Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
- According to the Q2 2025 Flex Index report, flexibility remains firmly established, with 67% of U.S. firms still offering work location flexibility.
- The gap between mandates and actual attendance is widening. While companies are demanding more office time (up 10% since Q1 2024), actual attendance has barely budged.
- data confirms that attendance consistently falls short of policy expectations — not because employees are resistant, but because the old heads-down work centric office model simply doesn’t fit today’s work.
The latest Flex Index data confirms what many workplace experts have suspected: we’re witnessing a growing divide in how organizations approach office space and flexibility. Examining who is adapting to new realities versus clinging to outdated models is more important than who is demanding more days in the office.
Fortune 500 Leading the Return Push, But Reality Lags
According to the Q2 2025 Flex Index report, flexibility remains firmly established, with 67% of U.S. firms still offering work location flexibility. However, we’re seeing Fortune 500 companies leading a notable shift, with Full Time In Office policies nearly doubling from 13% to 24% since Q4 2024.
What’s striking isn’t a wholesale retreat to five days in the office, but rather a migration in larger firms toward three-day hybrid models. The average required in-office days has increased 13% over the past year, from 2.49 in Q2 2024 to 2.82 this quarter.
Yet policy and reality tell different stories. Working with Stanford economist Nick Bloom, we’ve demonstrated that the gap between mandates and actual attendance is widening. While companies are demanding more office time (up 10% since Q1 2024), actual attendance has barely budged (up less than 2%).
In other words, policy is changing faster than behavior, suggesting we’ve hit a ceiling on how much in-person time organizations can realistically enforce without triggering significant talent flight.
The Paralysis of Indecision
This widening gap between aspiration and reality has created two distinct camps in workplace management: those making decisive moves forward and those stuck in a corporate tug-of-war.
The first group has achieved leadership alignment on their workplace strategy. They recognize that even with hybrid policies, office utilization will never return to pre-pandemic levels. These organizations are proactively shrinking their footprint while reinvesting in spaces designed for collaboration, social connection, and focused work — the very reasons people come to offices today.
They’re also investing in enablement: in travel funds for distributed teams and in creating best practices, tools and support for leaders to leverage in creating team gatherings that sing. Facilities in many organizations have expanded to include facilitation.
The second group remains frozen in indecision. Their workplace teams have been held in status by senior leaders waiting for “the year everyone comes back,” perpetually caught between leadership’s nostalgic vision and workplace realities. This hesitation has prevented them from making necessary adjustments to their office portfolio or redesigning spaces for current work patterns.
The result? A growing performance gap between workplace leaders and laggards that threatens to impair competitive advantage. Organizations clinging to outdated workplace models are carrying unnecessary real estate costs while providing spaces that don’t meet their teams’ actual needs.
Moving Forward, Not Backward
What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the question for leaders isn’t “how do we get everyone back?” but rather “how do we create programs and spaces that people want to use?”
The data confirms that attendance consistently falls short of policy expectations — not because employees are resistant, but because the old heads-down work centric office model simply doesn’t fit today’s work. The most successful organizations are those moving forward rather than backward, embracing the reality that the future requires both flexibility and collaboration-focused spaces.
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For workplace strategists and business leaders, the message couldn’t be clearer: stop waiting for a return to 2019. Instead, rightsize your footprint, redesign for current needs, create magnetic spaces that draw people in rather than policies that push them there – and support leaders in building great teams.
The divide between workplace leaders and laggards is widening. Which side will your organization land on?
Brian Elliott is the founder of Work Forward and former Executive Leader of Future Forum. He is a leading authority on workplace transformation and flexible work trends.
