The Controversy Over “Return to Office (RTO)”  Mandates – Mary T. O’Sullivan

By Mary T. O’Sullivan, MSOL, contributing writer on business

“A recent survey from ResumeBuilder found that 8 in 10 employers lost talent to return-to-office (RTO)mandates.” – Forbes

With many organizations recovering from the business climate of the COVID years, more employers in 2025  are beginning to require workers to return to the office (RTO) full time. Employers claim that RTO boosts collaboration, maintains company culture, and enhances mentoring and growth. Many employees also see RTO as a positive, a chance to increase facetime, develop relationships, and experience unique learning opportunities from insiders.

Problems arise when unrealistic expectations are foisted upon those people who obey the RTO rules, only to be disappointed when they arrive back on the job. Apparently, in many cases, not much foresight went into planning for people to come back to the office. In departments where over 50% of employees were hired as remote workers, crowded conditions dominate. Even parking lots get backed up, often with waits of 90 minutes to enter or leave. Some buildings had no janitorial staff, so employees found themselves cleaning toilets and hauling trash. Cramped office conditions led to hassles for workers handling confidential video or phone calls.

The RTO mandates that recently compelled federal workers back to the office have created other unexpected consequences. Aside from parking and janitorial woes, many federal buildings had been in disuse for years. Buildings had been stripped of the required utilities like internet, phone, and WIFI service. People arrived at the office ready to work only to find wires dangling from the ceilings, and phones randomly scattered on the floors. Desks, chairs, and other office furniture were missing. Working conditions, not being ideal, forced people to scavenge the premises for any kind of surface and seating they could find. Frustration ensued when remote workers, forced back into the office, now were compelled to conduct business by video anyway because their work colleagues, in some cases, were thousands of miles away.

The federal workforce isn’t alone in the confusion and misery created by RTO mandates. According to a study by Korn Ferry, an unnamed “large international company” was as unprepared as the government. Those employees who were mandated back to the office were disappointed to find a lack of sufficient space to do their jobs regardless of where in the building they searched. In order to secure a decent workspace, many workers arrived at the office two hours earlier than the regular start time. Employees’ social media sites lit up with multiple complaints about RTO policies. Workers were shocked to have to share desks; that there was no space for private work conversations; that there were not enough conference rooms for team meetings. The worry in the private sector, as in the government is that these disruptions could—at the very least—demoralize the workforce. “People are saying, ‘Are we coming back for this?’” says Dennis Deans, Korn Ferry’s vice president of global human resources.

A major complaint from all RTO employees is the resumption of the long commute, spending more money for gas, along with less flexibility, less personal time, childcare issues, and other inconveniences. The HR platform Deskbird found in their studies that “90% of office workers don’t want to return to the old ways of working”. And 80% of employers state that in 2024, they checked on employee attendance, maybe to prove that nobody’s slacking.

Under these conditions, it’s no wonder that there is employee resistance to RTO policies. Deskbird goes on to report that 96% of workers believe that remote and hybrid work are better for their mental and physical health. A new business buzzword has emerged to describe employee backlash to the mandatory traditional 9-5 Monday-Friday work week: “coffee badging”. Coffee badging is specifically designed to avoid company attendance policies. Employees badge in, drink coffee with co-workers and then leave to go back home. RTO backlash also shows itself as  “presenteeism”, where people are physically present at their desks, but not doing much else. It’s not that hard to pretend to be working.

The change in the daily routine of remote work, with flexibility, more free time, and no commuting could be enough to drive some people to quit. And although most companies won’t admit it, the RTO mandate, in many cases, is designed to do just that.

In fact, after announcing the RTO federal policy, President Trump said, “We think a very substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient. And that’s what we’ve been looking to do for many, many decades, frankly.” On a different occasion, Trump is quoted as saying “We don’t want them to work from home, because as everyone knows, most of the time they’re not working. They’re not very productive. And it’s unfair to the millions of people in the United States who are in fact working hard from job sites and not from home.” These statements emphasize the conception held by many employers who have mandated post-COVID. This attitude, shared by many employers, demonstrates a lack of trust, and suspicion that people need to prove that they are worthy of a paycheck.

Many large companies are following suit, demanding an RTO when layoffs and downsizing are in the plan. Amazon, Intel, JP Morgan Chase, Dell, and AT&T, have all announced required RTO for everyone. If people retire, quit, or take a voluntary layoff, there’s no severance pay, no uncomfortable performance conversations, and ensures the people that are left are loyal to the company. Morale and company branding damage aside, mandatory RTO has proven to be an effective solution for reducing head count.

There does seem some illogic when employers assume the same employees magically become more motivated and productive working in the office, forced against their will, after having worked from home for four or five years. In fact, the preponderance of evidence amassed since 2020 proves that the benefits of working from home, for both employers and employees, to be considerable. If the goal is to improve employee engagement, productivity, and company loyalty, the best solution is for both parties to work together to establish acceptable work arrangements. In this age of technology, there are enough platforms and devices to accommodate work from anywhere. The boss doesn’t have to be looking.

“A recent survey from ResumeBuilder found that 8 in 10 employers lost talent to return-to-office mandates. This has been a hugely debated topic in the business world post-COVID, as companies and their workers strive to find common ground with a preferred working arrangement.” – Forbes

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Mary T. O’Sullivan, Master of Science, Organizational Leadership, International Coaching Federation Professional Certified Coach, Society of Human Resource Management, “Senior Certified Professional. Graduate Certificate in Executive and Professional Career Coaching, University of Texas at Dallas.

Member, Beta Gamma Sigma, the International Honor Society.

Advanced Studies in Education from Montclair University, SUNY Oswego and Syracuse University.

Mary is also a certified Six Sigma Specialist, Contract Specialist, IPT Leader and holds a Certificate in Essentials of Human Resource Management from SHRM.