Flexible work may soon be a thing of the past. Some 34% of workers report being required to be in the office four days a week in 2025, according to a survey by video conferencing company Owl Labs.
This percentage has increased for the last two years, in a phenomenon Owl Labs has termed "hybrid creep."
“This is the boiling-frog concept,” Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt told Business Insider. Instead of companies suddenly demanding everyone return to the office full-time after years of offering fully-remote and hybrid options, he says many of them are choosing to do it in baby steps.
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Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, theorized to Business Insider that many companies are taking things slow as a way to avoid stirring up resentment among their staff. However, he cautions that just because employees aren't handing in resignation letters, that doesn't mean they're on board with the policy changes.
"Nobody's quitting now anyway," he told Business Insider.
Cappelli's theories seem to be backed up by Owl Lab's findings in its 2025 State of Hybrid Work survey. According to the survey, 40% of workers said that if their workplaces stopped allowing hybrid work, they would start searching for another job that provided more flexibility.
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Pace University management professor Andrew Coggins, says that numbers like this mean that companies need to be careful how much they push their return-to-office mandates. Returning to fully in-person work schedules "can be a big jump," he told Business Insider, one that many may not be able to do for reasons like child-care or elder-care.
Coggins also says that this "hybrid creep" may be a sign that the era of flexible work is coming to an end. "I think employers would prefer five days,” he says. “They have more control.”
For many companies, though, requiring full-time office attendance just may not be worth it.
Owl Lab's study found that quiet quitting, or the practice of doing only what is required by their job description and nothing more, remains popular. Among those who report quiet quitting, 67% are in the office full-time, as opposed to just 28% of hybrid workers and 5% of remote workers.
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How frequently a job requires in-office work also tends to be a major sticking point for prospective employees.
Respondents to the Owl Lab's survey said that the policies that would most prevent them from accepting a potential job offer are related to that position’s flexibility. Around 34% of respondents said they would say no to a job that required them to be in the office full-time, and another 30% said they would refuse a job that didn't allow for flexible working locations.
So while many employers may want to return to the office full-time, hybrid work options still seem necessary to attract and retain top talent.
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