One in four executives admitted in a BambooHR survey, that they hoped employees would quit when they announced return-to-office. Not as a side effect. As the goal.

Just think about it. You issue a five-day office mandate, you know a chunk of your workforce will leave voluntarily. No severance. No bad press. No layoff tracker listing your company. You just... made the building less convenient and waited.

And the data on who actually leaves is the real shit. A University of Pittsburgh study found that highly skilled employees are 77% more likely to quit after an RTO mandate than less skilled ones. So you're not losing the people you quietly wanted gone. You're losing the ones who have options. The ones good enough to walk.

Amazon, JPMorgan, Meta, Instagram — all pushing five-day mandates in 2025-2026. And only 27% of companies are actually fully in-person. The rest are performing in-person culture while their best people update their LinkedIn.

Meanwhile remote and hybrid job listings are 20% of LinkedIn but get 60% of applications. The market is screaming a preference. Companies are ignoring it because office leases are expensive and empty floors make the CFO nervous.

RTO isn't a collaboration strategy. It's a financial one wearing a culture costume.

Happy Friday 🌻

#career