Stricter RTO rules face growing employee pushback, study finds

Despite a 12% rise in mandated office days since early 2024, actual employee attendance has increased by only 1–3%, as found in a Flex Report by Work Forward. 

This highlights a persistent gap between corporate Return-to-Office (RTO) policies and employee compliance.

Employers defend the necessity of RTO mandates, arguing that the isolation experienced during the pandemic era undermined the collaboration and innovation that requires in-person interaction, according to the report. 

For example, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon insisted that returning to the office five days a week was essential for company culture and mentoring new employees.

The standard of working five days a week in the office was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, leading millions to work remotely and discover the benefits of flexibility. Since then, a “rush of return-to-office mandates” (RTO) has occurred.

Hybrid Work Remains Dominant Amid Push for Return to Office

Despite this resistance to the growing RTO policy, most US companies still offer some form of flexibility. Two-thirds of firms (66%) allow location flexibility, while only 34% require employees to be in the office full time, a modest increase driven mostly by federal and state agencies. 

The Structured Hybrid model remains the most common arrangement, adopted by 42% of firms.

The report attributed ongoing pushback to several factors, including long and stressful commutes, reduced productivity, difficulty managing childcare and appointments under rigid schedules, and the average daily cost of $61 for hybrid workers.

Average in-office requirements rose from 2.57 days per week in Q1 2024 to 2.87 days in Q2 2025, a 12% increase since early 2024, according to the Q3 2025 Flex Report. Yet actual attendance has increased only marginally, as many workers continue to push back against these stricter rules.

Employer Strategies and Employee Counter-Tactics

The widening gap between company policies and actual employee behavior has led to an escalation of actions on both sides. Among larger firms, targeted policy tightening has been especially pronounced. 

Within the Fortune 100, 71% of companies still offer some degree of flexibility, yet 45% now require employees to be in the office four or five days a week. 

This stands in sharp contrast to the broader market, where only 3% of firms have a four-day Structured Hybrid policy. 

By comparison, smaller companies remain far more lenient: 67% of firms with under 500 employees are classified as Fully Flexible, covering more than half of the US workforce.

Employees, however, have developed counter-tactics to resist stricter mandates without openly defying them. 

One of the most common methods is “coffee badging,” where workers swipe into the office, grab a coffee, and then leave or stay only briefly. According to the report, 44% of US employees required to return to the office admitted to using this tactic, and seven out of ten acknowledged being caught. 

Other approaches include leveraging high performance as negotiating power; top talent often secures exemptions because managers hesitate to lose valuable workers in a tight labor market where teams are expected to “do more with less.” 

A further pattern has also emerged: employees initially comply with new mandates, causing a temporary spike in attendance, but attendance rates gradually trail off as initial pressure eases.

In response, employers have begun to adopt stricter monitoring and enforcement measures. 

Surveillance of office presence is increasing at the fastest pace in five years, with 69% of surveyed companies now tracking attendance through badge swipes or even cell-phone monitoring. 

High-profile firms including Amazon, Meta, and TikTok have implemented attendance tracking systems, while Samsung recently introduced a tool designed specifically to target “coffee badging.” 

Enforcement measures are also becoming more common: 37% of companies reported taking disciplinary actions against non-compliance, more than double the 17% reported in 2024.

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