How can return-to-office mandates be made more effective and more widely embraced by employees, asks Matt Bailey?
The headlines chime in with familiar messages: “employees ordered back three days a week,” and “new return-to-office (RTO) mandate rolled out.” For many organisations, RTO mandates are now a fixed part of the workplace landscape. In fact, almost half (42%) of businesses planned to make a full return to the office – placing them among the likes of Amazon, Barclays, Boots, Dell and Disney.
But amid the push to bring people back, a more pressing question often goes unasked: are these mandates actually working?
Mandates can set expectations – outlining how often employees should be in the office – but without clear visibility, there’s no way to know whether those expectations are being met. And, in many cases, they aren’t. In fact, researchers have found that as few as two in five (42%) UK workers would comply with a full-time RTO mandate, down from 54% in 2022.
Hybrid working
Hybrid working trend continues to grow despite RTO mandates
Fewer workers would comply with a return-to-office mandate
Part of the problem is that the world has moved on, and so has the workplace. Too many businesses are trying to dust off an old playbook and apply it in a new era, only to meet resistance and non-compliance in return.
But in many cases, it’s not the mandate employees are pushing back on – it’s the office itself. If the environment no longer supports how people work best, even well-intentioned policies will fall flat. That’s why the success of RTO policies can’t be measured in mandates alone. It requires a clear, honest view of what’s working, what’s not and how today’s workplace must evolve to support meaningful in-person work.
And that starts with understanding what’s really happening inside the office.
Change is afoot
For many organisations, RTO mandates are rooted in good intentions. Some leaders see in-person work as a way to reignite collaboration, boost innovation, strengthen culture and improve productivity. These are all valid goals, but turning them into reality is proving far more difficult.
Returning to the office isn’t just a logistical shift; it’s an opportunity to redesign the workspace with people and purpose at its core”
Currently, many RTO policies primarily consist of a “carrot and stick” approach that combines incentives and potential penalties to help promote employee compliance. Typically, this includes encouragement such as commuter subsidies, on-site wellness amenities, enhanced workspaces and tailored face-to-face training. On the other hand, some organisations are taking a harder line, even restricting bonuses for employees who don’t follow the mandate.
In short, it’s clear that leadership wants people back in the building. But intention alone isn’t enough. Even the most carefully crafted RTO policy can fall flat if it’s not supported by real-world visibility. Without knowing what’s actually happening day-to-day – who’s coming in, when, and how space is being used – businesses are left relying on hope rather than evidence.
The case for data-driven RTO
To gain this visibility, what organisations need is robust, real-time data. This should cover two crucial areas: attendance – who is coming in, when, and how consistently – and productivity – evaluating how well the space supports work, including factors like noise levels, collaboration and meeting room usage.
When combined, these two data points can reveal how the office is really being used and whether RTO policies are working. For instance, a company may see strong team attendance on paper, but finds most employees are booking solo rooms to escape the open-plan noise. In this case, if the goal of the mandate was to drive collaboration, this points to a clear disconnect between intent and environment.
JP Morgan and Amazon learned this the hard way when inaccurate data left them facing a desk shortage during the rollout of their RTO mandate – a costly mistake that shows the risks of making assumptions. Without the right, quality data, even the best-intentioned policies can backfire, impacting employees, operations, and customers.
Configurable workplace management
Of course, collecting these insights requires the right tools. But that’s where many organisations run into challenges. Today’s workplace solutions are often inflexible, difficult to integrate and even harder to scale across multiple locations, making them a poor fit for the evolving demands of hybrid and in-person work.
By creating responsive, resource-rich environments employees feel supported not forced, collaboration becomes easier”
This inherent inflexibility makes it hard to seamlessly integrate with existing systems that manage things like on-site access or bookings. And when the workplace needs to shift, whether that’s new hybrid policies or changing usage patterns, these tools often can’t keep up. Think of it like forcing unmatched puzzle pieces together – it creates friction, not resolution. But it shouldn’t be this way, after all, software should adapt to your needs, not the other way round.
Instead, organisations need flexible, integrated platforms that follow the tailored rules they’ve created. With this approach, the platform can source data from existing systems like desk booking software and use it to track attendance. Alongside this an agile platform will allow an organisation to measure productivity via the likes of occupancy sensors.
These insights don’t just measure – they enable positive change. This could look like live occupancy data helping employees to find quieter zones, reducing the need for solo meeting room use. For organisations, this data could show which days attract the most employees to the office, allowing them to shape future policies in line with up-to-date employee preferences.
It’s crucial to understand that data-enabled workspace tools don’t just support RTO compliance – they make being in the office more worthwhile. By creating responsive, resource-rich environments employees feel supported not forced, collaboration becomes easier, and frustrations over factors like resources and noise are eliminated. Over time, this could reduce the need for strict mandates, because people simply want to come in.
Not a one-and-done fix
Today’s workforce operates in a completely different landscape, and traditional ways and means simply no longer cut it. Businesses must move beyond thinking as they have done and adapt to new expectations. Returning to the office isn’t just a logistical shift; it’s an opportunity to redesign the workspace with people and purpose at its core.
However, this is not a one-and-done process. It’s continuous. RTO policies must be continually reassessed based on evolving usage and feedback. With the right technology in place, this can become a low-friction, high-impact process: Capture. Analyse. Adjust.
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