Last fall, the return to work (RTO) movement on the part of corporations was really starting to heat up. Part of it was being driven by CEOs like JP Morgan/Chase’s Jamie Dimon and GM’s Mary Barra, who felt that the office was the place to foster the cooperative and mentoring environment that led to producing great ideas and developing new leaders within the company.
Barra backed off her initial RTO orders, but Dimon had a moment in the sun last year for his blistering answer to bank employees grumbling about having to come back to the office.
Around the county, the bigger cities, like Philadelphia, D.C., and San Francisco, have tried ordering their public minions back into the office in order not only to monitor what the employees are doing on the taxpayer dimes, but also because taxpayers in their expensive downtowns are complaining loudly about empty city buildings. Offices that used to house the workers who bought lunch or snacks every day from the businesses nearby, or picked up their drycleaning because it was conveniently located. They have suffered tremendously from the loss of a vibrant, bustling city center.
This was Philly’s mayor a year ago.
In order to make good on the promises that I have made to you Philadelphia, I need the City’s municipal workforce to return to the office, to provide valuable services to you, the taxpayers of the City of Philadelphia. pic.twitter.com/oSJuCS5sIK
— Mayor Cherelle L. Parker (@PhillyMayor) July 10, 2024
Dimon’s JP Morgan, along with Amazon, and others, including the WaP, began requiring bodies in office desk chairs this past January, dovetailing nicely with President Trump’s unwelcome RTO orders to the federal workforce.
Even oleaginous socialist Gavin Newsom decided he’d take a moment to look tough, and declared all of California’s state workers would be required to show up for work as of July 1.
Yeah.
About that.
It didn’t happen.
The CA state employees’ labor union called his performative bluff. He collapsed like a greasy soufflé.
Why Newsom backtracked on ordering state workers back to the office
Tens of thousands of California state employees were bracing to return to the office on July 1 after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared there was an “operational necessity” for all California state employees to work in person a minimum of four days per week.
That changed just before the deadline when CalHR, which represents the governor in collective bargaining, negotiated a set of deals with public employee unions that delayed the mandate for a year. Relieved workers welcomed the news.
Yet labor leaders – and even some in-office evangelists – said the governor’s willingness to suddenly drop his demand proved the order was a clever political move and undermined his insistence that in-person work is superior, necessary for productivity and builds public trust.
“Many of our members feel the sudden shift toward rigid (return to office) policies had more to do with politics and pressure than performance,” wrote Anica Walls, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, in an email. The union, the largest in California state government, represents almost 96,000 state employees. “This pause is a direct result of our members fighting back.”
They get another year of clemency.
It’s turning out that the butts-in-chairs offensive hasn’t been quite as successful as one would have thought.
New Data Shows Workers Are Mostly Ignoring Return-to-Office Orders
At JP Morgan, Dimon is still snarling, even as employees keep asking for a do-over.
At a recent JPMorgan Chase employee town hall meeting, one brave soul brought up a petition pushing back against the firm’s decision to force workers to return to the office five days a week.
“Don’t waste time on it. I don’t care how many people sign that f-ing petition,” CEO Jamie Dimon responded.
But it seems the take-it-or-leave approach is falling on deaf ears if the employee isn’t inclined to take it.
…But these are different times. Many companies are pursuing increased efficiency, including through large-scale layoffs. Like Dimon, bosses seem all too happy to let go of any employee who might defy their RTO orders.
Which might make you think that employees are finally, begrudgingly heeding the back-to-the-office call. Not so, according to Nick Bloom, the Stanford economist behind the 2022 study and a long-time leader in research into hybrid and remote work.
…In 2023, Bloom shared real estate and transit data suggesting that most businesses were settling at three days in the office and two at home. “The return-to-office push seems to have died,” he tweeted. “The RTO wars were over. Hybrid won.”
The rhetoric from bosses may have heated up since then, but according to Bloom’s latest data, the numbers haven’t really budged.
“While policy requirements for office attendance have jumped 10% since early 2024, actual attendance has barely moved, increasing less than 2% during the same time period,” reports Time.
The Dimons of the world may be noisy, but 67 percent of firms still maintain a hybrid policy (and that rises to 70 percent in companies with less than 500 employees). Even those who have a five-day-a-week attendance policy on paper seem to be hybrid set-ups in practice.
