The RTO Debate: Winners, Losers, and Where the Workers Go When They Leave

Questions about when, how, and if workers should return to in-person work or stay remote have been simmering for nearly five years. The debate has stayed relevant because it flares up every time a major company announces a policy change, shifting from remote or hybrid or in-person work to one of the others. The latest domino to fall was the federal government, which has instituted its own return-to-office mandate.

From a people analytics perspective, there’s a lot to consider in this discussion. But we’re not trying to have the last word—we want to see what the data tells us and let it speak for itself. Here’s what we found. 

The Big Picture

Looking specifically at job postings for companies in the Fortune 100, and comparing postings in 2023 to 2024, we see that remote postings are down over 27%, hybrid postings are down 20%, but in-person postings are up over 17%.  

But we can take a closer look: using that same 2023 to 2024 comparison, we can also identify how individual companies have made changes. Some of the biggest corporate names have made major shifts in their job posting strategies; while some have doubled down on remote work, others have pulled back significantly. 

Proportionally, the biggest change was at FedEx, which saw over 800% growth in its number of in-person postings (and a 9% decrease in its remote work postings). Microsoft and Pfizer both saw a large increase in the number of hybrid postings, both over 300%. 

Among these 10 companies that made the most changes from 2023 to 2024, five fell into the same pattern: an increase in in-person job postings, and a decrease in both remote and hybrid postings: UnitedHealth Group, Merck & Co., Merck KGaA, Intel, and Humana. 

The Talent Exodus: Where Are They Going?

When the return to office policy hits, how do the workers respond? To find out, we examined seven companies that have publicly committed to a five-day in-office workweek (Amazon, Dell, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and X), and identified the next step that workers take after leaving those jobs. Out of the 10 most common destinations, only two (Walmart and Bank of America) require in-person work; the rest support hybrid or remote work. 

Employees are actively seeking and securing positions with companies that offer flexible work arrangements. This highlights a growing disconnect between employer mandates and employee preferences.

But we can get even more specific—instead of looking at those in-office companies together, we can examine them individually. Amazon loses most of its talent to Microsoft (mostly remote) and Google (hybrid), followed by Meta (hybrid), Walmart (in-office), and Target (hybrid). Finance companies are all generally losing talent to each other, and are generally in-person, except for Wells Fargo, which is hybrid. 

So who are the winners and losers? 

On the surface, it’s clear that in-person postings are going up, and so in-office advocates who want to see all their coworkers five days a week are winning in that regard.  

But one of the most compelling trends is that employees leaving those companies that have strict 5-day RTO policies are consistently landing in companies that don’t—and in that sense, the companies with more flexible arrangements have the advantage, enjoying the benefit of new workers and talent pipelines, while companies with stricter policies need to pay the cost of employee turnover.