For a while, hybrid work looked like it had won. Employees came in a few days, worked from home the rest and everyone slowly adjusted to a new version of office life.
Now, the five-day office week is making a comeback.
According to Resume Builder’s 2026 return-to-office survey, 30% of surveyed companies expect employees to be in the office five days a week in 2026, up from 28% in 2025.
The more interesting number, however, might be what employees are doing in response.
Five days is becoming a dealbreaker
A global workplace study from Morgan McKinley found that 56% of employees working onsite five days a week were actively looking for another job within the following six months. Among hybrid workers, that dropped to 41%.
That doesn’t mean everyone handed a five-day mandate will immediately resign. It does suggest that flexibility has become something employees consider when deciding whether a job is worth staying in.
And that is a significant change.
Before 2020, being in the office five days a week was simply called having a job. Now, after years of remote and hybrid arrangements, employees know another way of working exists.
925 was already asking whether working from home could become normal back in 2020. Six years later, the conversation has almost reversed. Instead of asking whether remote work can work, companies are asking how much of it they should take away.
It was never only about working from home
The RTO debate can easily sound like employees simply don’t want to leave their couches.
But flexibility affects much more than where someone opens their laptop.
Five office days can mean five commutes, transportation costs, earlier mornings and less control over everything that happens outside work. For parents and caregivers, the impact can be even bigger.
That makes the question less about office versus home and more about control over your working day.
There are benefits to being together. Junior employees can learn by watching more experienced colleagues. Teams can solve certain problems faster face to face. Relationships can also be easier to build when your only interaction isn’t a scheduled video call.
But those benefits don’t automatically mean every employee needs to be there every day.
Why are companies bringing everyone back?
Employers have their reasons.
Collaboration, culture, mentorship and productivity are regularly used to justify return-to-office policies. Some businesses also argue that spontaneous conversations and faster decision-making are harder to recreate remotely.
Yet even business leaders don’t completely agree that five days is necessary.
Resume Builder found that while 30% of surveyed companies expect to require five days in 2026, only 16% of the business leaders surveyed actually considered five days the ideal arrangement. Three days was the most popular answer.
That’s where the RTO debate gets interesting.
If employees want flexibility and many leaders themselves prefer some form of hybrid work, why are stricter policies still spreading?
Flexibility has become part of the job offer
Salary used to dominate conversations about what made a job attractive. Today, employees increasingly evaluate the entire working arrangement.
Where do I need to work? How often? How long is the commute? Can I work from home when I need to? Will anyone care where I’m sitting if the work gets done?
That shift connects to a bigger change in how people think about their careers. As we explored when looking at why logging off has become a work goal, employees are paying more attention to the boundaries surrounding their jobs, not just the jobs themselves.
A five-day office mandate therefore isn’t simply a scheduling decision. For some employees, it changes the value of the entire job.
So, would you actually quit?
That’s the part companies may be betting on.
Saying you would leave over an office mandate is one thing. Resigning without another offer is very different, especially in a difficult hiring market.
Many employees may complain, update their CVs and start looking without actually walking out.
But companies shouldn’t confuse staying with agreeing.
An employee can follow the five-day policy and still spend their lunch break applying somewhere else.
The real question for employers might not be whether people will come back to the office.
It’s whether they’ll stay once they’re there.
