The Need for RTO is a Management Problem, Not a Productivity One

Let's talk about return-to-office, because the headlines have been hard to miss and the takes have been…something.

By Q2 2025, JLL reported 54% of Fortune 100 employees were under five-day office mandates, up from 11% the year before. Heading into 2026, Instagram pulled US staff back to the office five days a week, Microsoft tightened to three days, and NBCUniversal moved to four (with a voluntary severance package for anyone who didn't like it). And those are just the names you've heard of. Some of the largest freight brokerages in North America are doing the same thing, quietly or otherwise.

I've run a brokerage remotely since 2016 and I've been a full-time digital nomad since 2022. I've worked from twelve countries in the last few years and the freight has continued to move, the customers have continued to get serviced, and the carriers have continued to get paid. So forgive me if I'm not buying the productivity argument.

Here's the thing, and I'll just say it: most of these mandates have absolutely nothing to do with the actual work. They have everything to do with managers who never bothered to learn how to manage people they couldn't physically see. That's not a productivity problem, that's a leadership problem, and dragging your team back into a building isn't going to fix it.

The data backs this up in a way that's genuinely embarrassing. Pew Research found 46% of remote-capable workers would be unlikely to stay if forced back to the office, jumping to 61% among fully remote workers. More recent 2026 reporting puts that number at 64%. You're not risking a few resignations, you're risking your most valuable workers.

And then we have the shady side of RTO. BambooHR research found 25% of executives and 18% of HR leaders openly admitted they were hoping some employees would quit because of an RTO mandate. So yes, in plenty of cases, RTO mandates are just layoffs in a trench coat. Ew…gross. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom said it best: "This is a cheap way to reduce head count. The problem is, you don't get to choose who leaves."

He's right. The people who leave are the ones with options. Which in our industry means your top sales reps, your most experienced dispatchers, your sharpest operations people, and your customer-facing team that has built relationships nobody else on your roster can replace.

Let's be honest about which roles we're even talking about. Sales, dispatch, customer service, AP, documentation, brokerage ops, none of these require a building. They require a laptop, a phone, and someone who knows what they're doing. The companies that figured this out years ago have been quietly outpacing everyone else ever since.

If your business genuinely needs someone watching a chair to know whether work is happening, the chair isn't the problem. Your management style is.

Flexibility isn't a perk. It's a strategy. Some of your people will do their best work in the office and they should absolutely be there. Some will do their best work from home, in pyjamas, with a dog at their feet. Some will do their best work from a coliving in Lisbon (hi, that’s me). All three can be enormously valuable to your business in completely different ways, and you don't have to pick one model and force everyone to squeeze into it.

Supply chain, of all industries, should understand this. We move freight across continents using systems, technology, and trust. We track shipments we'll never physically see, work with carriers we've never met, and close deals over phones and inboxes every single day. The whole industry is built on the idea that you don't need to be in the same room to get something across the world. So please explain to me, slowly and using small words, why your dispatch team apparently does.

If you're an owner or a manager and you're considering an RTO mandate, I'd ask one honest question before you sign off on it: is this about the work, or is it about you not knowing how to manage your team without seeing them? Because if it's the second one, that's a fixable problem. And the fix isn't butts in seats.