Five-day RTO mandates haven’t stopped employees from working remotely

While more and more companies are implementing five-day RTOs, some employees are continuing to work from home.

More than one-fourth (26.8%) of workers whose companies require in-person attendance report doing “some work” remotely on Friday, according to WFH Research’s latest Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA). Anywhere from 9.3% to 17.6% said the same for the remaining workweek.

Despite “chatter” around RTOs, and large employers like Amazon and JPMorgan remaining bullish on in-person work, the average amount of time spent working remotely hasn’t changed much in the last few years, Jose Maria Barrero, an assistant professor of finance at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México’s business school in Mexico City and co-founder of WFH Research, told HR Brew.

The percentage of “paid full days worked from home” has hovered around 25% to 30% between January 2022 and February 2025, the SWAA survey found.

This is especially true for knowledge and white-collar workers. Due to the nature of their jobs, many had some flexibility before the pandemic necessitated remote work, Barrero said. So seeing them continuing to do some work at home “isn’t particularly new.”

“People who come into the office regularly have always done work at home to some extent,” he said.

Now, feel free to return your regularly scheduled programming of bouncing between your office, home office, and coffee shop down the street.