Return-to-office mandates apply to everyone, except a chosen few

Millions of workers across the country are being given return-to-office marching orders.

- Ray A. Smith

But the rules are different for stars and top performers.

Companies including Amazon.com, AT&T, and JPMorgan Chase have called workers back to the office five days a week recently, with bosses citing a need for collaboration and connection. Nearly 80% of 400 CEOs in a 2024 KPMG survey said they expect employees to be in offices full time within the next three years.

Employees with unique skills and talents, however, are often being offered more flexibility than their peers, labor researchers and recruiters say. The privilege gets extended to those with a proven record of exceeding performance quotas, or whose brains and personal brands make them a hot target for competitors to poach. Sometimes it is also about seniority. In other cases, your work-from-home status depends on what team you're on.

Work-from-home days once arranged with an empathetic boss have now become a privilege.

"It's a little bit more selective, more quote-unquote perky," said Ron Porter, a senior partner at organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry, which referred to the phenomenon as the "new hybrid hierarchy" in a recent report. "In certain roles, you could see it as that's what it took to get them, or that's what it took to retain them."

Still, the tiered return-to-office policy can lead to tensions about fairness among peers, as well as between managers and their staff.

Hadejah Alford, who works in sales for an advertising company in California, is allowed to remain hybrid while managers have had to start going into the office five days a week. Work from anywhere is important for her as a mom of four, she said, allowing her to easily schedule her children's doctors' appointments or help with school projects.