Asking employees to come back to the office like the old days is the same as trying to ‘jam the toothpaste back in the tube,’ workforce strategist says

HR Brew

Return-to-office mandates continue to feel like high-level math equations that even the business world’s brightest can’t solve.<div class="paywall-selector"></div><div class="paywall">



<a href="https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2024/09/17/as-amazon-mandates-a-full-time-rto-experts-share-how-hr-can-support-employees">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/with-a-series-of-layoffs-planned-by-jpmorgan-for-2025-ceo-jamie-dimon-dismisses-employee-petition-against-full-time-rto-mandate-says-doesnt-matter-to-me/articleshow/118252061.cms?from=mdr">JPMorgan</a>, and <a href="https://fortune.com/2024/12/18/att-return-to-office-5-days/">AT&amp;T</a> are among the most recent companies to require a full-time RTOs. But some of these mandates have faced obstacles, including a lack of office space and dissatisfied employees.



<a href="https://fortune.com/company/amazon-com/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, for example, said in September, it wanted its 350,000-person workforce in the office by early January. As of February, many of their offices didn’t have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/amazons-rto-mandate-complicated-by-lack-of-desks-space/487079">enough desks</a>&nbsp;to accommodate the return, leaving many employees continuing working from home. AT&amp;T had a similar&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rto-fail-not-ready-workers-return-to-office-2025-1">issue</a>. In response to JPMorgan’s RTO mandate, employees expressed their outrage on an internal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2025/01/17/hr-has-an-employee-feedback-problem">platform</a>. The company then disabled comments. Some&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jamie-dimon-popped-off-1-162248583.html">JPMorgan</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/benefits-compensation/amazon-nixes-employees-petition-return-to-office">Amazon</a>&nbsp;workers have also signed petitions protesting their employers’ requirements.



What’s missing from some of these RTO plans is the recognition of a cultural change, said Jennifer Moss, workplace strategist and author of&nbsp;Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants. The post-pandemic workplace should combine lessons from the pre-pandemic and pandemic-era models, she said.



“When we’re trying to get people back into the office, we still are executing the office in the same way that it used to be,” Moss told HR Brew. “We just can’t jam the toothpaste back in the tube.”



Recognize the new environment.&nbsp;Improved collaboration, culture, and productivity are often cited as reasons for an RTO, Moss said, but being in the office won’t necessarily help employees achieve these goals.



“People are going into the office, unfortunately, it feels very much like what it feels like to be at home,” she said. “You’re still on <a href="https://fortune.com/company/zoom/" target="_blank">Zoom</a>, and you’re still spending your day doing the exact same things you could be doing at home. It feels very arbitrary.”



To facilitate this new era of work, employers should embrace a model Moss called “the third office.” Instead of “pushing” for employees to go back to pre-pandemic norms, she said, employers should consider how they can incorporate the benefits of remote work, like autonomy and flexibility. To that end, a hybrid approach, she said, typically works best.



Moss also urged mindfulness around how the physical office space can affect employees. If a company doesn’t have enough desks, for example, she said HR leaders should rethink how employees work in the office, and create quiet or collaborative spaces outside of the open floor plan.



“The [third office] is a place where you have challenging discussions, where you learn to network, develop soft skills, be able to have team building, build up that social energy and that cohesion,” she said, adding that these activities were undervalued pre-pandemic and lost during the pandemic, and should be part of this new era.



Eventually, however, companies that require five days in the office should offer employees their own dedicated workspace, Moss said. It may seem simple, but being able to personalize a desk is something that, she said, may help employees feel more connected to their workplace.



Identify and communicate the play-by-play.&nbsp;Some executives want RTO to alleviate their own “trust issues,” without considering how it might affect employees, according to John Frehse, the global head of labor strategy at consulting firm Ankura.



“You only trust me when I’m in the office. You don’t trust me when I’m at home. What kind of a worker and employer relationship are we dealing with?” Frehse told HR Brew.



Sujay Saha, an employee experience strategist and founder of consulting firm Cortico-<a href="https://fortune.com/company/twitter/" target="_blank">X</a>, emphasized the need for a plan. “Don’t make the decision and then try to figure it out, how do I make that decision happen for people…that is the biggest problem in a lot of this,” Saha said. He suggested HR start by identifying employees’ “personas,” like whether they’re working parents or belong to the sandwich generation. This can give HR a sense of employees’ needs and schedules, which can help inform what kind of RTO might make sense.



