More workers are back in the office. Could our WFH days be numbered?

We are more than half a decade into the global “work from home” experiment, and two things have become clear. The first is that some element of WFH flexibility will always be a part of how we work, and the second is how much it will constantly be up for debate.

Even though WFH has firmly embedded itself into the fabric of our workforces, there are still subtle but surprising trends emerging in the tug-of-war. I pore over every data set released on how attitudes, and the reality, is shifting, and many of them are moving in one direction right now.

Return-to-office is beginning to pull ahead.

Take data from recruitment specialists Robert Half, who surveyed 500 hiring managers late last year about what they predicted the next 12 months to look like. While three-quarters said they expected to maintain the number of office days for employees, 14 per cent said they planned to increase the number of days employees spend in the office, while 9 per cent said they would probably decrease them.

Now that might be only a tiny difference, but it shows where the margins are heading. Another data point is the average number of days employers are mandating in-office attendance. It is, very slowly, increasing. In 2024, workers spent an average of 3.43 days a week in the office, and in 2025 that inched up to 3.64 days.

The data for 2026 is still being written, but it’s not difficult to think that will continue to rise, especially given that once companies increase their office mandated days, they rarely walk them back.

The WFH war is tilting ever-so-slightly in favour of returning to the office. If that’s a good or bad thing depends on your stance.

One of the main reasons for the gradual return-to-office is the “domino effect”, whereby a directive from one company influences others, giving managers the confidence to implement mandates knowing that their competitors and other businesses are as well.

There are many wildcards that could still stop this slow progression, however, such as Fair Work rulings (which are all specific to each circumstance), government influence, external factors such as neverending wars, differences in industries, sustained resistance by employees and the fact that each state approaches it differently.

Data compiled by workplace management platform HybridHero showed that Queensland is the state with the highest positive assessment of return to office, with 87 per cent of employers saying they would follow the lead of other businesses around them.

At the other end is Victoria, where 75 per cent of businesses say they are influenced by what others are doing when it comes to RTO mandates. It’s no coincidence that Victoria’s long and arduous pandemic lockdowns helped cement its WFH culture in a more profound way than any other Australian state.

So who is winning the WFH wars? Several years ago, I would have said that you’d have to claw back the benefits one-by-one from every person who adapted their work – and lifestyles – around the flexibility. And in a way, that is what businesses are doing, with many chipping away at WFH with one small change at a time.

The WFH war is tilting ever-so-slightly in favour of returning to the office. If that’s a good or bad thing depends on your stance on the issue. While neither side can declare themselves an outright winner, the simple fact we are even having this debate shows that while RTO might appear to be edging ahead in today’s battle, WFH has already won the war.