And the longed-for renaissance jump-started by city employees returning to their offices simply hasn’t materialized in many distressed downtown urban areas.
RTO bros in shambles
SF office market is 👀, but Denver is right there pic.twitter.com/WuLUdPbPiX
— Random Walk (@MosesSternstein) July 8, 2025
As for that one-year-long CA worker reprieve, some are warning not to be surprised if loads of state workers quit rather than come back to the office when the time’s up.
California state workers got a temporary reprieve from going back to the office for one year. But after that year is up, don’t be surprised when we start losing state employees, because surveys are showing that the ability to work from home is more important than the size of a worker’s paycheck.
A surprisingly large number of employees now prioritize remote work even when it harms their career prospects, creating talent shortages for companies demanding a full return to the office. A Randstad survey of 5,250 employees reveals that 73% of remote workers would give up a pay increase to maintain flexibility, and 70% would forgo promotions. Half of the fully remote workers would not trade their location freedom for better job security.
That would probably be the greatest inadvertent and fortuitous gift to the state’s bottom line in a long time. But it is a year off, and Newsom will take credit for it anyway.
So, the resistance fighters won’t stop governments or corporations from trying, though.
The most woke of the woke just issued their own set of selected RTO orders today. Again, much of it under pressure from the city where they’re headquartered, and it’s not a five-day-a-week call.
However, it is a get yer butt into the office edict.
Target Corp. employees who work in merchandising and sourcing were notified Thursday that they will be expected back in the downtown Minneapolis headquarters office three days a week beginning Sept. 2. Other departments have received similar notices in recent weeks as leadership pushes for more face time without issuing a companywide mandate.
Today’s email came from Target’s chief commercial officer Rick Gomez, who oversees the retailer’s entire product assortment from home and apparel to food and beverage, including owned brands, insights, and merchandising. “More time together, in the office, will help us grow our business faster, solve problems quickly, and build stronger relationships,” Gomez wrote in an email that a Target spokesperson confirmed was sent on Thursday. Employees will be allowed to set their own schedules and choose which three days work best for them and their immediate work teams, Gomez wrote.
Target did not share specifics on how many employees received the return-to-office orders today, or how many have gone out to other work groups. “Team members tell us they see the benefit from the in-person connection and collaboration that’s a part of being in the office,” the spokesperson said. “At this point, individual leaders are empowered to make decisions for their teams based on company guidance as well as what’s best for the role they play in our business.”
Target is the second largest employer in downtown Minneapolis, according to the Minneapolis Downtown Council’s 2024 report. Because of its high-profile presence and downtown’s continued struggle to regain a critical mass of daily workers post-pandemic, the company has been closely watched and scrutinized for its liberal work-from-home policy. Some analysts and insiders have blamed Target’s recent performance slump, with first-quarter earnings down nearly 3%, on its largely remote work culture.
And it’s quite interesting that some analysts are blaming Target’s slump on its work-from-home culture.
I didn’t know there was still a 3M, but they’re due back in the office, too.
3M employees to return to the office 4 days a week, starting this fall https://t.co/4EsCp1zONe
— KARE 11 (@kare11) July 8, 2025
You sometimes do lose your edge when you can’t bounce the whack off of another loon in the cubicle next to you.
It is still nice to see and chat with people, but I’m very rarely *working* with any of them. And I’m sure it doesn’t help that as far as the desire to make casual conversation, all you people in my phone are dramatically more interesting than my coworkers 🫤
— Bicoloured-Python-Rock-Snake 🦬🪐🌲 (@pythonrocksnake) June 10, 2025
Teams meetings aren’t always the answer to the vibe of a real person, either.
Then again, not every worker bee is a collaborator. In fact, most aren’t.
The Inc article offers suggestions to employers for conceding their loss on the RTO battlefield gracefully, implying it’s best to adapt to a brave new world before it swallows you whole.
…You can try to browbeat and threaten your team into coming in five days a week, but the latest data suggests you probably won’t have anything close to perfect success. That makes adapting for our new world of remote work and shifting how you lead a logical choice.
Is resistance futile?
I guess it depends on who you’re resisting.
