Free gas and unlimited PTO: 13 benefits that would encourage employees to return to work

Just because companies are rolling out return-to-office mandates doesn't mean employees are ready to comply with them — at least not without getting a few high priority benefits in return. 

Despite only 2% of employees saying they prefer to work on-site full time, 40% said that their companies are applying pressure to return to the office, according to a survey conducted by resume making platform MyPerfectResume. It'll take more than policy changes to sell employees on in-person work again, which is why the platform ranked some of the perks and benefits employees are most likely to want in exchange for RTO mandates. 

"It can be difficult to determine the specific reasons that employers are implementing mandatory RTO policies," says Kellie Hanna, a career expert at MyPerfectResume. "That being said, many of the justifications that are often cited include arguments that remote work is detrimental to employee engagement and that communication and collaboration is improved when able to work face-to-face with your colleagues." 

Read more: 40% of Gen Z has been bullied during their RTO experience

Employees have their own theories, according to MyPerfectResume's findings. Seventy-seven percent believe that RTO policies are designed to give employers more control over workers, 72% say that their employer believes working on-site will improve productivity and 42% think companies want to reinstate on-site work to force attrition without the need for severance packages.

"Employees have a fairly negative opinion of RTO mandates and in-person work," Hanna says. "They might end up seeing increased levels of employee dissatisfaction, increased rates of employee turnover, a limited ability to foster and promote diversity and inclusion, difficulty attracting top talent, and even a decrease in productivity as morale and motivation decline."

As a result, the effort to make the return-to-work seamless has proven to be rather difficult, with 36% of people saying that no perk or benefit is worth returning to the office full-time. Employees still place tremendous value on the benefits of remote and hybrid work, which include an improved work-life balance, flexibility, autonomy, decreased stress levels, increased productivity and a number of cost savings. 

There are, however, some benefits that would encourage employees to consider returning to the office full-time more than others, and MyPerfectResume ranked them accordingly: