By Andy Medici
The disconnect on salary expectations between employees and employers has been an ongoing issue since the pandemic.
With salaries shifting due to the softening job market, that challenge is likely to linger — and remote work is likely to be a pivot point.
That’s according to Robert Half’s 2025 Salary Guide, which found candidates who are willing to work in the office more regularly are likely to be offered higher pay.
Robert Half found 59% of companies were willing to offer a premium of up to 20% for candidates who are able to work remotely but instead go into the office four or five days a week.
The effect was most pronounced at small businesses, where 72% of managers would offer up to 20% more for being onsite most of the time, followed by 60% of managers at midsize companies and 49% at large companies.
While many employers are willing to take that step, the big question is whether workers would accept higher pay for reduced flexibility.
Employees themselves say they’d rather work less in the office, with 63% in the survey saying they prefer to work in the office three days or less per week.
A separate survey by Flexjobs found 58% of workers said they would accept a lower salary. Among those respondents, 31% said they would be willing to take a pay cut of up to 5%, while 18% said they’d be OK with a pay cut of up to 10%.
The top tool companies use to boost recruitment efforts is offering hybrid work or flexible schedules, according to the Robert Half report.
Overall, 80% of hiring managers say they have trouble recruiting workers with the right skills for their job openings.
Remote work is just one of many potential pivot points in the broader salary discussion.
About 48% of hiring managers ranked job applicant salary expectations among their greatest challenges. About 44% said workers today are more likely to negotiate for higher salaries.
After that was higher starting salaries and referral bonuses to existing workers.
Meanwhile, 63% of hiring managers said they expect voluntary turnover to stay the same or increase in 2025, creating more pressure on existing staff. And 41% of hiring managers said they are bringing back retirees as part-time consultants.
Workers still value remote, hybrid work
All this comes as remote work comes under fire from big corporations.
Among the more high-profile recent announcements, Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy last month publicly called workers back to the office five days a week starting in 2025.
But the growth of return-to-office mandates has impacted millions of workers, according to a study by on-demand space firm Gable Inc. alongside economists Nicholas Bloom, Jose Mario Barrero, Steven Davis and Liza Levin.
More than half of workers — 57% — surveyed said their company has announced at least one round of return-to-office mandates since 2020.
Among that pool, 38% said more than one round had been announced and 6% said their company had been through five or more rounds of return-to-office mandates and policy changes.
Mixed signals on RTO trends
While office returns and dramatically shifting CEO sentiments are in the headlines, some data points actually show small gains for remote work.
In August, about 11.1% of workers were full-time remote workers, up from 10.3% in August 2023, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those working part time remotely rose from 9.2% to 11.7%. The share of workers who did not work remotely at all dropped from 80.5% to 77.2%.
Data from the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes found remote and hybrid work has roughly stabilized at about 30% of the workweek, a percentage that’s largely held steady since 2023.
And a survey from Gallup shows about 53% of workers who are able to work in a hybrid setting do so — a share that has also remained remarkably consistent over the past year.
About 62% of workers are full-time in the office this year, down from 66% in 2023, according to a new analysis by videoconferencing firm Owl Labs Inc. The share of fully remote workers rose from 7% to 11%.
“Despite the misconception that most employees are now back in the office full time, the reality is that hybrid and remote work continue to grow and they’re taking back share from fully in-office work,” said Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs.
And, finally, data from security systems company Kastle Systems LLC shows weekly office occupancy among the 10 largest cities ticked up as the summer ended, with average occupancy at about 52%.
CEOs want workers back in the office
Most business leaders would rather have workers in the office and believes it helps their profit margins, at least according to a new survey from flexible-space provider WeWork. Overall, 83% of business leaders it surveyed said the office is more important than it was five years ago and 86% believe it will be more important now.
The majority of CEOs also believe full in-office companies see positive impacts on recruiting, retention and culture, according to the WeWork survey. And 76% of office-based companies are planning to increase their space in the next two years, the survey found.
A separate survey from ResumeTemplates.com found 26% of companies have already expanded their return-to-office requirements in 2024, with another 12% planning to do so by the end of the year and another 9% in 2025. Of those that have increased or plan to increase their days in the office, about 34% are choosing five days a week.
The biggest reasons cited for the changes are for collaboration and improving employee oversight. However, about 8% said the mandate is partly to force workers to quit in order to prevent layoffs.
Those results were similar to findings by human-resources firm BambooHR. The company found in a survey that 18% of HR professionals surveyed were hoping for voluntary turnover during their return-to-work push.