CEOs want staff back in the office. What does this mean for the future of work from home?

In September, Amazon announced staff would be required to work from the office five days a week from January 2025. Steven J Davis, a senior fellow at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, says when it comes to determining whether working from home or the office is more productive, the "evidence is mixed". "In some cases, are implementing two or three or even more return-to-the-office mandates because the first ones didn't work out, and they often didn't work out because there's so much employee resistance or talented people just leaving," he says. "Back in 2022 around 56 per cent of workers split their time between the office and working remotely and now that's risen to 73 per cent," Dr Davis says. "It's no good just sending an email out saying, 'From Monday you're back in five days a week'," Mr Wynn says.