Executives bet that return-to-office (RTO) mandates will fix a productivity problem. Instead, they’re accelerating a talent crisis—particularly among women—and exposing their organizations to risks far more costly than empty desks.
Headlines paint a clear picture: Following an executive order that forced federal employees back to the office five days a week last January, companies such as Amazon, JP Morgan, AT&T, and others followed suit, marking July with the highest post-pandemic RTO rates. As a result of RTO pressure, 455,000 women left the workforce in the first half of 2025, the steepest exodus in more than 40 years. Finally, after narrowing slightly for two decades, the gender pay gap widened for the second consecutive year in 2025.
As McKinsey and Lean In’s 2025 “Women in the Workplace” report makes clear, women are not opting out of the workforce due to a lack of ambition. They are opting out of workplaces that have become structurally incompatible with how work and life actually operate. And to be clear, this isn’t just a story about fairness; it’s a market-competitiveness story.
The women leaving are not the disengaged or the underperforming. They are the ones carrying the heaviest workloads, reporting the highest burnout, and losing access to the flexibility that sustains their performance. They are also the ones receiving the least amount of career and promotion support, formal sponsorship, and managerial advocacy.
For the first time in more than a decade, women’s desire for advancement is declining, not because motivation has faded but because the conditions that make advancement possible are eroding. For the eleventh consecutive year, women remain underrepresented at every level of the corporate pipeline, but women in entry and senior levels feel this strain the most. Last year, women made up just 29 percent of C-suite roles, unchanged from 2024.
The data from McKinsey and Lean In shows that women in hybrid roles report higher well-being and lower intent to leave than women required to be on-site. And yet, their data also shows that women working in remote arrangements three or more days a week are less likely to be promoted than men working in identical arrangements. In systems where flexibility is unevenly rewarded—or withdrawn altogether—exiting becomes a rational response to a model that penalizes women for the very conditions that enable them to perform.
The Gap Between Productivity Data and RTO Policy
Our research shows that the case for RTO rests on a belief many executives still hold: productivity suffers when employees aren’t physically present. But the evidence overwhelmingly contradicts this assumption.
Consider the research:
- Eighty-three percent of employees say flexibility improves productivity (McKinsey, 2024).
- Sixty-one percent of HR leaders report productivity has increased under hybrid work (MIT Sloan, 2024).
- Stanford researchers found that hybrid work improved job satisfaction, increased retention rates by a third, and demonstrated equal productivity rates to in-office models when compared over two years of review (Bloom et al., 2024).
- Finally, flexibility is the top factor influencing where employees work, and employees report they would give up an average of 8 percent of pay for it (Seramount, 2025).
RTO mandates are not solving a performance problem. They are, however, creating a retention problem and accelerating the very losses leaders say they want to prevent. Research shows that return-to-office policies at three of the largest US tech companies—Microsoft, SpaceX, and Apple—actually triggered the departure of senior talent in 2024, particularly for women, undermining competitiveness and workforce performance.
When executives equate presence with productivity, they misread the data and overlook the real risk: losing women and other employees who depend on flexibility to perform at their best.
RTO Is Becoming a Talent Filter—and Not the One You Want
Rigid work models are quietly pushing out those carrying some of the greatest invisible labor. The women leaving are mid-career leaders running teams and transformation initiatives; caregivers balancing complex responsibilities and long-commute times; women of color or queer employees experiencing lower psychological safety; and employees with disabilities who navigate health and access barriers.
RTO mandates don’t simply inconvenience these employees—they force them out. And when they leave, organizations lose far more than headcount: They lose institutional memory, customer insight, operational continuity, leadership strength, and the diverse perspectives that fuel innovation.
In other words, this is not a “women’s issue”; this is a business operational risk, one that quickly diminishes culture, capability, and competitiveness.
Women Are Signaling a Deeper Problem. Are You Listening?
RTO is often framed as a necessary fix for slipping productivity—a way to restore focus, collaboration, and accountability. But the evidence tells a different story. Across industries, productivity is strongest when employees feel trusted, supported, and able to manage work alongside life. Hybrid work hasn’t weakened performance; it has exposed how outdated many of our productivity assumptions really are.
Executives, then, are left with a stark choice:
- Double down on in-person proximity—and lose the women who keep your business running.
- Or redesign for flexibility—and retain the talent that drives results.
The problem is that most organizations are flying blind. Leaders can tell you who showed up to the office and who eventually resigned, but far fewer can see the warning signs that come first: mounting burnout, declining trust, stalled advancement, or the quiet realization that flexibility is no longer used—or rewarded—fairly.
That visibility gap is where leaders lose their advantage.
Assess360 gives leaders early insight into the experiences driving women—and other critical talent—to disengage or walk away. Instead of reacting once attrition shows up in the data, organizations can see where work design, manager behavior, or productivity expectations are breaking down while there is still time to act.
This isn’t about adding another program. It’s about protecting the talent and leadership capacity your business depends on.
Your women are already sending the signal. Listen—before they decide to leave you for good.
To learn how better listening and smarter productivity design come together:
Join us for 30 minutes for our upcoming webinar, “The Productivity Mirage: Why RTO Isn’t Fixing What Leaders Think It Is,” on January 22, 2026, at 12 p.m. ET.