“There are pros and cons in all of this, so the most important thing that we can tackle is how we do it,” Saha said. “Maybe there is a pace at which you could do it…Reduce the pace and give people that mental adjustment time that is needed genuinely, to take care of their lives before you change [their lives].”



Frehse also advised against focusing an RTO announcement on the enforcement and repercussions of not following the mandate. Instead, communicate the steps and value-add for professional growth.



“It’s both culturally and intellectually lazy to announce a certain number of days of return to office each week, without listing in heavy detail the reasons why—not just benefits for the business, but the benefits for the employee,” he said.



Saha agreed. “Don’t do it, just for the heck of doing it…Be clear about why you’re doing it.”



This story was written by Mikaela Cohen and was <a href="https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2025/02/28/rto-roadblocks-continue-plaguing-companies-workplace-experts-share-what-they-can-do-better">originally published</a> by <a href="https://www.hr-brew.com/">HR Brew</a>.</div>

Companies including Amazon, JPMorgan, and AT&T have faced obstacles trying to get employees to return to office.

Asking employees to come back to the office like the old days is the same as trying to 'jam the toothpaste back in the tube,' workforce strategist says

Did your workplace make our list of the World's Most Admired Companies?
<a href="https://fortune.com/ranking/worlds-most-admired-companies/?&itm_source=fortune&itm_medium=article_tout&itm_campaign=DecJanMag">Explore this year's list.</a>

F-Wire

return to office

Success

Asking employees to come back to the office like the old days is the same as trying to 'jam the toothpaste back in the tube,' workforce strategist says | Fortune

Emma Burleigh

Gen Z men are turning to the kitchen instead of college—they can make $170,000 without the burden of student debt

/2025/03/02/gen-z-men-women-without-degrees-top-jobs-chefs-nurses/

/2025/02/28/asking-employees-to-rto-same-as-trying-to-jam-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube/

Jason Ma

In leaked memo to Google’s AI workers, Sergey Brin says 60 hours a week is the ‘sweet spot’ and doing the bare minimum can demoralize peers 

/2025/02/28/sergey-brin-60-hours-work-week-rto-gemini-artificial-general-intelligence/

Billionaires earning $10 billion per day in January are suddenly watching their net worth get wiped out—Elon Musk has lost $90 billion alone

/2025/02/28/tech-billionaires-wealth-wipeout-deepseek-musk-zuckerberg-huang/

Ryan Hogg

Emma Walmsley, chief executive officer of GlaxoSmithKline speaks during the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York City on September 24, 2024.

GSK could double CEO Emma Walmsley’s pay to $27 million in bid to bring U.K. exec salaries in line with the U.S.

/europe/2025/02/28/gsk-could-double-ceo-emma-walmsleys-pay-27-million-bid-bring-uk-exec-salaries-line-with-us/

Orianna Rosa Royle

Gen Z is ‘task masking’ to look as busy as possible in the office. Experts warn they’re self-sabotaging

/2025/02/28/gen-z-task-masking-work-trend-career-advice/

The US economy has suddenly been thrown into reverse as key GDP indicator flashes stunning negative forecast

https://fortune.com/2025/03/01/us-economy-recession-outlook-q1-gdp-contraction-trump-tariffs-doge-job-cuts-consumer-spending-inflation/?itm_source=parsely-api

Lila MacLellan

Six years ago 23andMe was worth $6 billion. Now CEO Anne Wojcicki is trying to buy it back for $75 million

https://fortune.com/2025/03/01/23andme-buy-back-attempt-board-experts-shareholder-questions-anne-wojcicki/?itm_source=parsely-api

Russia's old economy is gone, and its wartime transformation has the military primed for a resurgence, former State Dept. official warns

https://fortune.com/2025/03/02/russia-economy-transformation-putin-military-ukraine-war-sanctions-peace-deal/?itm_source=parsely-api

After Trump-Zelensky blowup, Europe may be more willing to seize frozen Russian assets while EU official says 'free world needs a new leader'

https://fortune.com/2025/03/01/europe-seizure-frozen-russian-assets-ukraine-war-trump-zelensky/?itm_source=parsely-api

https://fortune.com/2025/02/28/asking-employees-to-rto-same-as-trying-to-jam-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube/?itm_source=parsely-api

As Stellantis posts 70% profit plunge, fresh inventory data suggests U.S. price cuts may be working

https://fortune.com/europe/2025/02/28/stellantis-posts-profit-plunge-fresh-inventory-data-suggests-us-price-cuts-may-be-working/?itm_source=parsely-api