Big corporations are bringing employees back and CEOs are working to make the office experience feel ‘worth it’ to persuade employees to return.
With Amazon’s five-day-a-week return-to-office mandate about to take effect, many are wondering if remote working is coming to an end in 2025.
Remote working, a rarity before the COVID-19 pandemic, has become the norm in many sectors. According to surveys by WFH Research, as of August this year, approximately 28 percent of paid days in the United States were work-from-home days.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump will order the approximately 228,000 federal civilian workers who have been working from home to return to the office, according to his top adviser Stephen Miller.
The potential move may also create a catalytic effect on businesses.
Amid resistance from workers, CEOs are under pressure to retain top talent and to make the office experience feel worth it to their employees.
Starting Jan. 2, 2025, Amazon is requiring all of its 350,000 employees to return to the office five days a week to foster collaboration and strengthen company culture, according to an announcement made by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Sept. 16.
While companies including Boeing, Disney, Apple, Starbucks, UPS, Dell and banks such as Chase, Barclays, and CitiGroup have called employees back to work on at least a hybrid schedule, Amazon’s move has heightened the belief that remote work options are drying up.
In recent months, various surveys have revealed that business leaders are becoming more resolute in their push to reinstate pre-pandemic work practices.
A September KPMG report highlighted that 83 percent of U.S. CEOs expect a full return to the office within the next three years, up from 64 percent in 2023. Likewise, an August survey by Resume Builder showed that 90 percent of businesses will have adopted return-to-office policies by next year, with 30 percent requiring full-time office attendance.
The latest Flex Index, which monitors the RTO activity of 100 million employees across more than 13,000 companies, showed that 43 percent of U.S. firms on an industry-adjusted basis have employed a structured hybrid model in the fourth quarter, up from 38 percent in the third quarter and 20 percent in the first quarter of 2023. Additionally, 32 percent of firms had fully returned to in-office work.
By Andrew Moran and Mark Gilman
