Work-from-office mandate? Expect top talent turnover, culture rot
CIO.com

Work-from-office mandates are accelerating as the world moves further away from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the push toward in-person work environments will make it more difficult for IT leaders to retain and recruit staff, some experts say.

Over the past year, many companies, including IT giants Amazon and Microsoft, have required employees to work from the office, with many other organizations mandating on-site work in previous years.

Nearly half of all workers, and nearly two-thirds of IT professionals, were feeling pressure from their employers to work from the office as of early 2025, according to the 2025 Technology at Work Report, released by IT security firm Ivanti.

Advocates of in-person work expect increased productivity and improved collaboration as employees work from the office, although several studies have suggested that workers can be just as productive when working remotely, and employment experts say collaboration gains can be difficult to measure.

There is value in cross-functional teams working together in person, says Lawrence Wolfe, CTO at marketing firm Converge. “When teams meet for architecture sessions, design sprints, or incident response, the pace of progress, as well as the level of clarity, may increase simply because being in-person caters to the way most people in the business interact,” he says.

However, there are potential downsides for IT leaders, with strict work-from-office policies making it more difficult to attract and retain top IT talent. “In addition to resistance, there would also be the risk of talent turnover,” Wolfe adds. “The truth is, both physical and virtual collaboration provide tremendous value.”