Return-to-office requirements grew more common in surveyed companies in 2024, and some employer surveys found tougher monitoring and enforcement in 2025. That does not mean every workplace moved to stricter rules: the evidence varies by region and measures different things, from required office days to attendance penalties.
Did return-to-office mandates increase in 2024?
Yes, in a 2024 ZipRecruiter Economic Research survey of companies. The share of surveyed employers requiring at least three office days a week rose from 37% in 2023 to 53% in 2024. The share requiring five days rose from 16% to 20%. These are survey estimates, not a count of every company. ZipRecruiter Economic Research
A different measure offers useful context: in a March 2024 business survey, 20% of Richmond Fed respondents said they had articulated a return-to-office policy in the preceding three years. The sample included employers already fully on-site and businesses for which RTO was not applicable, so this is not a share of all employers that newly mandated a return. Among respondents with policies, two-thirds expected no net employment impact; 16% were unsure, 11% expected employment to decrease, and 7% expected it to increase. The brief said realized employment outcomes were generally muted. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
What changed in 2025?
Some surveyed employers moved beyond setting attendance targets to monitoring and enforcing them. Results are not directly comparable across regions, and monitoring, sanctions, and required days are distinct parts of a policy.
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Americas: more monitoring and enforcement
CBRE’s 2025 Americas Office Occupier Sentiment Survey canvassed 184 companies. Seventy-two percent said they had met their attendance goals. Sixty-nine percent monitored attendance, up from 45% in 2024, and 37% enforced attendance policies, up from 17%. Respondents wanted employees in the office an average of 3.2 days a week and reported actual attendance near 2.9 days. These figures describe the companies surveyed, not all employers in the Americas. CBRE
Asia Pacific: consequences and performance reviews
In a separate 2025 Asia Pacific Office Occupier Survey, 82% of respondents reported consequences for failing to comply with RTO protocols, 16 percentage points higher than in 2024. Half said they linked attendance to performance reviews, compared with 29% in 2024. This is a separate regional sample from CBRE’s Americas survey; the results should not be pooled. CBRE Asia Pacific survey
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Are workers pushing back?
UK surveys suggest that flexibility remains important to workers, but the findings distinguish reported experience from hypothetical intentions.
Reported pressure and departures
CIPD’s 2025 UK survey found that 53% of employees felt pressure to spend more time at the workplace, while 14% of employers planned to introduce or increase mandated office days. The survey also reported that 3.38% of employees had left a job since January 2024 because of a lack of flexibility; CIPD calculated this as about 1.1 million UK workers. These are survey findings and do not establish that a particular RTO mandate caused every departure. CIPD
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Intentions under a hypothetical five-day requirement
A 2025 King’s College London summary found that 42% of UK workers said they would comply with a five-day RTO requirement, down from 54% in early 2022. Fifty-eight percent said they would quit immediately or look for another job if required to return full-time. The analysis drew on more than one million Labour Force Survey observations and 50,000 Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes responses, covering early 2022 through the end of 2024. These answers describe stated intentions, not observed resignations. King’s College London
What could stricter mandates mean for retention?
Separate Gartner findings point to possible talent costs, but they measure survey responses rather than actual quits. A survey of 2,080 knowledge workers fielded in May and June 2023 found that intent to stay was lower under strict mandates: 8% lower for average employees, 16% for high performers, 10% for millennials, and 11% for women. Those results are associations, not measured turnover rates. Gartner
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In another survey, conducted in January 2024 with nearly 3,000 candidates, 36% of senior-level job seekers who had faced a return mandate from their current employer said it influenced their decision to leave. One-third said they had discontinued a hiring process in the prior year because of expectations of returning to a physical workspace. These candidate responses do not show how many people ultimately left or prove the mandate was the sole cause. Gartner
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to judge whether an RTO policy is getting stricter
A headline about “more mandates” can blur several different changes. To understand what a policy asks of you, check the specific terms rather than relying on the label:
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- Required days: How many days must employees be on site, and are the days fixed or flexible?
- Monitoring: Does the employer record attendance, and how is it measured?
- Consequences: What happens after noncompliance, and does the policy describe exceptions?
- Performance reviews: Is attendance explicitly tied to evaluation or advancement?
- Flexibility: Are remote work, accommodations, or other exceptions available?
These dimensions matter because a three-day requirement with limited enforcement is different from a five-day rule tied to performance reviews. The surveys cited here do not establish one worldwide RTO rate or show that every employer became stricter. They indicate a shift among surveyed employers, with stronger enforcement reported in some regional samples and varied worker responses.
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