You couldn’t help but notice it, too (just like we all did) – more and more workers are marching back to offices five days per week. These are employees from Amazon, Dell, Twitter, Boots, Goldman Sachs, and many other international corporations that have taken this approach to people management.
No drumroll here: it’s a full return-to-office (RTO) policy with five obligatory in-office workdays weekly, one of the most obvious HR trends to watch this year and beyond.
Interestingly, this tendency is picking up pace: 87% of companies plan to fully come back to physical job sites by the end of 2025. But why do they rush and force employees to “return to normal”? Does an RTO mandate have any logic, or is it pure madness?
Let’s review all the positive and negative aspects of returning to the office. Afterward, we’ll explain how to make it less painful for your team (yes, it can be pretty challenging, and yes, you should prepare thoroughly for that) if you gravitate more toward a five-day-a-week office return.
A 5-Day Back-to-Office Mandate: Pluses and Minuses
Consider the greatest advantages and disadvantages of doing an ultimate office comeback.
Pros of 5-Day Return-to-Office Mandates
- Better onboarding (+ newbie training)
Thanks to daily face-to-face interactions with teammates and deeper immersion into the office culture five days a week, new hires hop on board quicker than remotely. Particularly, when onboarding Zoomers, the youngest ones to join the workforce, they appreciate sticking closer to colleagues to scoop up career advice and practical tips.
At this point, Matthew Channell, Owner of TSW Training, also highlights the benefits of in-person onboarding training for new employees. “Unlike e-training or online mentorship, an in-office experience is fully immersive (more information comes in through senses and body language) and, therefore, more memorable. Not to mention the significance of on-the-spot feedback and emotional support during face-to-face training.”
- Promoting a stronger “community feel”
As soon as employees are immersed in the organisational culture and observe company values being brought to life in the office environment, they experience a more powerful sense of community and belonging. Being able to shake hands and communicate in person also contributes to strengthening team bonds physically and emotionally.
And when it comes to cross-departmental collaboration, teams become more synchronised. They work in harmony without communication gaps or “crashes” that frequently occur within remote work apps.
- Having all the necessary tools at hand with fewer tech troubles
“Working with Direct-To-Film (DTF) printing machines,” says Murtaza Oklu, Owner of OMO Transfer, “I fully understand pro-RTO employers who want to see their staffers getting back to the office five days per week. There’s no need to worry about providing access to specialised or shared equipment, which is often a tough task when working from home.”
Aside from making work tools accessible, a 5-day back-to-office is also about reducing the risk of tech issues. This may involve a shared IT infrastructure in industries that heavily depend on secure technology (e.g., the finance or healthcare sectors) or simply a stable internet connection for performing employee tasks successfully.
- Improving employee performance and revenue
Just factor this in. Over 81% of those who returned to offices report that their workers have become more productive, and 72% notice jumps in profitability.
However, debates don’t subside among employers concerning this matter. Here’s why. Some studies prove that hybrid work doesn’t harm employee productivity at all. For instance, the Stanford study shows that employees who work from home two days a week are just as productive as their in-office peers.
Cons of 5-Day Return-to-Office Mandates
- Shattered work-life balance and minimum flexibility
This is actually a major disadvantage of a full back-to-office mandate that makes Morgan Taylor, Co-Founder of Jolly SEO, remain on the fence. He shares, “During the past few years, our agency grew into an internationally distributed team of white-hat SEO specialists, writers, and managers from different, sometimes even opposite, corners of the world. Even as much as we wanted to, we couldn’t gather everyone under one office ceiling without breaking the work-life balance. It’s practically impossible.”
Indeed, a five-day RTO policy deprives employees of choice, immanent to flexible remote working scenarios, and wrecks the established balance between life and work.
- Higher expenses
Returning to the office increases costs considerably for employees and employers alike.
For employees:
- Home-to-work relocation
- Commuting
- Parking and vehicle maintenance
- Meals and snacks
- Professional clothes
- Additional expenses on childcare, elderly care, or pet care services
Note: Working from the office costs employees an average of $51 daily.
For employers:
- Office maintenance (rent, utilities, cleaning)
- Office supplies and furniture (stationeries, workstations, desks, chairs)
- Networking equipment (routers, firewalls, high-speed internet plans)
- In-office team-building events
- Waste management or other sustainability costs
Speaking about environmental friendliness…
- More damaging ecological footprint
What if we told you that total back-to-office policies are more hurtful to the Earth and our natural environment than remote work?
Actually, remote employees have a 54% lower carbon footprint compared to those on a five-day commute to the office. Now, reflect on another fact: employees with two to four WFH days can decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 11–29%.
So, if social responsibility lies in the epicentre of your corporate values, you might need to undertake extra steps when returning to the office. These may include some critical office renovations to create a more sustainable workplace.
You can additionally encourage your in-office workers to reduce environmental impact while commuting and on the job site.
