--- title: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Remote Work Nearly Six Years Later description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/ author: Brian Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-12-09T11:30:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-28T07:07:33.649Z article:section: Charter og:title: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Remote Work Nearly Six Years Later og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. 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It covers the reporting, scoops and conversations shaping AI and the decisions facing leaders. #### Where can I get reported AI news rather than commentary? In the Loop is TIME's AI newsletter, built on original reporting and access to the people building and governing AI. It publishes Tuesdays and Fridays and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes TIME's In the Loop? Harry Booth, a tech reporter at TIME, writes In the Loop. #### Is In the Loop free? Yes. In the Loop is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Dec 9, 2025 11:30 AM UTC  by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Dec 9, 2025 11:30 AM UTC Nearly six years after the pandemic prompted a new remote work era, return to office battles are back in the news, from [Instagram chief Adam Mosseri](https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-chief-adam-mosseri-announces-five-day-office-return-2025-12?fbclid=IwY2xjawOa5l9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFyVmFXeHNXN2tyeEMyUjhsc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHiSwDrYNTAqnswefG5e4uc%5FlcvUTZfU%5FXY9e4d6SYBBw-vk2DG5PSnAY6Xsp%5Faem%5FUPpW4Ms1Ex2AoUVAT3almQ&utm%5Fcampaign=mrf-tech-marfeel-headline-graphic&mrfcid=20251201692dfe17446c846dd231ca25) saying he wants everyone in the office five days a week to The New York Times declaring that [Gen Z suddenly wants a hybrid work](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/business/young-workers-office.html?searchResultPosition=1) schedule. (We’ve known that [for a while](https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/when-hybrid-work-strategy-aggravates-20-somethings/#:~:text=One%20of%20us%20%28Brian%29%20cofounded,face%2Dto%2Dface%20experiences.).) As we head into 2026, expect more such headlines as other companies—including [Paramount](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/04/paramount-5-day-a-week-mandate.html), [Truist](https://www.bankingdive.com/news/truist-rto-employees-in-office-5-days-banking/805291/), and now [Kroger](https://www.wlwt.com/article/kroger-employees-return-office-january/69503393)—push new five-day office mandates, too. Why, at the end of 2025, are we still having these endless debates? I believe the tug-of-war keeps making headlines because it speaks to a fundamental leadership issue: Is the right way to lead people with mandates, setting policies from the top? Or with magnets, drawing them toward desired behaviors? The answer is a little bit of both. Policies, on their own, can be frustrating at any level. Even a seemingly relaxed policy—"come in one day a week, any day"—leaves employees guessing which days teammates will be in, and frustrated after commuting to an empty office. But treating it as a compliance matter with strict in-person demands leaves people feeling micromanaged and policed. To move forward, the focus can’t be on hours logged or days onsite. It must be on whether leaders drive results through monitoring or through engagement. Sign up for Charter's newsletter to get the handbook for the future of work delivered to your inbox. Email Address You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our [Terms of Service](https://www.charterworks.com/terms-of-service/) and [Privacy Policy](https://www.charterworks.com/privacy-policy/). **Physical proximity is n** **o longer the office default** Even organizations pushing for full-time office returns ignore how much the structure of work has shifted. Many teams are distributed across physical locations, and Mosseri's own memo acknowledges this: Bay Area employees, his memo said, can choose between Instagram’s Menlo Park and San Francisco offices, and the policy doesn’t apply to remote employees or Meta colleagues who don’t report to Mosseri. Inevitably, teams will have members dialing in from various locations. In most large, project-oriented organizations, people are simply spread out. In a recent survey of 5,000 employees by commercial real estate firm CBRE, 37% of office workers said they report to a manager who sits in a different office. Physical proximity, in other words, is no longer the default for nearly 40% of the office workforce. You can't unscramble an egg. [Emily Botello](https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-neff-botello-5624ab23/), managing director at CBRE, has tracked this tension since the pandemic began. Some organizations—particularly in financial services—are "digging in really hard on five \[days\] and saying this is the culture we want to create," she told me. Others have pulled back: Many who had managers enforcing three-day attendance policies a year ago have quietly stopped, wary of the burnout that comes from turning professionals into attendance monitors. "It was a full-time job this manager didn't have" before, says Botello. **Mandate vs. Magnet** [Brian Sherman](https://urldefense.com/v3/%5F%5Fhttps:/www.linkedin.com/in/brian-sherman-3a37853/%5F%5F;!!A7EtB5C7gltH1xvgflR8MP4!CIb541F21kRWYk84DA09YE1biEQ5RdXi0m3dNLRXOlIe-USfylYyWDdsHZSaeNUTvwIou6cKTXRb%5FXs$), chief people officer of Delta Dental’s California affiliates, has tested both approaches. His company let senior leaders pick which days they’d come into the office, and communicate with their teams as they saw fit. Sherman went all-out on the magnet approach for his team, telling them just once that he and other managers would be in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with an open hour for lunch. But in another division, managers made repeated announcements about which days they were coming in, inadvertently sending a different message. "When \[a\] senior leader talks about it a lot, it implies there's an expectation," one employee shared with Sherman. The result? Perceived pressure lagged behind genuine engagement. Sherman’s team had higher attendance