Why Some Employees Struggle With the Office Return (and How to Support Them)
In recent months, new waves of Return to Office (RTO) mandates have swept across major companies. For some, the message is simple: culture happens in person, and they want employees to be back to it.
But for many employees, both early-career and tenured, this shift isn’t just about geography. It’s about identity, trust, and the quiet routines they’ve spent years building. As RTO policies become more common, it’s critical for HR and leadership to recognize: returning isn’t seamless for everyone.
In fact, for some it’s not a return at all. It’s an entirely new experience.
Returning Isn’t Seamless for Everyone
Since the COVID-19 era of at-home work began, the debate on what kind of working environment is better (working remotely or working in-office) has been one that has sparked a whole range of perspectives. Employees and leadership alike have weighed in, each with valid reasons for preferring one model over another. Remote work offers flexibility, saves time on commuting, and allows for better integration of day-to-day life, while in-office work can strengthen collaboration, culture, and spontaneity.
As pandemic restrictions have eased, many organizations have increased their in-office expectations. The most recent, headline-catching example is Starbucks. Recently, they announced that corporate employees will need to relocate and report to offices in either Seattle or Toronto by October. To ease the transition and in anticipation of the repercussions of this decision, the company has also offered a payout package for those unable to make the move.
Moves like this reflect a broader pattern: even as remote work remains part of the landscape, in-person policies are becoming more common across all industries. A quick search of “RTO mandates” reveals growing conversations around what it means to return to the office after nearly five years of working from home.
Why Now, After all This Time?
The rise of RTO mandates started as early as 2022, and for some places even earlier than that. While some workers have welcomed the shift, others have found it challenging to reconfigure their routines and priorities. For example, in December 2024 Stanford University surveyed the attitudes of American workers on their thoughts about their working arrangements, with only 44% saying they would comply with an RTO policy to fully return to work.
The remaining 56% say they would quit or start looking for a new job.
That tells us something crucial: remote work is not going away. But it also doesn’t mean every organization is structured to fully support it, especially in industries where in-person collaboration is essential or culturally embedded. In fact, in 2023 around 90% of companies reported plans to implement RTO policies by the end of 2024.
And that’s despite studies showing that productivity rose 3.7% in 2023.
But one piece of this conversation often gets overlooked:
For fully remote workers, returning to the office is not just a logistical change. It’s a cultural adjustment.
So, if you’ve noticed that some employees are finding this shift more difficult than others, it’s not just resistance, it’s readjustment. And for HR teams and leaders, recognizing that nuance is a critical part of making this next chapter of work actually work.
Why Early-Career Workers May Struggle
Employees who began their careers remotely (many of which are Gen Zs or younger Millennials) often struggle with the cultural shift, highlighting the need for inclusive return to office plans and strategies. That means outlining expectations that others might take for granted, which can feel not just murky or unspoken, but overwhelming.
Here are some reasons why the transition might hit harder than expected:
1. They’ve Never Experienced Office Norms
From how to navigate a watercooler conversation to learning when it’s appropriate to pop into someone’s office, most early-career professionals haven’t had the chance to learn the unspoken etiquette of in-person work. That includes subtle performance cues, things that you aren’t told and are often learned through direct experience, such as:
Reading the tone of meetings
How to navigate making mistakes and taking accountability
How to build visibility at work
Knowing how (and when) to speak up in a group setting
To new workers, it’s not just “being in the office”, it’s learning the hidden language that every business uses.
This isn’t just speculation. It’s being recognized across the broader workforce landscape. In a recent CTV News article titled Soft skills, etiquette and Gen Z: What went missing and how to bring it back, CultureAlly’s CEO Ashley Kelly put it simply:
“They came into the workforce during COVID and missed out on a ton of these micro-lessons that you pick up just by being in the office: seeing how people dress, how they handle tough conversations, how they show up in meetings.
GenZ’s bring a lot of positives to the workforce. They really value transparency, flexibility and inclusion. I’ll say too: they push organizations to live up to those values, and I think that that’s really good for everyone and for business in general.” ”
2. They Often Build Confidence Through Autonomy
Remote work forced many early-career employees to self-direct, self-regulate, and find their rhythm without much external validation. Many succeeded and grew confident within that setup.
Now, being watched, interrupted, or pulled into side conversations can feel distracting and subtly undermining.
They may be wondering if the trust you’ve placed in them has been eroded, and may even become disengaged as a result.
3. They Struggle with Overstimulation or Social Fatigue
Office life comes with a different sensory load:
Constant noise
Visual clutter
Social anxiety
For neurodivergent employees or employees accustomed to quieter home environments, this can quickly lead to fatigue and burnout, even when the work itself is not new.
It’s not about being antisocial. It’s about building capacity and accommodating for the real-life challenges that come with a sudden shift.
4. They Worry About Being Misunderstood
In a remote setting, output often spoke for itself. In-person, there’s new pressure to perform presence as much as productivity.
For new workers, especially employees from marginalized backgrounds, this can trigger severe anxiety about being perceived as “awkward”, “checked out” or simply “not leadership material”.
Ultimately, the office doesn’t feel familiar because it isn’t familiar. If leaders want their people to thrive in this new chapter, they’ll need to lead with clarity, empathy, and a willingness to re-teach what used to be learned.
In that respect, it isn’t about resistance, it’s about creating a carefully organized process of reorientation.
What Can HR and Managers Do to Help?
This is where the good news comes in.
These challenges are not at all insurmountable, and they don’t require a complete reimagining of your workplace.
What they do require is intentional, thoughtful leadership that recognizes returning to the office as a transition, not a reset button. It’s about normalizing these everyday interactions and providing resources to do so, and the flexibility to do so at your employees’ own pace.
