Rapidly changing return-to-office policies since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 have left HR leaders racing to keep up with the latest trends. With the fourth quarter and 2025 strategizing well underway, experts say organizations should pay attention to several likely shifts as they continue refining policies for where employees are working.
These include more employers mandating that employees work five days a week in the office. Currently, 33% of U.S. employers require full-time in-office work, which is expected to rise slightly in 2025 but not exceed 50%, according to Rob Sadow, CEO and co-founder of research platform Flex Index, which has been tracking remote work policies since early 2023.
Some organizations, Sadow says, may be motivated to follow the lead of a number of high-profile companies, such as Amazon, which recently announced a five-day in-office mandate for all employees, and Dell, which instated a similar policy for its sales team.
Other potential 2025 trends include:
- More employees playing cat-and-mouse with attendance as employers ratchet up the number of days they are required to report to the office. For instance, leaders may see an increase in “coffee badging,” when employees stop at their office briefly before leaving to work remotely.
- Increased executive confrontations over return-to-office policies, as HR leaders continue to be stuck between CEOs demanding full-time in-office work and a resistant workforce.
- Greater need for HR leaders to enhance their data fluency skills to track employees’ attendance and adherence to return-to-office policies.
Meanwhile, according to a recent Upwork report on innovation, more employers are expected to strategically reconfigure their operating model—leveraging more freelancers and contractors while supporting talent with AI and automation.
Presently, 27% of organizations across the globe use this operating model, according to Upwork. But that figure is expected to rise to 33% in 2025, says Kelly Monahan, managing director of the Upwork Research Institute.
Given this, Monahan says—while the debate over return-to-office will certainly continue in 2025—she is bullish that the conversation will be less about where employees work and more about how they work.
Next year, she says, leaders will have to help the workforce embrace the potential of AI, flexible talent strategies and hybrid work while navigating an ever-evolving macroeconomic environment.
Flexibility will be key to success in this landscape, Sadow says. He recently sat down with HR Executive for a video interview on return-to-office trends for 2025 and Flex Index’s recent survey results.
Those results were similar to the results, shown below, of a recent HR Executive poll on LinkedIn.
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