professorkamrankhan@gmail.com 
For the first time since the pandemic more than half of Fortune 100 companies now demand staff be present in the office five days a week.
It is a decisive repositioning with only 5 percent of the same companies demanding a total return to the office just two years ago in 2023.
Now 54 percent of companies that make up the Fortune 100 – the biggest companies in America – are fully in-office and 41 percent are flexible.
Larger companies are leading the charge, with smaller operations still favoring flexible work, new data has revealed.
Starbucks has been among the recent household names that have demanded its corporate workers return to its Seattle headquarters for at least four days a week.
Google and Amazon have also pushed their employees to come back to in-person work, citing alleged productivity benefits.
Corporate real estate remains a tale of two markets with high end rents in Miami, New York City and San Francisco at record highs, according to the report.
However, office vacancies across the country continue to persist at more than 22 percent.
Starbucks’ CEO, Brian Niccol, said the company’s expanded return-to-office mandate ‘helps us build and strengthen our culture’
The amount of office space available has fallen by 700,000 square feet in the last quarter alone, the report from commercial real estate and investment management company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) revealed.
The dramatic drop indicates the effect of demolitions and the growing number of office buildings that have been converted into apartment blocks.
The largest companies can afford to pay for slick buildings with luxury amenities to lure their workers back.
Smaller companies, on the other hand, are less inclined to pay rents for an older building their staff are reluctant to visit.
Other than the biggest companies in the country, most firms are actually maintaining their flexible working policies.
Some 51 percent of employees with remote-capable jobs were working hybrid in 2025, down slightly from 52 percent in 2023, according to recent data from Gallup Poll.
The story looks similar for those working completely remotely, with 28 percent working exclusively at home now compared to 29 percent in 2023.
Experts argue that the biggest companies in America are pushing for workers to return to the office even if they lose talent because they can afford to do so.
Gen Z are the most enthusiastic about office attendance, according to a recent survey
Google is forcing some remote workers to return to the office for at least three days a week (Pictured: Google’s corporate headquarters in California)
‘Amazon can lose 1,000 talented IT workers with no problem,’ Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, told Fortune.
‘There is still a lineup of young college graduates from maybe Carnegie Mellon or other excellent universities who still want to work for Amazon because that’s the Magnificent Seven,’ he explained.
‘But the smaller firms, it is harder for them to do it because once they lose some important employees, maybe no one else in their firm can do the job.’
It comes as separate data from JLL revealed that Gen Z, who have been characterized by many as work shy, are actually the most eager to get back into the office.
Those born between 1997 and 2012 attend the office 3.1 days a week, compared to older age groups who show up between 2.5 and 2.7 days a week, a survey from the company found.
Many Gen Z employees have only known remote or hybrid work, having entered the workforce during or after the pandemic.
