Kate Dodd tells HRNews about the tension between firms’ ‘back to the office’ policies and staff demand for work/life balance.
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    This year, 2025, has been dubbed ‘the year of the return to the office’ and that’s backed up by the latest data which confirms this to be a definite trend. It’s a big talking point as CEOs and boards push for more in-office working in the firm belief it helps productivity, while most staff continue to want flexibility for work-life balance. I’ll be speaking to an employment lawyer about this tension and the risks of forcing staff back to the office.

    The latest data on this is the Virgin Media O2 Business Movers Index which has been reported by The Times and Personnel Today and it highlights the scale of the shift – almost nine in ten UK workers are now required to come into the office more frequently. The most common compulsory office days are Mondays and Wednesdays, at 65% and 67% respectively, with just under half of employees required to come in on Fridays. Three-quarters of companies now require staff to attend in person at least three days a week, up from 67% a year ago, and the proportion of companies mandating four days has risen from 46% to 50%.

    The shift reflects a growing tension between what employers want which is more in-office collaboration, and what many employees prefer, which is greater flexibility. So therein lies the challenge for businesses looking to enforce their ‘back to the office’ policy.

    Plenty of firms have taken up that challenge and the number is growing: For example:

    Amazon: The tech giant has progressively tightened its return-to-office policy over the past year. In early 2023, it mandated three days a week in the office, and in January 2025, it moved to a full-time office requirement for all corporate employees. Amazon has cited the benefits of in-person collaboration, culture-building, and mentorship as key reasons for the shift.

    Dell: The technology company has announced that, from March 2025, all employees who live within commuting distance of a Dell office will be required to attend in person five days a week. This marks a significant change from Dell’s previous flexible hybrid working model.

    AT&T: The telecommunications giant mandated that all staff work on-site five days a week starting January 2025, transitioning from its previous hybrid-working policy.

    JPMorgan Chase: The banking leader will require all 316,000 global employees to be in the office full-time from March 2025. CEO Jamie Dimon emphasised the substantial and irreplaceable benefits of in-person collaboration.

    The views of CEOs and boards is more than anecdotal. KPMG’s CEO Outlook survey published at the end of last year found that 83% of global CEOs expect a full return to the office by 2027. A further 87% said they would reward employees who come into the office with more favourable assignments, raises, or promotions.

    So the direction of travel is clear - CEOs and boards are pushing a ‘back to the office’ policy. But how do firms manage that transition in a way that keeps employees onside, and what can HR do to help? It’s a question I put to employment lawyer Kate Dodd: 

    Kate Dodd: “It's going to be absolutely essential, this role that HR are going to have to play, with the tightrope because essentially, as you say we're going to have boards, and CEOs, saying I want everyone back in five days. HR really need to get down to the nub of why. Why is it that you want people back in? Are there any other ways to achieve the output that you're looking for, whether that's an increase in productivity, or otherwise, because as well as the huge effect, potentially, on morale, and on turnover, on retention of staff, there are actually real legal risks involved in requiring people to be in the office five days a week who haven't previously, or haven't for a long time, been in the office that often.”

    Joe Glavina: “Talk me through the legal risks, Kate. What are they?”

    Kate Dodd: “Key legal risks are sex discrimination and disability discrimination. Sex Discrimination is on the basis of childcare. It is statistically known that more women than men have the key responsibility, the primary care responsibility, and therefore sex discrimination being brought as a claim is very long established when we've been talking about part time workers, for example. So we are very likely to see claims and we're seeing this every day and it’s happening across the country, tribunal claims, successful tribunal claims, being bought by people who are saying that they have been indirectly discriminated against on the grounds of their sex because of a return to the office edict.”

    Joe Glavina: “Tell me about the disability discrimination risk, Kate.”

    Kate Dodd: “The risk around disability discrimination is probably a bit more obvious, really, in that actually being able to work from home either some or all of the time allows people with physical and mental health conditions to participate in the world of work in a way that they simply wouldn't be able to if they were required to come into the office five days a week. That can be for a whole range of reasons right through from people who have a physical disability that makes it very hard for them, causes fatigue, makes travel difficult, through to people who suffer from high anxiety levels, for example, who might struggle with a commute, or people who are neurodiverse who struggle working in an open plan office and want to limit their exposure to being in that kind of very hectic, potentially quite noisy, environment. So those are the type of people who could well be bringing claims for disability discrimination.”

    Joe Glavina: “On the issue of productivity, it’s clear from the CEOs report that the reason they want people back in the office five days a week is because they are convinced people work more productively in the office. But if you’re going to put that case to your staff it would help to have some evidence to back it up wouldn’t it?”

    Kate Dodd: “Absolutely, it's going to have to be evidence based and that’s not just from a perspective of the hearts and minds. If you can show your workforce that there is a problem with productivity and it's because of people being home based, then (a) you might be able to deal with that by people working differently or changing their behaviours when they work from home, or (b) they might say, yes, fair enough, we can see we want to be strong as a business going forward and we will therefore voluntarily come back into the workplace. From a legal perspective, of course, if you are going to mandate return to the office full time, or four days a week, for example, you're going to need to show that there was no less favourable ways of achieving the outcome that you needed so data is going to be absolutely key for that.”

    Joe Glavina: “Of course there will be some jobs, some roles, which can’t be done from home such as customer facing roles whilst others might be very well suited to home working so I imagine businesses are going to struggle if they just imposes a blanket rule for everyone?”

    Kate Dodd: “I think that's right. I think there's a couple of things to think about there. One is the fact that we need to be very careful about creating a two-tier workforce, and we know that there are always roles within any business that do not lend themselves to working from home, or hybrid working, and lots of our clients offer different incentives, and offer a different reward, for those employees because of the fact that they don't get that flexibility. So I think it is important to have in mind that need for equality of impact where you can across different business functions. But it comes back again to the data. What is it about the way that that company is working at the moment? Rather than just saying, oh, you know, we've got a problem with productivity, what is it about productivity? What is it in particular that you're trying to solve and is five day a week office working going to solve that for you?”

    Joe Glavina: “A final message for viewers, Kate?”

    Kate Dodd: “I think it would be absolutely crucial to make sure that there is some generational diversity at the table when these discussions are being had about returning to the office, returning five days. The fact of the matter is, we say return, but if you've joined the workforce in the last five years, so if you are Gen Z, so possibly if you are 25 or younger, 23 or younger, depending on what industry you're in, you've never been in the office five days a week, this is not a return for you, this is the first time that you've been expected to do it. It's not a world of work that you have got any knowledge of, or you're at all familiar with, and those are things you don't really think about until somebody of that younger generation says to you, I've never done this, and that's why it's so important to make sure that there is generational diversity at the table, the top table, when these subjects are being discussed.”

    KPMG’s 2024 CEO Outlook Report is available from KPMG’s website with a separate section dealing with the UK’s CEOs. We’ve put a link to that in the transcript of this programme for you. 

    - Link to KPMG’s 2024 CEO Outlook Report

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