Back in 2023, when companies like Amazon and Google began calling remote workers back to the office, the backlash was swift and public. Employees staged walkouts, launched petitions and in some cases quit outright, arguing that employers were breaking the work-from-home promises they made during the pandemic. Two years later, companies and employees have largely settled on hybrid work as the standard arrangement. More than half of remote-capable employees split their time between home and the office, according to Gallup, while 26 percent remain fully remote and 22 percent work entirely on-site.
But there’s been a quiet shift in the past year. Many of the companies that started out as hybrid after the pandemic have crept toward a full-time office model. Amazon, Dell, and more recently, Instagram are just a few of the big names that transitioned from hybrid schedules to five days a week in the office in 2025. The share of Fortune 100 companies that require full-time, in-person work has jumped from 5 percent to 54 percent since 2023, according to commercial real estate firm Jones Lange Lasalle.
How Many Workers Have Returned to the Office?
Return-to-office trends vary widely. One Gallup survey found that about 52 percent of remote-capable U.S. employees were in hybrid arrangements in 2025, with about 26 percent are working fully remote and 21-25 percent woking fully on-site. Still, actual occupancy remains far from pre-pandemic levels, with many offices averaging only about 50-60 percent on a given weekday, according to office badge data from Kastle.
And yet, office buildings are still far from full. Occupancy rates are just over 50 percent — nowhere near what they were before the pandemic. Now that 2026 is underway, will the office finally regain its popularity? Will a slower hiring market give companies the leverage they need to bring employees back in?
Not likely, says Joe Galvin, chief research officer of Vistage, an executive coaching organization for small and midsize businesses. The once-omnipresent return-to-office debate has become a non-issue, he said, as both executives and employees are more focused on staying competitive in a market redefined by artificial intelligence.
“This issue of remote or hybrid is not a battle that I think leaders are looking to fight right now. I think those lines have been drawn,” Galvin told Built In. “Unless you’ve got a compelling reason to change the status quo, I don’t think they’re looking to risk that status quo in light of the other challenges that they’re facing.”
Gen Z May Be Leading an Office Comeback
New research suggests any momentum toward the office might not be led by executives, but by Gen Z workers eager to build relationships and accelerate their careers.
A recent study by researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Harvard University and the University of Virginia found that younger software engineers were more likely to come into the office than older engineers, particularly when their teammates are in the same office. And it’s not just software engineers, either; census data for all college-educated workers in the United States shows a similar pattern. It’s also consistent with a July 2025 Gallup poll, which found that Gen Z workers favored hybrid work more than any other generation. They were also the least enthusiastic about exclusively remote work.
Part of the reasoning for this may come down to life stage. Gen Z is generally less likely than their Millennial or Gen X counterparts to be parents or caregivers, who value the flexibility of remote work. But this recent study, titled “The Power of Proximity to Coworkers,” attempts to control for this variable, arguing that younger workers are motivated to go to the office out of a desire to learn from others.
And the trek into the office seems to be paying off. The software engineers who sat in the same office received 18 percent more coding feedback, improving the quality of their work in the long run. They were also more likely to ask follow-up questions, and they were more likely than their distributed colleagues to leave for better opportunities.
But there is a tradeoff: While younger, less experienced engineers benefited from mentorship and feedback, the senior engineers produced less code because of the time they spent mentoring their younger colleagues. Remote work can boost productivity by freeing workers from commuting and other distractions. But when older workers prioritize productivity over office presence, Gen Z professionals aren’t able to pick their brains and learn from their years of expertise — and they may feel unfulfilled by their office experience.
The Reality of Distributed Teams and Cold Offices
Going into an office doesn’t guarantee that an employee will receive feedback or mentorship though. The “Power of Proximity” study found that the benefits of in-person work were largely limited to colleagues who shared the same space — not those spread across separate buildings.
The reality is that most teams in large organizations typically work across multiple locations, said Dave Cairns, vice president of strategic growth at workplace operations platform Kadence. With only 19 percent of employees colocated with members of their direct team, he noted that simply going into an office doesn’t eliminate the need to communicate, collaborate and manage effectively in a digital environment.
