While unfortunately some organizations are still making decisions about on-site office work that are based on old management principles and as a distraction, many are trying to evolve for a better future of work. As one of my interests is organizational design and I’m specialized in remote work, I often found useful to have some numbers at hand to show impact and trend at a larger scale. Here are some of these data points that might be helpful.

Is remote work effective for companies?

For companies that adopt it, either fully remote or by employee choice (where the role type allows), remote work companies are correlated with general productivity gains.

While in the benchmark economy, on-site and remote work are nearly equally productive, in the counterfactual remote work is 7–10% more productive.

M. Delventhal, A. Parkhomenko (2024) Spatial Implications of Telecommuting

The relative productivity of WFH imply a 5 percent productivity boost […] due to re-optimized working arrangements.

J. M. Barrero, N. Bloom, S. J. Davis (2021) Why Working from Home Will Stick

Companies can save up to $10,600 per employee that works remotely.

US Career Institute (2024) 50 Eye-Opening Remote Work Statistics for 2024

Is remote work effective for employees?

The benefits at an individual level are major. While we shouldn’t discount that not everyone can work from home, it’s also important to frame remote work as “anywhere”, not necessarily home, giving flexibility to many people, save time, and on average reduce expenses.

Workers who can telecommute experience welfare gains, and those who cannot suffer losses. Broader access to jobs reduces wage inequality across residential locations.

M. Delventhal, A. Parkhomenko (2024) Spatial Implications of Telecommuting

The worldwide average is 72 minutes in commute time saved every day.

The average employee can save up to $12,000 per year by working remotely.

US Career Institute (2024) 50 Eye-Opening Remote Work Statistics for 2024

Are there other benefits of remote work?

Commuting, work spaces, and fixed work hours are a limitation for many people, especially minorities. Evidence shows how remote work is beneficial also for these groups, and society at large.

WFH increased full time disability employment by 9%, implied increase of 36% in computer occupations. Many individuals with a disability have substantial work capacity, and WFH provides the
means to realize this capacity.

WFH likely to not only benefit individuals with a disability, but also improve public finances through higher tax revenues and reduced expenditures.

N. Blook, G. B. Dahl, D. Rooth (2024) Work from home and disability employment [slides]

Women are more likely to WFH after childbirth. Regions with greater remote work increase experienced a decrease in child penalties.

P. Zarate (2024) Remote Work and Child Penalties [slides]

Remote workers cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 54% by not commuting to an office five days a week. One day of remote work cut emissions by 2% while 2 to 4 days of remote work cut emissions up to 29%.

US Career Institute (2024) 50 Eye-Opening Remote Work Statistics for 2024

A discrete change in job posting to remote status (holding all else constant) is associated with an approximately 15% increase in applicants who are female, 33% increase in applicants with under represented minorities (URM) status, and 17% increase in applicant experience.

D. H. Hsu, P. Tambe (2025) Remote Work and Job Applicant Diversity

Other insightful data points

While not directly about remote work, there are some data points that inform remote work as well, to frame it better in the wider organizational and societal context.

80%
of employees who said they received meaningful feedback in the past week were fully engaged — regardless of how many days they worked in the office.

4x
The boost in engagement from meaningful feedback is four times greater than the boost from having the right number of days in the office.

Gallup Hybrid Work Study, USA, February 2025

This is particularly relevant as it shows that the factors that lead to engagement are the same, and can be actioned on, even in remote environment.

Erosion of employee connection to organization’s mission or purpose:
On-site (remote-capable): -6%
On-site (non-remote-capable): -5%
Hybrid: -12%
Exclusively remote: -9%

Gallup Hybrid Work Study, USA, February 2025

This shows how the cultural disconnection isn’t related to remote work, even if some managers like to put the blame there. The decrease is across the board, regardless of role, which indicates a reason that lies outside the remote variable. We could speculate that this is due to the generally adversarial take a lot of companies took toward employees (i.e. layoffs).

What’s the impact of RTO mandates?

Surely all the companies enacting Return To Office (RTO) mandates do this to improve the company status? Unfortunately, it’s routinely proven that not only there’s no financial benefit, but the effects on people’s morale are significative.

No stock market reaction to deviation in policy choice [between fully remote and RTO companies].

S. Flynn, A. C. Ghent (2024) Determinants and Consequences of Return to Office Policies

We do not find significantly different financial profitability or stock market valuation for RTO firms after RTO.

Y. Ding, M. Ma (2024) Return to Office Mandates [slides] (University of Pittsburgh)

We find significant declines in employees’ job satisfactions mandates but no significant changes in financial performance or firm values after RTO mandates.

Y. Ding, M. Ma (2024) Return to Office Mandates [slides] (University of Pittsburgh)

And if employees’ job satisfaction is lowered, this means that companies are not going to have an easy time after:

Almost half (42%) of firms who mandated returns have experienced higher than normal employee attrition, with 29% now struggling to recruit.

Unispace survey (2023)

The return-to-office (RTO) mandate at Microsoft led to a significant outflow of senior employees to competitors.

D. Van Dyjcke (2024) Return to Office and the Tenure Distribution (University of Michigan)

What are the real reasons of RTO mandates?

