Return to Office Without Ruining Culture: What Great Leaders Do Differently
Return-to-office (RTO) mandates are resurging in 2025—companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Dell, and JPMorgan are enforcing strict office attendance, in some cases demanding four or five days per week (extended sources: Farelle Braun + Martel, Best Corporate Events and Teambuilding, Business Insider). But mandating presence without purpose often drives resistance, burnout, and resignations. With the cost associated with these impacts, what can and should leaders do?
This guide helps leaders build clarity, address resistance, and create accountability—with a stern but empathetic philosophy: think of corporate and/or business mandates as a bus headed toward a vision. Everyone is welcome to ride, but if they want to step off, that’s their choice. And as leaders, we get to influence that choice.
1. The Resentment of the Commute
Many resist RTO because the return feels pointless—driving 60–90 minutes one way only to sit on a video call that could’ve been done remotely. This is predictable. A recent survey found 61% prefer hybrid models, whereas only ~29% support full-time office work (source: News.com.au). Another survey reported that 73% of workers said mandates lacked clear justification (source: National Law Review). Without clarity, mandates feel arbitrary and illogical.
Key point: It’s not that people aren’t lazy—they need to know why office time matters.
2. Clarity: The Leader’s Responsibility
If leadership enforces RTO, they must also explain why it matters. Is it about collaboration, innovation, onboarding, trust-building, security, or remaining competitive? These rationales must be coupled with aspiration.
Examples:
At Starbucks, the mandate sparked backlash and flyers criticizing culture misalignment (source: Wharton Executive Education, Best Corporate Events Teambuilding, Business Insider).
Dell’s return mandate coincided with a steep drop in employee satisfaction, highlighting distrust and fatigue (source: Business Insider).
When clarity is missing, tension flares—leading employees to quit rather than adapt.
3. Resistance: An Opportunity for Dialogue—Change Your Perspective
Employees resist mandates for valid reasons: lost autonomy, mental drain, caregiving constraints, and opportunity cost. Younger generations and parents feel this most acutely (source: Kadence).
Great leaders know that negative feedback is valuable feedback, not defiance. They ask:
What are your real concerns?
What needs to be true for this to work?
How can we make the office experience worth the commute?
4. Accountability: You’re Riding a Bus
When executive leaders define the company's vision, it’s like announcing bus route and destination. The metaphor makes clear that:
If team members are ‘riding’ on the bus means they’re aligned with vision.
If team members are not wanting to ‘ride’ the bus or go to it’s destination means it’s time to step off the bus, and that’s okay.
Executives must be clear, firm, yet respectful. Communicate early, state expectations, outline consequences, but include genuine flexibility.
5. A Unified Framework: The 3C’s (Clarity, Consideration, Consequence)
| C |
Leader/Exec Team Focus |
Team Member Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity |
Clear business reason, metrics, behaviors tied to office time |
Understand the why, how it supports goals |
| Consideration |
Provide commuter benefits, flexible switching windows |
Share honest feedback and needs |
| Consequence |
Enforce policies fairly; coach or offboard transparently |
Choose to be a part of the future vision—or not |
6. Real-World Success Stories
JPMorgan mandated 5 days/week and prepared for some attrition—but retained most by pairing mandates with better amenities (source: Kadence, Best Corporate Events Teambuilding, The Times, Barrons)
Meta’s hybrid model centers on purposeful in-office collaboration; they measure effectiveness, not presence (source: Esevel).
7. What Happens If Team Members Refuse?
Not everyone wants to ride the bus where it’s going. If a team member still resists even with clarity and benefits, it’s okay—working apart may align better with their vision. It’s a win-win. Just be upfront: stepping off the bus may end their journey here.
Final Takeaway
RTO mandates won’t build culture—but clarity, purpose, and respectful accountability can. Your job as a leader is to declare the destination, explain why it matters, support the journey, then expect people to board—or walk away.
