'Micro-shifting,' coffee badging: Bosses are still mandating RTOworkers are going, but on their own terms

"People are spending about 25% of their days working from home, and that share hasn't budged since spring 2023, says Nick Bloom, a Stanford professor and leading researcher on remote work trends, and based on a recurring survey of 10,000 Americans from his team at WFH Research. Work-from-home rates have persisted, Bloom tells CNBC Make It, even as the labor market sours, people cling to their jobs and leverage swings back in the direction of CEOs making RTO calls."

""Firms are announcing RTOs," he says. "It just does not look like employees are following through on the ground." He thinks of it as passive resistance: CEOs make a big announcement, but the middle managers tasked with enforcing the rule don't want to follow it themselves, much less make direct reports do so. Managers are typically assessed on the performance of their team, and if they're performing well enough, they're unlikely to see the benefit of an increased attendance rule, Bloom says."

"Then, there's the issue of tracking whether people are in for the actual number of days required by company policy. Take a company that has a four-day office policy, but most people only go in for three. It can be hard to track exactly why someone didn't meet the attendance requirement for a given week. They could be out taking client meetings, at a conference, at an appointment, taking a sick day or just on vacation, Bloom says."

People are spending about 25% of their days working from home, and that share has remained steady since spring 2023. Companies including Starbucks, Paramount and Microsoft have issued new return-to-office requirements as part of a years-long push across Corporate America. Mass RTO efforts are encountering a compliance gap: firms announce mandates but many employees do not follow through, and middle managers often refrain from enforcing rules. Shrinking layers of middle management can cause manager burnout and reduce enforcement. Firms also struggle to track actual in-office days because absences may reflect client meetings, conferences, appointments, sick days, or vacations. Work-from-home rates have persisted even as labor-market conditions shift.

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