"In mid-August, Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered provincial government workers back in the office four days a week, starting Oct. 20, andthen five days a week beginning next January. Last week, the City of Ottawa also mandated a return to the officeas of January, 2026, withthe city manager saying five days in-person will boost "organizational culture." The government edicts follow a list of employers putting an end to pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements."
"Earlier this year, JPMorgan Chase, Amazon and Dell ordered employees in for five days a week. This fall, four of Canada's Big Five banks - Toronto-Dominion, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia - will formally institute four days in-person. The back-to-office push is meeting stiff resistance from employees, many of whom aren't complying with existing mandates."
"We're inan uneasy equilibrium right now. Equilibrium in the sense that work-from-home rates are not really moving in the data. Uneasy in the sense that there is some generational discord, where older leaders believe that turning to the past might be the best solution. This time last year, we also had lots of discussion about thereturn to the office. It's a recursive loop where managers are diagnosing this as the simple answer to their complicated problems."
Mandates from provincial and municipal governments require staged returns to the office, with some moving from four to five days in-person. Multiple large employers and several major banks are instituting multi-day in-office schedules after pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements. Many employees are resisting these mandates and are not complying, and downtown foot traffic remains roughly half of pre-pandemic levels. Work-from-home rates are stable in the data, and tensions reflect generational differences and managerial attempts to treat complex organizational issues by reverting to earlier work norms.
Read at The Globe and Mail
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