For example:
Clif Bar gives each employee $500 for a commuter bike. The team also uses pedal power to generate electricity in the workplace.
- Loss of talent
Seventy-three percent of the workforce!
That’s how many Amazon employees think about quitting because of the five-day return-to-office mandate.
Amazonians are not the only workers who share similar thoughts. Just peek into forum discussions on Reddit: “I’ll quit if they tried to force me back in,” or “The second they enforce return-to-office, I’ll return to updating my CV.”
You may likewise risk losing top talent because of such a strict policy. So, to retain the workforce, you should transparently lay out the “whys” behind such a pivotal turn and make it easier for your staffers to adjust.
How to Return to Five In-Office Days per Week in a Smooth Way
Explore the following strategies that can ease the “comeback pain.”
Break it into phases and go hybrid first.
This is what Rockstar Games did while rolling out a gradual, less pushy transition from Phase One (three in-office workdays) in 2023 to Phase Two (five in-office workdays), beginning in April, 2024.
Many global employers still maintain a hybrid work mode, obliging employees to come to the office a fixed number of days:
- Uber → at least half of work time with every Tuesday and Thursday as mandatory, aka “anchor days”
- Zoom → 2 days for employees living less than 80 kilometres away from the Zoom office
- Intuit → 2–3 days, depending on the role
- Meta → 3 days
- Disney → 4 days
Going hybrid first with two to three days in the office, Rodger Desai, CEO of Prove, reminds employers and HR managers, “You shouldn’t forget to ask new candidates if they feel okay about your RTO policy. Notify them that the job is intended for [X] days on-site and clarify whether such a work schedule is convenient for them.”
For example:
The Prove recruiters do that via the job application form when hiring software engineers for the digital identity verification platform.
Build a better “phydigital” workspace.
What’s that, and why should you bother?
Sabas Lin, CTO at Knowee, explains, “A ‘phydigital’ office environment is a seamless blend of the physical space and digital tools. It can help companies make a full return-to-office transition more pleasant and improve employee experience. Striving to achieve this effect, today’s employers mostly turn to artificial intelligence and implement AI-based technology in the workplace.”
Sabas Lin shares a list of handy tools to design a “phydigital” workplace for your back-to-office strategy:
- Digital kiosks with virtual AI assistants for checking in, getting badges, or ordering meals
- AI-powered meeting scheduling tools: Clockwise, Sidekick, or Zelvor
- Hot-desking and space optimisation apps: DeskFlex, Robin, or OfficeSpace
- IoT integrations: IoT-connected devices like security cameras, thermostats, or sensors
- Productivity-focused zones: AR/VR brainstorming stations
- Corporate intranets for higher employee engagement: Happeo or LumApps
Offer supportive employee benefits.
As one of the employees said in the same Reddit thread, “If you want me to come in, you have to provide more amenities like free coffee and milk, gym, showers, and food.”
So, yes, you might need to add more valuable workplace perks to your employee benefits packages to make the transition back to a five-day office workweek smoother and more appealing:
- “Welcome back” gifts (e.g., branded merchandise like custom hoodies or T-shirts)
- Commuter stipends
- “Recharge” days
- On-site wellness services (massages, napping time, meditation hours, or fitness classes)
- Free food and beverages
- Subsidised childcare days to help working parents
Naturally, much of it will hinge on your employees’ needs and organisational circumstances.
Here’s a real-life example of how NOT to do it.
Once Dell announced a five-day back-to-office mandate (giving only two days to set all arrangements), parents panicked. This memo from executives left them desperate to find a childcare service within such a short timeframe. The company offered no childcare support in this situation but asked salespeople to use their paid time off days instead.
Resort to RTO training.
What should I wear? Should I take my laptop or headphones along? How should I handle the first days in the office?
Your staffers may be perplexed and have numerous questions about the five-day return-to-office policy.
That’s why Grant Aldrich, Founder of Preppy, believes that “re-acquaintance and re-integration training” is sometimes necessary for a smoother return to the office. “Let’s face it—your employees may have gotten used to work-from-home autonomy. If so, a short back-to-office course can reacquaint them with all the requirements, from the dress code to communication etiquette. Such training sessions also help workers re-integrate with their colleagues and re-build team collaboration that may have been lost with time in the digital space.”
If you hesitate to hold such sessions yourself, it would be best to turn to professionals who organise such courses for companies coming back to offices and steer them in the right direction.
Weigh All the RTO Pros and Cons
What does it seem to you: a sensible or an absurd solution?
Don’t hesitate to voice your opinion in the comments section. We’ll be immensely grateful for that. No pressure, though—we understand that it’s a tough choice and may require some deep thinking.
While mulling it over, subscribe to Engage for Success so you won’t miss another blog post and learn how to keep your employees engaged and happy, whether in a remote, hybrid, or in-office work environment.
Author: Catherine Schwartz – HARO & Content Outreach
Photo credit: StockCake
