the three days required starting in May 2023. In some locations the deadline has been postponed as the company redesigns the office space. . Andy Jassy, the company's CEO, told employees in a memo that returning to the office would better enable employees to “invent, collaborate and connect” with each other and with the company culture.
“Before the pandemic, it was not a given that people could work remotely two days a week, and that will be the case in the future,” Mr. Jassy wrote.
JPMorgan told employees that in-person work would support better mentoring and brainstorming. The company will begin rolling out its return to the office in March.
“We know some of you prefer a hybrid schedule and respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision,” JPMorgan wrote in a memo to employees. “We believe that this is the right time to consolidate our full-time approach in the office.”
Many labor experts point out that executives have been wanting to get people back into the office for some time, with the goal of building culture and relationships. What has changed, they say, is that employers feel they have more leverage now that the labor market is no longer as tight as it was at the height of the Great Resignation, when there were more open jobs than the number of unemployed.
“It becomes kind of a different dimension of reward: In a really tight labor market, workers get what they want more, employers may not pressure them to come back because they might want to quit,” said Harry Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University. “In a labor market where there is more slack, employers may be less concerned about this.”
Sometimes a return to the office has less to do with building an office culture and more to do with costs. Nick Bloom, an economist at Stanford University who studies remote work and advises executives on hybrid arrangements, said he had seen some companies pressure workers to return to the office as a way to reduce headcount. He realized that recalling all employees would encourage some to resign.
“The waning of the DEI movement has made it a little easier,” Mr. Bloom added, referring to the backlash to corporate diversity initiatives, explaining that in surveys, women and employees of color tend to express more support for remote work.
Despite these high-profile efforts to get workers back five days a week, many other employers are sticking with a hybrid approach.
Data from a Stanford project tracking work-from-home rates shows that more than a quarter of full-time paid days in the United States are worked remotely. And about three-quarters of Americans whose jobs can be done remotely continue to work from home some of the time, according to Pew.
One of the reasons hybrid work has remained so persistent is that employees have clearly expressed their preference for flexibility. Nearly half of remote workers surveyed by Pew said they would consider leaving their jobs if their employer no longer allowed them some remote flexibility. At Amazon, company employees staged a strike in May 2023 to protest RTO. Some employers said they had no plans to change course from hybrid arrangements.
“We are committed to bringing flexibility to the workforce and believe the hybrid-flex approach enables teams to work together with purpose,” said Claire Borelli, the chief people officer at TIAA, an investment firm that employs its employees three days a week shouted back to the office. week March 2022.
Some remote work stalwarts say the policy has had no impact on productivity and has helped employee retention. When Yelp's lease came up for renewal in 2021, the company decided to move locations and sublease a smaller space with Salesforce. The company is now offering employees the option to work fully remotely, bucking broader return-to-office trends.
“At this point we're almost dropping the definition of remote work – it's just the way we work,” said Carmen Amara, the company's chief people officer.
Ms Amara said any skepticism the company faced over its policies vanished thanks to the company's bottom line. The company reported record net sales and profitability in the third quarter of 2024, as well as a 13 percent decline in sales since 2021.
But with big names like Amazon and JPMorgan returning to the office in full force, and President Trump pushing for the federal workforce to do the same, the commercial real estate industry is optimistic for now, said Ruth Colp-Haber, the CEO of Wharton Property Advisors, a brokerage in real estate.
Office occupancy is still shaky — just over half of what it was before the pandemic — according to Kastle, a workplace security firm whose return-to-office barometer has captured the ups and downs of remote work since 2020 . what it was in 2022.
“It takes a while for these things to settle into the numbers, but there is no doubt that the momentum is on the positive side,” Ms. Colp-Haber said. “For a variety of reasons, including the push by large companies to return to the office five days a week, we are seeing increased demand for office space.”
