Return-to-office mandates are usually sold by leaders as a way to rebuild culture. The research - and frankly, my own experience - is less enthusiastic than the memos or statements at ‘All Hands’ meetings.
A 2024 University of Pittsburgh study by Mark Ma and Yuye Ding found that mandates did not improve financial performance. The authors concluded that the results fit managers using mandates to reassert control, rather than to create value for the firm.
Closer to home here in the UK, researchers at King’s Business School drew on two years of surveys and interviews with UK hybrid workers. They found that tighter attendance rules can leave people with the worst of both worlds. They may not change where they work in any meaningful way, yet they carry the uncertainty and frustration of hybrid days that nobody has coordinated.
Having said all of that, there are good reasons to want people in the same room. Mentoring is one. Spontaneous problem solving is another. Genuine collaboration is a third. Yet none of these things are guaranteed by a set number of days written into an employee’s contract.
Counting office days is easy, yet defining a culture to make the best of time spent together face-to-face is harder. However, it is this deliberate definition that ultimately generates greater value. If the honest answer to ‘why are we all in on Tuesday?’ is that the policy says so rather than it’s the right thing to do to get this piece of work done, then the office just becomes a place to take video calls with people you sit six feet away from.
If leaders want to bring people back into the office, then the only way to successfully achieve the goals that they are looking for is to give employees the opportunity to intentionally design how hybrid work will take place.
Give people a reason to do the commute and they will almost always find their way in.