than the one that issued repeat statements about coming onsite. Other organizations building genuine engagement include Airbnb, which created [monthly in-person weeks to convene employees. Once a month, s](https://theworkforward.substack.com/p/think-you-cant-innovate-without-an)enior leaders are at Airbnb headquarters to work on major releases; employees are encouraged to attend three days that week. The acronym they use for the approach is "FOMO,” as in “Fear of Missing Out,” rather than “RTO." Like Delta Dental, they're creating desire, not compliance. **When "fair" has different meanings** In many companies, the problem underlying the issue isn't the policies, or the lack of them. It's that we're operating with two different definitions of a core concept: fairness. Professors [Anne-Laure Fayard](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-laure-fayard-b34896/) and [John Weeks](https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-weeks-bb423a12/) spoke with our Charter Forum group recently about their research on the tension between ["ethics of justice" and "ethics of care."](https://hbr.org/2025/05/the-workplace-psychological-contract-is-broken-heres-how-to-fix-it) Leaders often default to justice: Fairness means the same rule for everyone. Five days in the office for all. As one CEO told me: "At least this way, no one can claim it's unfair." Such policies are transactional. But employees experience fairness as _relational_: Do you understand my situation? Do you consider my needs when making decisions? Have you built enough trust that I believe you? Ethics of justice asks: "What's the right policy?" Ethics of care asks: "What works, and what matters?" ## **Feeling like a transaction** During the pandemic, Fayard and Weeks say, many executives were open to remote work because they faced similar issues—their nannies couldn't come in, and school was the dining room table. Many employees demonstrated they could exceed expectations even while remote. A psychological contract was formed. Post-pandemic, leaders at many firms have changed the terms. Not because performance dropped, but because executives felt uncomfortable: Were people really working at home? Were those Tik Tok videos of slackers a symbol of a broad problem? What’s behind too many return-to-office drives isn’t data. It’s vibes. Employees see the lack of trust, and feel less engaged. "When people feel a mandate, their intrinsic motivation to do that activity goes down," Professor Fayard explained. Replacing trust with rules sends a message that appearances matter more than outcomes. As Weeks says: "I often get asked, 'If people are working at home, how do I know they're working?' My usual response is: 'How do you know they're working when they're in the office?'" ## **What works: purpose and positive intent** As we move into 2026, the organizations whose flexible work policies are thriving have avoided approaches that are either too arbitrary or too strict. They've moved from transactions to relationships, empowered managers to make decisions, and demanded executives give up some control. To get there yourself, try to: **Stop asking "how do I know they're working?"** You can't see productivity in the office either. If you can't measure results that matter, you have a management problem, not a flexibility problem. **Invest in manager capability, not monitoring.** Management isn't enhanced by tracking keystrokes. It's enhanced by coaching people toward excellence. **Design for engagement.** Leaders showing up consistently to the office, creating valuable onsite programming, and intentionally designing team schedules and leadership presence are what draw people in. "People are the number one amenity to other people in the space," Botello explains. Office attendance can reveal your management philosophy. Organizations treating it as a compliance issue will continue struggling with engagement and retention. Those that treat it as a design challenge will build competitive advantage. And maybe one day, help end this unceasing debate over where work should take place. --- ## Read more from Charter [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/) [Open article: Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/)  ### Why the Office Isn’t a Cure for Loneliness [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-the-office-isn-t-a-cure-for-loneliness/) [Open article: Why You Shouldn't Let CEOs' Nostalgia Drive Remote Work](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-you-shouldn-t-let-ceos-nostalgia-drive-remote-work/)  ### Why You Shouldn't Let CEOs' Nostalgia Drive Remote Work [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/why-you-shouldn-t-let-ceos-nostalgia-drive-remote-work/) [Open article: AI Is Pushing Some Workers Back to the Office—and Others Out of It](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/ai-is-pushing-some-workers-back-to-the-office-and-others-out-of-it/)  ### AI Is Pushing Some Workers Back to the Office—and Others Out of It [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/ai-is-pushing-some-workers-back-to-the-office-and-others-out-of-it/) --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/"},"headline":"Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Remote Work Nearly Six Years Later","datePublished":"2025-12-09T11:30:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-28T07:07:33.649Z","description":"Flexible work policies keep making headlines because of a fundamental issue: Is the right way to lead people with mandates or magnets?","url":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafc64c0f0f1be814/6998cc35e1ba00bc5898e2f3/charter-remote-six-years.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Elliott","jobTitle":"Executive-in-residence, Charter","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"Charter","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafc64c0f0f1be814/6998cc35e1ba00bc5898e2f3/charter-remote-six-years.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"charter-remote-six-years","caption":"Illustration by Charter · Photo by Adene Sanchez, Getty","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7339495/why-we-cant-stop-talking-about-remote-work-nearly-six-years-later/","name":"Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Remote Work Nearly Six Years Later"}}]}] ```