Report: 1 in 3 companies are enforcing RTO due to office leases

Lease agreements appear to anchor many return-to-office policies, with a third of companies that lease space saying their current office lease terms affect their RTO strategies, according to a Dec. 3 report from Resume.org. 

Among the two-thirds of companies with office space, about half have leases that run until 2028 or later, which could dictate their RTO policies for longer. About 14% have leases expiring in 2024 or 2025, the report found. 

When these leases expire, about 23% of companies plan to reduce the amount of space they rent. Of those companies, a third said they’ll reduce the number of days required in office, and 8% will stop RTO policies.  

In the survey of 900 business leaders at companies that have implemented an RTO policy, about three-quarters will require employees to be in the office at least three days per week in 2025. Among those, 28% will require a full five-day workweek in office. 

Leaders pointed to several reasons behind their RTO policies, such as facilitating collaboration and teamwork, encouraging better communication, improving company culture, upping productivity, allowing for better management and using paid office space. 

“The pandemic accelerated remote work adoption, and many businesses now question the necessity of large office spaces,” Matt Morgan, a commercial real estate salesperson in California, said in a statement. “I’ve observed that companies are reassessing their space needs and reducing office space requirements as leases expire.” 

About a third of leaders expressed concerns about employees quitting over RTO policies, with 6% saying they’re very concerned. However, about half said they’re not worried about turnover. 

Although RTO can lead to higher employee turnover, 70% of companies said they’d increase or maintain in-office days in 2025, according to a Resume Builder survey. And about 80% of employers said they lost talent due to RTO mandates. 

Despite an increasing number of RTO policies, job seekers continue to look for flexible work, according to remote job site Flexa, which reported the highest number of flexible job hunters during the last quarter. Although 59% of job hunters said they preferred fully remote jobs, only 2% of postings offered fully remote work between July and September, the platform found.