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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →A strict return-to-office (RTO) mandate can put retention at risk, especially when it removes flexibility without a clear work-related reason. But the evidence does not show that every mandate lowers productivity or triggers mass resignations: surveys find different reactions, and stated intent to leave is not the same as actually quitting. For technology workers weighing a new policy, the practical questions are what work the office requirement is meant to support, how much flexibility remains, and whether the trade-offs are workable.
Does returning to the office improve productivity?
There is no simple answer that applies to every team. Gartner’s May 2025 release reported results from surveys fielded in October 2024: the same share of onsite and hybrid knowledge workers—21%—were rated highly productive, and organizations that had recently introduced mandates saw no immediate productivity effect on the average employee or team. A separate Gartner survey of more than 3,000 managers of knowledge workers found that mandates were associated with an increase of up to 19% in employees engaging in “quiet quitting.” These are survey findings, not proof that location never matters or that every mandate causes disengagement. Gartner’s 2025 findings also point to manager behavior as one factor in sustaining productivity after a return.
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Other results complicate the picture. McKinsey’s survey of 8,426 U.S. employees, fielded October 13–28, 2024, was self-reported and explicitly not representative of the entire U.S. workforce. Twenty-five percent of mostly in-person respondents said they exceeded supervisor expectations, compared with 15% of hybrid respondents. Yet McKinsey found no clear overall winner across work models for employee experience and productivity-related outcomes. Those differences do not establish that office attendance caused the outcome.
Ivanti’s February 2025 survey found that 82% of surveyed office workers considered working outside the office at least as productive as, or more productive than, working in the office. That measures workers’ perceptions, not output assessed under a controlled test. Taken together, the surveys support a more useful question than “Which location is always more productive?”: what tasks need people together, and how will the employer measure whether attendance helps?
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Why are tech workers pushing back on return-to-office mandates?
For many workers, flexibility is not just a preference about where to sit. It can affect commuting time and cost, caregiving, health, disability, and the ability to manage personal matters. Ivanti reported that 83% of surveyed IT professionals considered flexible work high value or essential; its definition included schedule flexibility and handling personal matters, not only remote work. More than one in three respondents who had experienced an RTO mandate in the prior year reported negative effects on morale and satisfaction.
UK findings show a similar tension, but should be read as UK-specific. In its 2025 research, based on surveys of 2,000 employers and 5,000 employees, CIPD found that 53% of employees felt pressure to spend more time in the workplace, while 80% said flexible working improved their quality of life. Half of surveyed organizations (51%) required a minimum number of onsite days per week, most commonly three. CIPD also estimated that 3% of UK employees—around 1.1 million people—had left a job in the prior year because of a lack of flexible working. That is a reported past-year reason for leaving, not a forecast of what will happen under any particular company policy. CIPD’s 2025 flexible-working findings describe both employee preferences and employer practices.
Commute length or cost, lost work-life balance, and familiarity with working from home have also appeared as reasons for resistance. In an older NORC survey conducted in August and September 2023, three-quarters of responding HR representatives said they had problems retaining employees who wanted to stay remote. That employer survey covered companies where at least 10% of employees were fully remote or hybrid, so it is not a current estimate for all employers or specifically for technology companies.
Will employees quit if their company requires them to return?
Some say they may look elsewhere, but survey intent should not be reported as an actual quit rate. In a 2025 survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents conducted by Southpaw Insights for FTI Consulting, 70% of remote or hybrid respondents said they were very or somewhat likely to seek another job if required to return full-time—defined in the survey as at least 30 hours a week—at their current salary. The figure was 74% among fully remote respondents and 62% among hybrid respondents. The question describes a hypothetical; it does not show how many people subsequently applied, received offers, or resigned. FTI Consulting’s survey summary notes that responses varied with factors such as industry, company size, family circumstances, and current work arrangement.
That distinction matters. McKinsey reported that 39% of its surveyed U.S. employees intended to leave overall, ranging from 38% among in-person and hybrid workers to 41% among remote workers. That measure was not an estimate of departures caused by RTO. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s analysis of business-survey responses described the employment effects of RTO orders as muted, noting that workers’ differing preferences may dampen the impact. Its survey panel typically receives around 200–250 responses per month, underweights the smallest firms, and includes many manufacturing respondents; it is neither a definitive national estimate nor a technology-sector result. Together, these findings argue against treating mass attrition as inevitable.
Why do workers and employers see RTO differently?
Workers may value control over their schedule and commute, while employers may want easier collaboration, onboarding, mentoring, connection, or training. Those goals can coexist, but a blanket attendance rule does not itself show that the underlying work requires everyone to be onsite on the same days.
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Survey findings also differ because the studies ask different questions of different groups. For example, JLL’s 2025 Workforce Preference Barometer surveyed 8,700 office workers across 31 countries at organizations with more than 1,000 employees; 72% viewed RTO policies positively. Within that survey, 84% of workers who were happy with their workplace felt positive about attendance policies, compared with 48% of those unhappy with their workplace. JLL also reported that 38% said their office needed significant improvement. This suggests that acceptance may depend partly on the workplace experience, but it does not make JLL’s global sample directly comparable with Ivanti’s respondents who had experienced mandates or FTI’s U.S. hypothetical scenario. JLL’s 2025 barometer provides the details of its sample and findings.
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- What work benefits from co-presence? Identify specific collaboration, mentoring, onboarding, or training needs rather than assuming every task benefits equally.
- What counts as success? Compare outcomes and service quality, not just visible attendance or time at a desk.
- How much flexibility remains? A set of shared team days with room to adjust is different from a fixed five-day requirement.
- Who bears the cost? Consider commute burdens, caregiving, disability, health needs, and workplace conditions.
- What does the evidence measure? Distinguish self-reported productivity and hypothetical job-search intent from observed performance and actual departures.
How tech professionals can respond to a new RTO policy
Start by getting the policy and its practical consequences clear. These steps are conversation and planning suggestions, not legal advice or proven tactics for changing an employer’s decision.
- Read the written rule. Confirm the effective date, required number of days or hours, which location counts, how exceptions work, and whether the rule applies to your role or team. Check for a distinction between a stated expectation and a firm requirement.
- Ask what the attendance is meant to accomplish. Ask your manager which work needs in-person time, which days are most useful, and how the team will tell whether the policy is helping. A specific answer can make it easier to discuss a workable schedule.
- Describe the impact in concrete terms. Explain how the requirement affects your work, commute, caregiving, health, or other logistics. Where relevant, connect your proposal to team outcomes—for example, agreeing to attend for planned onboarding or collaborative sessions.
- Check for internal options. Ask whether there are team-level arrangements, schedule flexibility, or a process for requesting an accommodation or exception. The sources cited here do not establish a universal legal right to refuse an RTO mandate; employment rules vary by jurisdiction and individual circumstances.
- Make a considered career decision. If the arrangement is not workable, compare current external roles and their written location and attendance expectations before deciding to leave. A survey response about being likely to search does not guarantee that a suitable alternative will be available.
What a fair RTO policy should make clear
A credible policy should connect attendance to identifiable work needs, define expectations in writing, and explain how managers will assess results. It should also leave room to consider different roles and circumstances rather than relying on a single assumption about productivity. That approach takes both sides of the evidence seriously: some employees and employers prefer office-based work, while rigid mandates can strain morale and retention when workers see little value in the change.
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