Return-to-Office: Strategy or Power Play?

The unexpected emergence of Covid-19 forced all companies and organisations to adopt a work-from-home culture — something no one chose but ultimately had to cope with. However, employees adapted quickly and realised that the absence of a commute to the workplace and greater autonomy made them more productive. The safe assumption was that organisations would have realised this, and that post-pandemic work arrangements would be designed accordingly.

However, a wave of return-to-office mandates emerged, particularly in the finance and technology sectors. Amazon, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan were among the first organisations to require their employees to be back in the office for most days, if not all. What was more unreasonable was the reason given behind such expectations — collaboration, culture and mentorship.

It would be intellectually dishonest to dismiss in-person work entirely. Certain job roles clearly benefit from working together in an office environment; for example, human resources during the onboarding of new employees. Research from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index found that while remote employees tend to build stronger connections within their immediate teams, they often have weaker ties across departments — a pattern that can limit information flow and hinder cross-functional development. For early-career professionals in particular, proximity to experienced colleagues offers developmental benefits that video calls can only partially replicate.

The issue is not whether being in the office has value. It does, but in the right context.

Control Dressed as Collaboration

Traditional management culture was built on visibility and micro-management. The performance of employees was assessed by how long they were at their desks and what they were doing during working hours. Remote work dismantled that model completely. It required managers to shift their focus from observable effort to outcomes, which demanded more sophisticated management. Many organisations had trouble making that transition. Employees returning to the office seem a familiar model, and the cultural architecture of hierarchy is restored.

There is obviously a financial aspect behind it that rarely features in communications. All such organisations have long-term real estate commitments: leases and facilities that remained largely empty through the pandemic years. Repopulating those does not improve productivity, but it does address a visible liability. Research by Ding & Ma (2024) on 500 firms found that return-to-office mandates were more likely to follow poor firm performance.

Who Actually Pays?

Employees who worked comfortably from home — such as working parents and people with longer commutes — faced a burden when flexibility was taken away. A 2023 Gallup survey found that fewer than one in four employees strongly agreed that their leadership made decisions with their wellbeing in mind, a trust deficit that inflexible, top-down mandates tend to deepen rather than resolve.

On the other hand, companies such as Spotify, Airbnb and Atlassian maintained their commitment to flexibility — not as an employee concession, but as a deliberate strategic decision about how to attract and retain top talent. Such approaches acknowledge what the evidence supports: that flexibility is no longer an option but has become a baseline expectation for a significant share of the skilled workforce. Organisations working against it will struggle to compete for talent over time.

None of this suggests that offices are obsolete. The strongest organisations will be those that are intentional about when and why they bring people together, rather than deciding where they sit on a Tuesday. Where mandates are evidence-based, role-specific and developed with employee input, they can be legitimate. Where they are issued without that grounding — as a reassertion of control, a response to underperformance, or a defence of institutional hierarchy — they represent a failure of leadership disguised as policy.