‘Hybrid creep’ is spreading as more companies tighten RTO rules

• Many employers are gradually increasing the number of days that workers must show up at the office.
• A survey shows 34% of employees must be on-site four days a week, up from 23% in 2023.
• 'Hybrid creep' may signal the end of flexible work at some companies, as employers seek more control.

Sorry, home-office enthusiasts. So-called "hybrid creep" is gaining traction.

Employers are gradually increasing the number of days that workers must show up at the office. For example, this month Intel began requiring staffers to come in at least four days a week, up from three previously. NBCUniversal, Starbucks, and Bank of New York Mellon recently implemented similar mandates.

A new survey of 2,000 full-time US workers found that nearly a third of employers revised their remote or hybrid work policies in the past year. Video-conferencing company Owl Labs, which commissioned the poll and claims it came up with the term "hybrid creep," found that 34% of respondents are now required to be on-site at least four days a week. That is up from 32% in 2024 and 23% in 2023.

"This is the boiling-frog concept," Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Boston-based Owl Labs, told Business Insider. Instead of suddenly demanding workers return to the office full-time after several years of hybrid — and before that, fully remote — schedules, they've been taking things slow, he said.

It's likely that employers going with a baby-step approach aren't using stricter return-to-office mandates as a way to nudge workers to resign, said Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

"Nobody's quitting now anyway," he said.

Instead, companies may be easing staff back into commuting incrementally to avoid stirring resentment, which can hamper productivity. Just because workers aren't handing in resignations as frequently as they used to doesn't mean they're happy with less flexibility, Cappelli said.

Companies generally want workers back at the office so they can monitor them more closely and spur more collaboration. Yet five-day RTO mandates have come with some hiccups, as Business Insider previously reported.

Amazon's shift in January from three to five mandatory office days left workers scrambling for desks and meeting rooms, while Dell's March orders for employees living near an office to come back full time resulted in uneven compliance. Some workers at the tech company resumed eight-hour office days, while "coffee badgers" showed up only briefly.

Still, returning to a fully in-person workweek may result in some employees resigning, even in today's job-hugging economy, because of child- or elder-care needs, said Pace University management professor Andrew Coggins.

Returning to fully in-person schedules "can be a big jump," he said.

Owl Labs's survey suggests that more workers are warming up to office life. Some 21% of respondents said they'd like to be on-site as many as four days a week, an increase from 17% in last year's report. Yet nearly half of workers polled said they still lack the overall work flexibility they want, and 37% said they'd decline a job offer from a company that doesn't allow flexible working hours.

It's possible that hybrid creep is a sign that the era of flexible work is coming to an end — at least at some companies. "I think employers would prefer five days," said Coggins. "They have more control."