The Office Is Calling. Again.

Yet the picture across tech is noticeably different from finance. Google, Apple, Microsoft and Meta have so far settled on hybrid models — generally requiring employees to be present three days a week — rather than the full-week mandates favored by their counterparts on Wall Street. Google has tightened its policies, warning remote workers that roles could be eliminated if they do not comply with a three-day-per-week schedule, and has restricted its pandemic-era “Work from Anywhere” program. But it has not gone as far as Amazon or JPMorgan.

Meta offers an instructive case study in the divergence within a single company. As of early 2025, Mark Zuckerberg told employees that the company’s three-day hybrid policy would remain in place — even as Instagram moved to mandate five days for its workers. Citigroup, Deloitte, EY, PwC and KPMG, meanwhile, have held to hybrid approaches, emphasizing flexibility as a tool to retain top talent.

The compliance gap

For all the corporate proclamations, there is a growing body of evidence that the mandates are not being followed as faithfully as executives might hope.

Nick Bloom, a Stanford economics professor and one of the country’s leading researchers on remote work, has identified what he calls a “growing compliance gap.” Weekly surveys of 10,000 Americans conducted by his team at WFH Research show that people are spending about 25% of their working days at home — a figure that has barely moved since the spring of 2023, despite the drumbeat of return-to-office announcements.

The reason, Bloom has suggested, lies partly with middle management. Managers are typically evaluated on the performance of their teams. If those teams are performing well, many see little incentive to enforce attendance rules aggressively, especially since the managers themselves often prefer flexibility.