Does Returning to the Office Support Your Company’s Strategy?

by Ellen Ernst Kossek, N. Sharon Hill, Isabel Villamor, Brenda A. Lautsch and Matthew B. Perrigino

February 20, 2025

Illustration by Leandro Alzate

Summary.

Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic forced companies to go remote with little warning, many firms are mandating that their employees return to the office (RTO) five days a week. As a leader, you may be wondering if you should follow suit, especially as JPMorgan, Amazon, and even the U.S. government are moving in this direction.

Ellen Ernst Kossek is the Basil S. Turner Distinguished Professor of Management Emerita at Purdue University and the 2025-2026 VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She is editing a special issue on remote and hybrid work for Organization Science.

N. Sharon Hill is Professor of Management at the George Washington University School of Business. Her research aims to understand the positive and negative implications of different virtual work arrangements (e.g., virtual teams, remote work, hybrid work) and the role of leadership at different levels in virtual work success.

Isabel Villamor is an Assistant Professor at IESE Business School in the Managing People in Organizations Department. Her research seeks to understand how different aspects of the contemporary workplace such as remote work or online professional networks affect career equality.

Brenda A. Lautsch is the Beedie Professor of Management and Organization Studies at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. Her current research examines work-life relationships, how flexibility can be implemented to enhance work-life equity and inclusion, and how work and leisure can be more meaningful.

Matthew B. Perrigino is an Assistant Professor of Management at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. His research interests address work-life flexibility policies and work-life supportive leadership.

Read more on Hybrid work or related topics Remote work, Work environments, Personnel policies, Human resource management, Talent management and Teams

Does Returning to the Office Support Your Company’s Strategy?

Summary.

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