For much of the past five years, the office conversation was framed around anticipation. Would workers come back, and when? In 2025, that question quietly disappeared. The year marked the moment when the return to office stopped being debated and started being operationalized. Companies no longer spoke in hypotheticals or pilot programs. Attendance expectations were formalized, monitored, and increasingly enforced. Surveys show that roughly 70 percent of companies now require employees to be in the office at least part of the week, with three days emerging as the dominant standard. Fully remote work, once positioned as the future, has become the exception rather than the rule.
The shift is visible in the data. Kastle Systems’ office utilization metrics climbed to their highest levels since the pandemic, with average occupancy across major U.S. markets consistently hovering in the mid-50 percent range and pushing past 60 percent on peak days in some cities. That may still trail 2019 norms, but the direction matters more than the distance. Office buildings are no longer empty symbols of uncertainty. They are active again, even if activity looks different than it did before.
Corporate leadership played a decisive role in accelerating the change. In 2025, major employers across tech, finance, professional services, and government rolled out clear attendance mandates. High-profile CEOs openly questioned the productivity of remote work, reframing in-office presence as essential for collaboration, culture, and performance. Once a critical mass of large employers moved, the rest of the market followed. Founder surveys show that more than half of companies adjusted their policies in response to peer actions, signaling that return to office had become less about preference and more about competitive alignment.
For commercial real estate, this marked an important inflection point. The office sector did not suddenly recover, but it stabilized in ways that were not visible in prior years. Foot traffic supported ground floor retail, transit usage ticked up, and leasing conversations shifted from survival to optimization. Tenants began focusing less on whether they needed space and more on how much and what kind. Buildings with strong amenities, efficient layouts, and central locations benefited first, reinforcing the flight to quality narrative that has defined the post pandemic cycle.
None of this means flexibility disappeared. Hybrid work remains deeply embedded in workplace culture, and employees continue to value autonomy. Workers continue to value flexibility, and surveys show a substantial preference for hybrid arrangements over the traditional five-day work week. What changed in 2025 was the tone. The office stopped being treated as a temporary experiment or a reluctant obligation. It became an accepted part of modern work again. Companies and employees are negotiating a new equilibrium where offices matter again, not as defaults but as purposeful hubs for collaboration, culture, and innovation. The office of 2025 now looks less like an abandoned relic and more like an evolving asset class under renewed demand.
Source – https://propmodo.com/2025-was-the-year-we-stopped-talking-about-the-return-to-the-office/