Return to office mandates are forcing a choice. You're reading the email from HR. Five days a week, starting next month. You've been working from home for three years. Your coworkers are furious. You're relieved.

One co-host would go back tomorrow, in a heartbeat. The isolation is killing him. Screen rot, brain rot, doom scrolling. Less creative, less inspired. Going to coffee shops doesn't help because his team isn't there. The other argues the employer has the money, the employer picks the location. If the hole needs digging in Sudbury, you can't dig it in Ottawa. Federal workers just got hit with the switch: full flexibility to five days in-office. An Angus Reid study found only 3 in 10 Canadians want to return. The tension isn't about convenience anymore.

The conversation isn't actually about where you work. It's about who decides, how fast the switch happens, and whether anyone's asking the right questions before flipping that switch. Hybrid might be the answer, but only if the conversation happens first.

Topics: return to office mandates, remote work loneliness, hybrid work models, workplace flexibility, employee power dynamics

Originally aired on 2026-01-28