Does WFH actually work? Depends on who you ask.

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issue #5

Kitchen table desks and closet offices. Banging pots for nurses at 7pm (wait, why the f*ck did we do that?!), and somewhere between the Zoom holiday parties and the sourdough phase, we started asking a question nobody had said out loud before: what if work and life could actually look different?

For a while, companies played along. "We don't care where you work" became the thing to say. That was six years ago.

Then slowly, then all at once, it reversed. Large companies mandating five-day return to office (RTO) policies. Come back or your job is gone.

But does a desk actually equal productivity and culture? Or are people hiding from growth on their couch while others are being pushed out of careers they worked hard to build?

In this issue I get into it: who RTO actually serves, who it hurts, and what it means for your business.

Let's dive in ↓

The great office return keeps surging. But who is it actually for?

TLDR: RTO mandates are back in full force, the research on productivity is mixed, and the people suffering most are your best potential hires.

What's actually happening

61% of U.S. companies now have formal RTO policies and the list keeps growing.
The justification is always productivity, but Stanford found a 10 to 20 percent productivity decrease for fully remote work while 87.9% of workers rate their productivity as high with location flexibility, versus just 22.3% in office-only settings. Both things are true. It depends on the role, the person, and the work.
What the data does agree on: job satisfaction dropped significantly at companies that issued mandates, and nearly half reported regrettable talent loss after implementation.
And the part no one says out loud: 25% of executives admit they hoped RTO would push some employees to quit. Fewer people to lay off. Less severance to pay. GROSS.

HERE IS WHERE I STAND

Who should go back? Some people, genuinely.

Early-career employees learning a craft. Roles that require rapid collaboration and real-time problem solving. People who struggle with isolation or whose home is not a productive space. Mentorship does not happen on Zoom the way it happens in a hallway, and if you are new to your field, in-person time matters for your development in ways that only become obvious a few years too late.

Who suffers under blanket mandates? A lot of people.

RTO disproportionately pushes out working parents, caregivers, and people with disabilities. From January to June 2025, workforce participation for mothers of young children fell nearly three percentage points, the largest mid-year drop in more than 40 years. Among women who voluntarily left, 42% cited caregiving as their reason.

These are not underperformers. They are experienced, senior-level contributors who have been told their lives do not fit the new schedule.

Who actually benefits from RTO? Mostly executives who want control.

Research shows RTO mandates are more likely in firms with male, powerful CEOs who feel they are losing visibility over remote employees. The word is control, not productivity.

Meanwhile…76% of companies report greater employee retention by allowing remote work, and 84% say flexibility lets them fill roles they otherwise couldn't.

The companies winning the talent game are not the ones with the nicest offices. They are the ones with the clearest policies and the trust to let people work in ways that get results.

What this means for you: 3 takeaways

Flexibility is your competitive advantage. You cannot out-salary Amazon. But you can offer what they have decided not to: autonomy. If your business can accommodate remote or hybrid work and you are not saying that explicitly in your hiring materials, you are leaving talent on the table. "We offer flexibility because we trust you to get the work done" is not a small statement right now. It is a differentiator.
The talent being displaced is some of the best available. High-performing workers are more likely to leave over RTO mandates, while less marketable employees tend to stay. The companies issuing rigid mandates are keeping their B players and losing their stars.
Be intentional about your own policy, whatever it is. If in-person serves your work, own it and make it worth showing up for: real culture, real mentorship, not performative desk time. If you can flex, hold people accountable to outcomes, not hours. The worst version is saying you are flexible and then quietly penalizing people for using it.

Pick one. Do it by Friday.

Get honest about your own model. Are you requiring in-person time because it serves the work, or because it is what you have always done?Clarity attracts the right people for your business.
If you are hiring, this is your moment. Experienced people are walking away from five-day mandates right now, not because they stopped caring about their careers, but because the policy stopped working for their lives. Post your openings with your flexibility front and center.

The bottom line

There is no universal answer to returning back to the office. The only wrong move is making the decision without intention. Know what your business needs. Know what your team needs. Build from there.

From my couch-desk, 🛋️

Jordyn

KEY SOURCES:

WFH Research: Why Working From Home Will Stick: the most comprehensive ongoing dataset on remote work
Catalyst: Caregiving and the Great Exit: 2025 data on why women left the workforce
Wharton at Work: High-Stakes RTO Mandates: what the research actually shows
Founder Reports: Return to Office Statistics 2026: current mandate tracker and employer data

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