The return-to-office debate isn’t stuck because no one can agree on the ideal number of office days. It’s stuck because leaders are still asking the wrong question.
It’s not: Where should work happen? It’s: Who gets to decide?
When Amazon’s five-day office mandate stumbled this spring due to space shortages, or when AT&T’s full RTO faced employee backlash, it wasn’t because anyone doubted that offices have value. It’s because employees could tell—instantly—that these mandates weren’t about productivity. They were about control.
That’s the uncomfortable truth: the return-to-office debate isn’t about work. It’s about trust.
Do you believe your people know what fuels their best work? Or do you believe only a mandate can produce it?
Return-to-Office: Control Masks as “Collaboration”
When leaders dodge this trust question, they substitute it with easier, safer ones: “How will we collaborate?” “How will we build culture?” But listen closely to the language of many RTO policies, and you’ll hear something else: suspicion. The unspoken assumption is that, left to their own devices, employees will slack off, underperform, or go missing.
This is what Microsoft found in their 2023 Work Trend Index: while 87% of hybrid employees reported steady or improving productivity, 85% of leaders worried they weren’t working hard enough. That’s not a productivity problem—it’s a perception problem. Or worse, a power problem.
Return-to-Office: Trust as the Foundation
Instead of mandates, Curt Hudnutt, CEO of American AgCredit, returned to first principles.
“When the pandemic hit, our team didn’t just maintain performance—they exceeded expectations,” he told me. “That didn’t happen despite remote work. It happened because we trusted our people.”
For Hudnutt, trust isn’t soft. It’s foundational, not just a feel-good concept. “It starts with our board, who grant deep trust to leadership. That tone cascades through the organization. We work under the assumption that our colleagues are doing the right thing—even when no one’s watching.”
That assumption shaped everything—from how culture gets built to how leadership gets rethought. “You can’t lead a remote organization the way you led an in-office one,” he said. “I had to rethink how I lead, how we build connection, how we define a workday. It was a reset.”
His answer? Let purpose bind people, not presence. “You find the best people, give them clear measures of success, and then get out of their way.”
Hudnutt’s story doesn’t just illustrate a policy choice. It introduces the question too many leaders are avoiding: Do you trust your people?
Return-to-Office: Productivity Isn’t the Issue—Trust Is
If you don’t trust your team to know how they work best, dragging them into the office won’t magically instill it. In fact, it will likely do the opposite.
A tech lead put it to me bluntly: “My boss thinks I need to be seen to be working. But I’m sharpest at 10 p.m. after my kids are asleep. Forcing me into rush hour makes me miserable, not productive.”
Productivity paranoia, as Gallup calls it, leads leaders to conflate physical presence with value. Yet companies like Automattic, Buffer, and Salesforce show that focusing on real outcomes—not seat-time—delivers stronger results. Trust isn’t soft. It’s measurable.
Return-to-Office: Who Do You Believe Knows Best?
A rigid RTO mandate isn’t just a policy—it’s a statement of belief: I know better than you do what helps you perform.
And yet, research tells us otherwise. McKinsey’s 2023 study found companies that co-create work models with employees adapt 2.8 times faster and sustain high performance 3.5 times more often. PwC’s survey found 78% of employees want a voice in shaping flexibility, yet only 31% say they’re asked.
This is not about pleasing employees for the sake of morale. It’s about business performance. Companies that get this right outperform. Not because they “gave in” to employees—but because they trusted them enough to actually listen.
Return-to-Office: Less Control, More Courage
Here’s the leadership test: Are you brave enough to trade control for curiosity?
When leaders swap mandates for genuine inquiry—What does this work actually require to be done exceptionally well? What’s getting in the way? How will we know if it’s working?—they not only make better decisions, they build trust that endures.
This doesn’t mean endless flexibility. It means context over blanket policies. It means empowering managers and teams to adapt rather than comply.
The next time workplace debates arise in your organization, try replacing “Where should we work?” with “How do we decide?” That shift in thinking might transform more than just your real estate strategy—it could fundamentally reshape how your organization approaches complex challenges in an increasingly dynamic business environment.
As CEO Julie Sweet stated in a TIME interview, “The companies winning here aren’t those with the most offices or the slickest remote tools—they’re the ones humble enough to ask better questions.”
The Return-to-Office Debate Is About Power
Let’s stop pretending the return-to-office debate is about hybrid schedules, Slack messages, or whiteboards. It’s about power and trust. And leaders who recognize that—and lead accordingly—won’t just win the RTO debate. They’ll win the future of work.