Given there are no major benefits in forcing people from remote work back to an office (hybrid or full-time), where are these mandates coming from? Let’s have a look.

Many firms issues their RTO mandates after stock price crashes, including UPS, Amazon, Boeing, Nike and SNAP.

Y. Ding, M. Ma (2024) Return to Office Mandates [slides] (University of Pittsburgh)

Our results are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance.

Y. Ding, M. Ma (2024) Return to Office Mandates [slides] (University of Pittsburgh)

See any correlation between these two data points?

Three in four business leaders surveyed (75%) indicated that they have increased their real estate portfolio in the last two years

Unispace survey (2023)

Office utilization decline: stabilized at only 50% of pre-pandemic levels, while office vacancy rates have nearly doubled.

S. Krause (2024) The Impact of Work from Home on Commercial Real Estate [slides]

40% of companies cited a desire to make better use of the office space they pay for as a reason behind their RTO policies.

Resume·org (2024) 1 in 3 Companies Are Forcing Return-to-Office Due to Existing Office Leases Agreements

What do you do if you have real estate in your portfolio, you are an executive at a company, and the vacancy rates are so high? Of course, RTO is an obvious answer.

What are the trends?

While it’s difficult to predict major trends as remote work is also correlated with the global economy and needs of the workforce, however we still have some numbers from the past we can refer to.

Exclusively remote: 50% future expectation, 60% preference
Hybrid: 25% future expectation, 33% preference
On-site: 24% future expectation, 8% preference

Gallup Hybrid Work Study, USA, February 2025

1 in 10 companies will lessen or eliminate RTO policies upon lease expiration.

Resume·org (2024) 1 in 3 Companies Are Forcing Return-to-Office Due to Existing Office Leases Agreements

5% fully remote
20% employee’s choice
43% hybrid (some time in office)
32% full time in office

Flex Index Stats, USA, 8,675 companies, Q4 2024

In 2019, approximately 7% of paid workdays were worked remotely, while by 2025, this figure increased to 28%.

In 2019, remote work was primarily viewed as a perk; by 2025, it has become a standard expectation, with 98% of employees preferring some form of remote work.

K. McDemott (2025) The U.S. remote working statistics you need to know for 2025

Work-from-home numbers have held steady throughout most of 2023 [25%, a 5x increase from pre-pandemic’s 5%]. And according to remote-work experts, they’re expected to rebound.

B. Schulz (2023) 2023 was the year return-to-office died

Fully remote jobs have also increased over the last two years from 10% in Q1 2023 to 15% in Q4 2024.

We found that new, fully in-office job postings declined from 83% to 68% during 2023. And over the course of 2024, the rate of new, fully in-office jobs decreased to 61%.

R. Half (2025) Remote Work Statistics and Trends for 2025

What are some remote work myths that we know are false?

There are a lot of myths related to remote work beyond the basics of productivity and efficiency for companies.

Myth: leadership is difficult when remote
Ethical leadership is as effective, if not more effective, in remote work environments. These are leaders that have a different set of skills compared to the in-office one, and value wellbeing and output more than presence and time.

Remote supervision does not negatively impact the relationship between ethical leadership and affective commitment and, in some cases, may be positive.

E. R. Serviss, et. al. (2023) Ethical leadership in a remote working context

Myth: on-site employees are more engaged
Turns out, they are not. Instead, they are the group of people that are the least engaged. While surely this can change from organization to organization, and we need to recognize that remote employees in an organization with bad remote policies are likely to be brought down, the numbers are quite clear as an overall trend.

Remote-capable, on-site employees have experienced the largest drop in engagement since 2020. These individuals have a job that could be performed with remote flexibility, but instead, they are required to work on-site every workday. On-site employees whose job is not remote-capable have the lowest engagement.

Gallup Hybrid Work Study, USA, February 2025

Are there downsides in adopting remote work?

No approach to organizational design is perfect. As much as there are big advantages, it’s also important to notice that the shift to remote work requires adopting new techniques and processes to make sure the limitations are actively compensated for.

36% of remote workers found their onboarding experience at a new remote company confusing.

US Career Institute (2024) 50 Eye-Opening Remote Work Statistics for 2024

It’s important to recognize that we can’t just reshuffle normal office onboarding in remote scenarios. The processes need to change with a combination of clearer guidance, better documentation, more explicit connections with existing employees, and in-person meetups to get to know the team.

Problems with fully remote work arise when it’s not managed well.

K. Crawford (2024) Study finds hybrid work benefits companies and employees

This has been proven now a few times: while there can be rare exceptions, most of the times remote work doesn’t show positive results only when the company expects to do it without any change or effort. Onboarding, training, promotions, processes, all things that need to change in a remote environment.

Top Challenges:
31% less access to work resources and equipment
28% feel less connected to my organization’s culture
24% decreased collaboration with my team
21% impaired work relationship with coworkers
18% reduced cross-functional communication and collaboration
17% disrupted processes

Gallup Hybrid Work Study, USA, February 2025

This study is relevant as it outlines the challenges — mind, challenges, not blockers — to remote work. A good remote-first organization will assess this internally and identify strategies to address each of these areas accordingly.

Resources

• My series on remote work.
• Flex Index, a global insights platform on flexible work.