“We have to accept that reality and learn how to be better in a distributed model, rather than put our head in the sand and assume that people coming back to the office is solving that problem,” Cairns said.
And even when coworkers are colocated, the office experience rarely measures up to their hopes for training, mentorship and serendipitous, collaborative moments.
“We’re not doing young people any favors by trying to romanticize a version of work that wasn’t actually a thing in the first place,” Cairns said.
The Human Need for Connection
The office may not be a cure-all for collaboration and career development, but for many remote employees — particularly those early in their careers — the isolation of remote work can take a real toll. A Gallup survey found that Gen Z workers are more likely to experience negative emotions like loneliness and sadness when they work from home.
“The essence of being human is connection. We all crave it, and we all thrive with connection,” Andrew Scivally, co-founder and CEO at ELB Learning, told Built In. “When you're detached from people, you get sad [and experience] mental health challenges…I don’t know why we think that would be any different in a business setting.”
Indeed, people have all sorts of non-professional motivations to go to the office. They might want to socialize and make friends, or they might find it difficult to work at home if they have roommates or a cramped apartment. For younger workers especially, the office can provide some much-needed structure, community and a clear separation between work and life.
Relationships can also contribute to career growth. A professional’s network is one of their most valuable assets, and Scivally said they are unlikely to form those meaningful relationships over Slack messages or Zoom calls alone. Young people who want to thrive in their relationships and in their professional goals would be best served by making connections in the office.
“If you’re fully remote, — unless the company’s really good at somehow trying to make those connections work — you’re going to be forgotten,” Scivally said. “You’re not going to be the name that pops up in their mind when they’re trying to figure out something. You’re at a disadvantage personally.”
Will 2026 Be the Year of Connecting With Intention?
Younger workers’ concerns about being left behind are understandable. Artificial intelligence has disproportionately impacted entry-level jobs, raising the stakes for early-career professionals who rely on visibility, mentorship and relationships to advance. Whether they work in the office or remotely, building those connections requires a more “conscious effort,” Galvin said. But leaders should also be doing what they can to facilitate collaboration and relationship-building opportunities.
Of course, that’s no small task. Becoming a better communicator, mentor and manager has always been difficult, and it’s made more complicated in the remote-work world. But that’s the real challenge organizations should be focused on solving, Cairns said.
“We don’t know how to mentor, be vulnerable, give difficult feedback, stay connected to one another and find ways to have informal conversations to maintain and strengthen our relationships. These are things that we are falling down on in the corporate world, undeniably,” Cairns said. “But the solution is not some sort of knee-jerk, five-day return-to-office.”
Instead of forcing people back to the office, Cairns said companies should rethink what their office is actually for. That means designing spaces around the people who actually want to be there, and finding ways to bring the rest of the team together for more purposeful activities. It’s about treating offices less like default workplaces and more like “cultural hubs,” where teams have periodic “bursts of collaboration.”
“The bigger and more interesting problem to solve is how you come together with intention, how you come together for immersive gatherings, how you not just rethink your space, but rethink your whole approach to connecting together,” Cairns said. “That is the exciting part, but it's the hard part.”
And in 2026, that may be the real test for the modern workplace: Not how often employees show up, but whether the time they spend together is actually worth it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Gen Z workers more likely to go into the office than older workers?
Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia found that younger workers are more likely to go to the office than other generations. Their findings were consistent with the results of a StackOverflow survey and an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data on college-educated U.S. workers.
Why are companies pushing return-to-office policies again?
Many employers believe in-office work can boost collaboration, communication, company culture and productivity by enabling face-to-face interaction and spontaneous idea sharing. Some also want to justify expensive office leases and real estate investments that were underused during the pandemic. Additionally, leaders often see physical presence as reinforcing norms, oversight and mentoring — especially for newer employees — and think it can strengthen teamwork and engagement.
Are office buildings back to pre-pandemic occupancy levels?
No. Office occupancy rates are just over 50 percent, which is still a ways off from pre-pandemic levels, despite more companies mandating full-time office returns.