1. Normalize the Learning Curve
Don’t assume everyone knows how to work in an office environment.
Where generations of workers learned these unspoken rules of in-person work via real-life experience, younger Millennials and Gen Zs often joined the workforce during COVID-19 work-from-home mandates, and may have even attended schooling remotely. This has its advantages of course, but long-term it does mean they haven’t been able to access the experience of everyday interactions, office norms, and basic structures.
To counteract this, offer practical, judgment-free support:
☑️ Clarify the basics: Where do you eat lunch? What’s the noise policy? Are there unwritten norms around dressing and scheduling meetings? To help answer these questions, consider creating RTO packages and placing additional reminders throughout the office.
☑️ Explain logistics upfront: Even though booking a meeting, using the printer, and even adjusting a desk chair might seem like it should be common sense, the reality is that it isn’t. Thinking back, you’ve likely asked these questions or learned the answers through trying and failing, or through an unfortunate mistake.
☑️ Lead by example: Normalize curiosity. If managers openly model asking questions and learning something new, others will follow.
☑️ Create a detailed resource hub: A quick-start guide, welcome back FAQ, or Slack channel for casual questions can greatly reduce uncertainty and embarrassment. Consider even printing pages from this guide and putting up additional reminders throughout the office.
Honestly, even tenured employees benefit from a light “office onboarding” support package.
It’s important to remember: Nobody outgrows clarity.
2. Use “Training Wheels”
Returning to the office after years of remote work is not just a shift in policy and environment, it’s a shift in behavior. You can’t expect employees to hit the ground running without structure and support.
Design an intentional re-entry experience by:
✅ Starting small: Encourage people to begin with structured in-office days with team meetings, check-ins, and project kickoff sessions.
✅ Establish predictability: Set recurring in-office days in advance to help employees plan energy, transit, and child care needs.
✅ Offer assistance: If possible, stipends that employees can access for gas or transit fares or even childcare credits to make the transition even easier.
✅ Make in-office days feel worthwhile: Avoid days filled with Zoom calls at your desk. If you’re asking people to come in, make it collaborative and team-oriented.
✅ Offer hybrid options: Remember that 56% of employees surveyed said they would quit or start job-hunting if asked to return full-time to the office? While there are many reasons for this, the key message is clear: flexibility is a retention strategy, not a perk.
Hybrid isn’t a compromise. It can be a scaffold.
3. Work Towards Rebuilding Trust in Both Directions
Many employees proved themselves during the remote years. They have built systems, managed time, and hit professional and personal goals. Now, some of them feel like that trust is being revoked with little explanation.
To maintain engagement and prevent total disillusionment from work, managers can:
☑️ Acknowledge past successes: Don’t let RTO policies imply that what employees accomplished remotely was somehow “less than”. Consider small but meaningful gestures such as:
Specific shoutouts in meetings that reference remote-era accomplishments
Including remote project metrics in performance reviews
Team retrospectives to establish and celebrate what was built, learned, and strengthened
Asking: What remote habit or system can we shift and carry forward in office?
☑️ Share the why: Be specific about what is to be gained via in-person work. When individuals are offered vague reasonings (e.g., “for the culture”) can feel dismissive.
☑️ Frame RTO as a two-way investment: Invite feedback and show flexibility during the process. Let employees help shape what good looks like in the new working model.
☑️ Avoid performative presence: Don’t equate being seen with being productive. Instead, measure impact in both spaces.
Trust is not about surveillance. It’s about support.
Remember: RTO Isn’t a One-Size-Fits All
Not every role, department, or individual will need the same level of in-office presence to thrive. And not every day in the office will offer the same level of value for every person. Instead of enforcing RTO as a uniform policy, approach it as a design challenge by asking: How can we make the office worth coming into?
Here are a few ways:
Use Pilot Programs or Opt-In Days
Now’s the time to test new ideas! Try theme days or “no meeting” office hours that include employees in the process, with feedback mechanisms to see what works and what doesn’t.
As with everything at work, you’ll get more buy-in if employees feel part of the process.
Create Rituals to Reconnect
Make the office feel less transactional. Morning huddles, weekly breakfast clubs, casual Fridays, or “learn over lunch” sessions can turn in-person time into a space to build team culture and overall bonds.
Offer Flexibility Where it Matters Most
Sometimes, strict hours are not necessary. And if they aren’t, don’t enforce them. Let people build in quiet time, midday walks, or even work-from-home days where possible.
Flexibility doesn’t mean embracing chaos: it means respect.
Flexible, empathetic leadership is vital to a successful hybrid workplace strategy.
Compassion as a Culture Builder
The return to office is a huge shift culturally, logistically, and even mentally.
And, like any big shift, it will test your values as much as your processes.
Some employees will jump back in with ease. Others will stumble, hesitate, or quietly burn out. And your role is not just to push them through it, it’s to walk alongside them, to listen, and to design with care. At the end of the day, you’re not just rebuilding an office. You’re re-engaging a workforce.
And doing that with compassion? That’s what people will remember.
💬 FAQ: Supporting Employees Through the Return to Office
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Many early-career employees started their roles remotely and haven’t experienced in-person work before. Office norms, unspoken expectations, and face-to-face dynamics can be unfamiliar and adjusting takes time.
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Normalize the learning curve. Offer light onboarding, model curiosity, and clarify the expectations. What feels obvious to you might be completely new to someone else.
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Not at all! Flexibility is all about creating the conditions for high performance, not avoiding it. A hybrid or phased return approach can boost engagement and retention without compromising productivity.
