EBN Best of 2025: Benefit leaders react to RTO

• Key Insight: Learn how RTO mandates shift focus from attendance to workplace purpose and retention.
• What's at Stake: Turnover among high performers, women, and younger talent threatens talent pipelines.
• Supporting Data: 30% of companies plan full-time in-office mandates in 2026, ResumeBuilder.com.
• Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have been the talk of 2025 — and they're creating some of the biggest workplace tensions since the pandemic. 

Over the past year, more employers have shifted from "strongly encouraged" office time to firmer requirements, hoping to boost collaboration, culture, and performance. In fact, according to ResumeBuilder.com, 30% of companies plan to eliminate remote work and require a full-time return to in-person work in 2026, while 17% will require a four-day in-office work week. But for benefit leaders, the shift is proving far more complex than simply asking people to restart their desktop PCs. 

Many organizations are seeing higher turnover among exactly the groups they most want to retain: High performers, women and younger talent. Even employees who stay often express lower morale or a creeping sense of distrust — especially when RTO policies feel inconsistently applied or disconnected from the work they're actually doing. The result is a workforce that may be physically present but emotionally checked out.

Read more: 'Job hugging' signals shift in worker priorities

The conversation around RTO can't just be about desks and office attendance — it has to be about purpose. This year, top leaders shared their thoughts and strategies on how to approach RTO with empathy, clarity, and flexibility in order to strengthen — not strain — the employee experience. Here's what they had to say: 

Workplace incentives can be a really successful tool in easing the transition back to work — social events, catered meals or commuter benefits, offering raises or child care benefits could be a good way to incentivize employees to return to work with a more positive attitude. Otherwise benefit managers can risk the consequences down the line. 

"Talk is cheap," says Stacie Haller, career expert at Resume Builder. "An organization can say it's an improvement as much as they want, but the bottom line is that if employees are being forced back into the office when they don't want to, it won't matter." 

Read more: Benefits that soften the blow of RTO 

 
Acknowledging the employee experience is important, no matter where employees are logging in from. To find the most valued benefits to suit their employee base, internal surveys and holding open forums can gauge what employees really want and need. Employees should talk to benefit managers about the possibility of RTO incentives and perks. 

"Wanting employees back in the office isn't bad," says Katie Smith, a senior manager at Accenture. "But [employers] should also want to make sure that they're supporting employees in ways that make an office a comfortable space to be."

Read more: Want employees to accept RTO mandates? Incentivize them with benefits 

According to a survey by Headway, more than half of respondents reported an improvement in work-life balance while working remotely. Compared to office workers, 57% of remote employees reported sticking to a regular work schedule, and 55% say they spend over six hours per day on focused work, compared to 4.9 hours for those working in the office. 

"In recent years, we have realized working from home is not a temporary thing, but a real way to stay healthy, be productive, and live in balance," Thalia-Maria Tourikis, certified health coach and burnout prevention and recovery expert at Headway app, said in a release. "When people are called back to the office just for a sense of 'normalcy,' it means forgetting everything that experience taught us."  

Read more: Working from bed? Remote workers still face productivity challenges 

As an HR leader for over three decades, Omada Health chief people officer Nancy Vitale understands the connection between company culture and talent strategy. The company had already decided to go remote-first prior to COVID, and one of Vitale's early missions was to double down on this policy for the sake of employee well-being, talent recruitment and retention.

 "When you look at our employee value proposition, work flexibility is a key component of that," Vitale says. "We see that being really important to job candidates, some of whom we're seeing because they're being mandated to go back to work at other companies." 

Read more: Saying no to RTO: Omada Health's CPO shares her remote-first strategy