Managers Didn’t Get The Memo About Return To Office Mandates

Work from home still prevails

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One of the misconceptions about work from home or hybrid is that the entire workforce can avail itself with such arrangements. But, there’s a large segment of workers who cannot – service, maintenance, healthcare, emergency services, delivery, and so forth.

This division of labor was readily apparent during the Covid years, as information workers were able to set up camp in the comfort of their homes while frontline wokers needed to be out in the world, making things work. This was perhaps the greatest bifurcation of the labor force seen since the days of land barons.

Work from home or hybrid is still in play for the information class, and new data out of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest edition of its American Time Use Survey, makes it abundantly clear that work from home or hybrid is still not the rule for most workers..

About 169,000 of the people surveyed were in occupations that could be considered amenable to work from home or hybrid work – managerial, professional, sales, and administrative roles. About 39,000 were in the more frontline worker roles, including service workers. This ratio doesn’t reflect the economy at large, and skews toward the information worker side. Reality check: The U.S. has about 100 million frontline workers, according to a report out of Boston Consulting Group, with these workers representing more than half of the entire workforce.

Overall, some 35% of workers in the BLS survey did some or all work at home – again, heavily skewed toward the information sector. On top of that, being an executive or manager has its privileges, with one of those being to work from home when they want. A majority of business managers and executives, 57%, were able to take advantage of work from home. It would be interesting to see data on how many of these work-from-home managers are in companies with return-to-office mandates.

Close to half of professionals also worked from home. Interestingly, close to one-third of wage and salary workers also worked from home at least some of the time.

The frontline component of the workforce – production, service, and healthcare workers are not part of the work from home/hybrid equation – barely a handful are in a position to avail themselves to such arrangements, even on a partial basis. Not surprisingly, those in construction, maintenance, and agriculture could not work from their homes.

• Management, business, and financial operations 57%
• Professional and related 45%
• Sales and related 35%
• Wage and salary workers 32%
• Office and administrative support 29%
• Production 13%
• Service 12%
• Farming, fishing, and forestry NA
• Construction and extraction NA
• Installation, maintenance, and repair NA

Some demographic slices from the BLS data: Employed women (38%) were more likely to work at home than employed men (31%). Workers with higher levels of education were more likely to work at home than were those who had less education. Fifty-one percent of employed people with a bachelor’s degree or higher performed some work at home, compared with 19% of those with a high school diploma and no college.

The BLS data reflects what employees themselves are reporting – what’s the perspective on work from home and hybrid from the employer side? While the BLS data shows about one-third pf employees report taking advantage of such flexible arrangements, their employers say they are open and willing. They overwhelmingly support hybrid arrangements. indicated by 52% of companies surveyed by Gallup. Another 26% report they are “exclusively remote,” while only 22% report they are exclusively on-site.

How does this play out in the employment market? A Robert Half survey of 500 human resource directors found that 88% state they provide some hybrid work options, which varies by seniority level and individual circumstances. Notably, 25% of employers currently offer hybrid work to employees.

At the same time, Robert Half reports, more recent job posting data from the first quarter of this year shows a decline in remote and hybrid roles compared to 2025, “suggesting many companies have already finalized their return-to-office plans.”

Overall, across roles analyzed in the first quarter of this year, 77% of new job postings were fully on-site, compared to 19% hybrid and 4% fully remote, the placement firm reports. “That’s a step back from the peak of flexible work in previous years, but it also shows that flexibility hasn’t disappeared,” the survey’s authors report. Hybrid roles continue to make up the majority of flexible opportunities.

The following are the hybrid and remote offerings, by role, seen through Robert Half’s analysis of job postings – which mirror more closely with employees’ self-reporting in the BLS numbers.

• Legal: 23% hybrid; 5% fully remote
• Human resources: 21% hybrid; 3% fully remote
• Marketing & creative: 21% hybrid; 9% fully remote
• Finance & accounting: 19% hybrid; 5% fully remote
• Technology: 18% hybrid; 8% fully remote
• Administrative & customer support: 8% hybrid; 5% fully remote
• Healthcare: 6% hybrid; 9% fully remote

For workers, the relatively small percentages of fully remote work opportunities will mean greater competition for these positions, and a greater tilt toward hybrid arrangements. “For employers, hybrid is becoming the standard way to differentiate yourself from your competitors," Robert Half reports.