Key takeaways
- 50% of workers say RTO mandates are about management control; just 6% say culture and 5% say collaboration— the two reasons leadership tends to cite
- 60% say constant monitoring is the worst thing for morale, even more so than mandatory office attendance
- 53% say hybrid is the most productive arrangement; 61% say in-office is the least— and even in-office workers rate hybrid above their own setup
- 82% believe fully remote teams can have great culture; workers define culture through engagement and trust, not in-person events
- Collaboration ranked dead last (1%) as a contributor to employee happiness; flexibility (32%) and salary (26%) led by wide margins across generations and work styles
- 72% of in-office workers want some form of remote work; 51% say they don't need to be there to do their job
What workers think RTOs are actually about
Workers have heard the pitch: return to office to get that hard-to-define special feeling of vibrant communication and collaboration that post-COVID workplaces seem to lack. They're not persuaded.
When asked what RTO mandates are really about, 50% said management control. Office lease justification came next at 17%, and productivity landed at 16%. The two reasons most commonly cited by leadership— company culture (6%) and employee collaboration (5%)— finished at the bottom of the list. Management control was the top answer across all three work styles. Among remote workers, 59% chose it. Among hybrid, 49%. Among in-office workers, it still led at 41%.
The gap was in what came second: 30% of in-office workers gave leadership the benefit of the doubt and said productivity, yet only 6% of remote workers agreed. Remote workers instead tended towards “office lease justification” with 19%. Hybrid workers also chose justifying office leases second.
Productivity perception ranks highest among hybrid workers
If RTO is about productivity, workers aren't seeing it. 53% said hybrid is the most productive work style. 32% said remote. Just 15% picked fully in-office. Given another one of our surveys found workers estimate just half of their day to be truly productive, every choice counts to maximize your returns.
The inverse question was more lopsided: 61% said in-office is the least productive arrangement. Hybrid came in at 8%. Interestingly, remote workers retained a similar share at 31%.
When examined based on work style, the results speak to office workers yearning for something more. Workers currently in the office rated hybrid (50%) as more productive than their own setup (38%). In fact, in-office is the only group where a majority chose a different arrangement as more productive than the one they have. Hybrid workers backed hybrid at 81%. Remote workers backed remote at 68%. In-office workers couldn't even back themselves.
How do we define company culture?
82% of all respondents said it's possible to have a great company culture as a fully remote team. Among remote workers, 96%. Among in-office workers, two-thirds still agreed.
When asked which arrangement produces the strongest culture, the top answer wasn't a work style at all— it was "culture is dependent on other things" at 46%. Hybrid followed at 26%, in-office at 21%, remote at 7%.
Workplace flexibility is king
When asked what contributes most to employee happiness, work flexibility led at 32%, followed by salary at 26%. Together, those two accounted for 58% of all responses.
Trust in employees (12%), company culture (11%), and sense of ownership (9%) formed a middle tier. Benefits, workload, and collaboration rounded out the bottom— with collaboration at 1%. That last number is worth sitting with. The reason cited least by workers as a driver of their happiness is the one most frequently used to justify getting them back in the building.
Meanwhile, the thing workers say is most destructive to morale has nothing to do with where one works: it's monitoring. 60% selected constant monitoring and productivity tracking as the worst thing for morale— consistent across remote (61%), hybrid (59%), and in-office (59%). It was the most universal answer in the survey, possibly because it shows employees clearly that management doesn’t trust them, a key lever of employee happiness.
Offices don't solve culture
The workers already complying with in-office expectations are not, by and large, converts.
72% of in-office workers said they want some form of remote work— 47% want hybrid and 24% want fully remote. Only 28% said they're happy where they are.
51% said it is not necessary to be in the office to do their job. 80% don't consider pizza parties a major benefit. 72% would rather go home than attend after-hours culture events. 64% said their commute should count as part of their work day.
Remote workers, for their part, are largely settled. 93% said they wouldn't be more productive in an office. 90% of those who previously held office jobs don't miss them. Their top complaints— loneliness (27%) and blurred work-life boundaries (20%)— are real, but not enough to make them want to go back.
Hybrid workers preferred their remote days by a wide margin (75% to 9%) but still called the arrangement the "best of both worlds" (75%). Their main gripe: 81% received no compensation for commuting costs; adding salt in the wound for 19% is knowing they could be fully remote.
RTO won't solve everything. Flexibility and fair pay might
The RTO debate has been presented as employers wanting productivity and workers wanting comfort. This data tells a different story. Workers across every arrangement, age group, and demographic agree on what makes them happy (flexibility, fair pay), what kills morale (surveillance), and what culture actually means (engagement, not geography). It’s up to leadership to understand that and act accordingly.
Methodology
In May 2026, we surveyed 1,009 U.S.-based workers on their work styles and preferences. Respondents self-identified as remote (n=343), hybrid (n=354), or fully in-office (n=312), with conditional follow-up questions routed by work style. The sample was 50% men, 49% women, and 1% non-binary, with a mean age of 38.6 and respondents across all 50 states.
