Bosses are demanding that workers come back to the office. Or are they?
The percentage of remote-capable U.S. employees working in a hybrid work model has decreased from 55% to 51% over the past two quarters. But during that same period, fully on-site work and fully remote work each increased by two percentage points. Hardly a win for the back-to-office camp.
Since 2022, work location trends and remote work statistics have remained fairly stable — evidence that hybrid work has taken hold. Gallup’s latest hybrid work model research shows only minor shifts since the post-pandemic era began.
Slight shifts toward more remote and on-site work suggest that some companies are making policies less ambiguous. But that doesn’t mean everyone is in the same location. For example, fully on-site remote-capable employees now say their team is spread across different work locations, up from 13% in 2023 to 27% in 2025.
If fully on-site work has not increased much, are hybrid employees coming into the office more often? Yes, but slowly. Gallup’s analysis finds that hybrid workers now spend 46% of their workweek in the office, or the equivalent of 2.3 days. That’s up from 42% in 2022. But all that increase happened in 2023. There has been no movement in the past year.
Remote Possibilities
Remote-capable workers make up about half of the total U.S. workforce; hybrid work remains their predominant work location with two exceptions: the tech industry and the federal government.
In the tech sector, remote-capable employees are equally likely to be fully remote (47%) as they are to be hybrid (45%). Just 9% of tech workers are fully on-site. These numbers remain essentially unchanged since 2022.
In Washington, the hybrid era is over. After President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, his administration ended remote work for most federal employees. As a result, the number of federal employees working in a flexible hybrid work model plummeted from 61% in late 2024 to 28% in the latest data from Q2 of this year. Now, 46% of federal government workers are fully on-site, more than double the national average (21%).
Hybrid work is common. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.
The Achilles’ heel of remote work is trust. Just over half of managers (54%) who manage remote workers strongly agree they trust their teams to be productive when they are working remotely. Similarly, 57% of employees say they feel trusted by their manager to be productive when they are working remotely.
Takeaway
Aside from the federal workforce, hybrid work has remained stable since the post-pandemic era began in 2022. Fully on-site work for remote-capable employees is uncommon. Even among on-site workers, team distribution is shifting with many now working with colleagues across locations.
While return-to-office headlines may grab attention, most organizations are navigating the hybrid era with flexibility. Many employers — now familiar with the pros and cons of the hybrid work model — are letting managers, teams and individuals work out the details. Even so, team coordination and trust remain defining management challenges that will shape the future of hybrid work.
