Despite more companies issuing return-to-office (RTO) mandates, the latest challenge those companies face is enforcing them.

Companies large and small have issued RTO mandates, with three days in the office becoming the accepted norm. A few, such as Amazon, have issued far stricter policies, requiring employees to be in the office five days a week.

According to CBRE’s 2024 Americas Office Occupier Sentiment Survey, the vast majority of companies are failing in their efforts to enforce their office mandates.

Approximately 80% of organizations have a return-to-office policy, but only 17% actively enforce these policies. This disconnect between policy and enforcement contributes to the gap between employer expectations and employee behavior: 60% want employees to work in the office three or more days per week, but only 51% of employees are in the office that frequently. Thirty-four percent of respondents anticipate closing this gap by increasing attendance. Space sharing remains top of mind to align with new utilization patterns and optimize portfolios.

Interestingly, the number of companies with an RTO policy increased only slightly from 2023, going from 78% to the current 80%. Even more telling, barely more than half of companies measure compliance with their mandates, and very few enforce it.

For the companies with an office attendance policy, measurement and enforcement strategies vary. Fifty-one percent of respondents with a policy report that they mandate attendance, but only about 45% measure it, and only 17% consistently enforce it. This disconnect is a factor in the continued gap between employer expectations and employee behavior. While policies are important for clarification and guidance, they are not guaranteed to drive compliance, especially without enforcement.

CBRE’s findings indicate that trying to force compliance without understanding the underlying opposition will only lead to negative outcomes.

At the same time, holding employees accountable to mandates can create negative outcomes if employers don’t strive to understand, and remedy, the barriers blocking more frequent office utilization. Employers who remain frustrated with lack of office utilization should explore the underlying challenge in order to deploy the right lever for change.

CBRE’s Findings Reaffirm Hybrid Work Is Here to Stay

Despite some companies’ insistence on returning to pre-pandemic norms, data increasingly shows that hybrid work is the future and RTO mandates are often disastrous. Some governments, such as the UK, are even endorsing remote work, saying companies need to stop being obsessed with a “culture of presenteeism.”

Amazon is already learning this, with a recent Blind survey of 2,585 Amazon employees showing that 73% of them were considering looking for another job. Some 80% of those surveyed said they already knew of peers who were looking for another job, while 32% knew of someone who had already quit.

Some Amazon employees have stated they have no intention of complying with the RTO mandate, opting to be fired instead.

Companies Have a Trust Issue, and RTO Mandates Are Making It Worse

Trust is at the heart of the issue, and companies are reaping what they’ve sown over the last few years, beginning with the mass layoffs that hit the tech industry during the waning days of the pandemic.

As we wrote then, companies were destroying the trust of their employees, something that would eventually come back to haunt them. We quoted an article by Business Insider’s Sawdah Bhaimiya.

“Every time I see a notice in the news that such and such technology company has cut X percentage of their workforce, I don’t forget that,” Danny Allen, chief technology officer at software firm Veeam, told Bhaimiya at the time. “So you’re sending a message that also has a brand impact that you don’t necessarily want to be associated with.

“Employees remember and people looking for jobs remember how organizations acted during the economic downturn.”

Allen went on to explain exactly how the layoffs would hurt companies, with the second way being the most important in this context.

“One is simply the loss of innovation, cutting resources,” said Allen. “You’re cutting your investment in future technology, that’s number one. Number two, when you cut 10% of your workforce, you’re sending the message to your employees that we care more about money than we do about you.

“And employees have a long memory, so if you’re cutting people that uncertainty is very disconcerting.”

Amazon is a good example of exactly the phenomenon Allen described, with many of those reluctant to return to the office citing a lack of trust in the company’s leadership, a lack of trust exacerbated by broken promises about the future of remote work.

“I was not complying,” an employee named Ben said about the company’s previous three-day-a-week mandate, citing the three-hour commute he faced as the reason.

“I decided not to make life choices as Amazon can fire me at will anyway, and I do not want to make long-term life changes because some manager decided I should start going to the office when I was hired virtual and promised I could work from wherever I want,” he added.

That last part of Ben’s statement is critical, as doesn’t trust any sacrifice made for his job will pay off over the long haul. His sentiments were echoed by others.

“My months of struggling to make three days a week are over, and I know that my time at Amazon has to end,” an employee named Laura said after the five-day mandate.

“Honestly, I’ve lost so much trust in Amazon leadership at this point,” she adds. “I’ve been updating my resume and portfolio, and rage applying to new jobs on LinkedIn.”

As Ben and Laura’s statements illustrate, Amazon’s leadership has lost the trust of its employees, first with mass layoffs that underscored the transience of jobs in the tech industry. Trust was further eroded by promising that some roles would remain remote or hybrid, only to then renege on those promises and demand employees return to the office, even requiring them to relocate if necessary to comply.

Compliance Will Continue to Be a Problem

As long as companies continue to ignore the data—which shows that remote/hybrid employees work harder and are more productive—companies will continue to struggle with efforts to force compliance with RTO mandates. Companies that do enforce them will reap the results, losing top employees and struggling to attract new talent.