While executives debate three days versus four in the office, they’re missing the actual crisis: Work-related stress has increased for 39% of employees year-over-year, nearly half cite being monitored as a top concern and managers still can’t answer basic questions about their team members’ career aspirations. The flexibility wars are a distraction from a fundamental breakdown in trust and the system failures driving it.
According to video-conferencing provider Owl Labs’ ninth annual State of Hybrid Work report, which surveyed 2,000 full-time U.S. workers, retention threats are mounting. Forty percent of respondents say they would start job hunting if flexible work disappeared, 22% would demand raises to compensate and 5% would flat out quit immediately.
Despite headlines about changes at big employers like Paramount and JPMorgan, nearly three-fourths of companies haven’t changed their remote or hybrid policies in the past year. This suggests that at many workplaces, the return-to-office tug-of-war has reached an uneasy equilibrium while deeper problems fester.
Three workplace experts view 2026 as a pivotal year. Companies will either address the systemic issues driving burnout and attrition, or watch their best talent walk out the door.
The burnout crisis no one’s talking about
The jump in work-related stress could hint at a system failure. And according to Karishma Patel Buford, chief people officer at mental health provider Spring Health, 2026 will force leaders to reckon with that reality.
“Burnout will remain one of the biggest challenges organizations face, stemming from the systems we’ve created, driven by constant overload, inequitable processes and workflows that leave no room for recovery,” says Buford, of 2026. While companies debate office mandates and deploy monitoring software, they’re missing what the stress data is actually revealing: The work itself is broken.
The Owl Labs data shows that half of employees cite lack of career growth as a top stressor and nearly as many point to being monitored, equal to concerns about job security and lack of flexibility. Employees are questioning whether their effort matters and whether their employers trust them.
“In 2026, leaders will need to look beyond individual exhaustion and address what it reveals about how work is prioritized, rewarded and distributed,” Buford argues.
The Owl Labs report shows signs of widespread strain in the workforce. More than a quarter of employees have side hustles, with managers even more likely than individual contributors to take on extra work.
Quiet quitting remains common, and more than four in 10 workers admit to “coffee badging”—briefly showing up at the office just to be seen before heading out. Also concerning: Sixty-eight percent of working parents worry that their caregiving duties could negatively impact their job performance.
Flexibility evolves in 2026: From ‘where’ to ‘when’
Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs, sees the next frontier of work in a new way. “Workplace flexibility is changing from ‘where’ you work to ‘when’ you work,” he says.
While companies have spent years debating in-office days versus remote work, Owl Labs researchers say employees have already moved on to the next demand: schedule autonomy. The data shows 65% of workers are interested in something called microshifting. This is structured flexibility with short, non-linear work blocks that align with workers’ energy, personal responsibilities and productivity patterns.
“Employees will press for schedule control,” says Weishaupt. He describes these levers as earlier meeting cutoffs, four-day options and non-linear workdays. “These will become normalized as companies recognize that productivity doesn’t require everyone to be working the same hours simultaneously,” he predicts.
“The companies that solve for personalized work arrangements will have a decisive advantage in attracting and retaining talent,” Weishaupt notes.
Yet the current workplace reality shows how far most companies have to go. Seventy percent of employees say 8 a.m. or earlier is too early for meetings, 82% want meetings ending by 4 p.m. and 59% are already scheduling personal appointments during traditional work hours. Nineteen percent say their workday has a start time but no clear end. The boundaries are blurring, whether companies acknowledge it or not.
The manager gap that’s costing you talent
Despite stress climbing, nine in 10 employees still cite a supportive manager as among their top workplace factors. This is tied with benefits and just slightly behind compensation. However, researchers found that most managers don’t have the conversations that support retention.
Tim Weerasiri, CFO and head of HR at enterprise cloud platform Ninety.io says: “It’s a well-known fact that people quit managers, not jobs.” He says that there are plenty of books and advice on the topic, but meaningful improvement in management practices is lacking. “At one company I was at, I was horrified to learn that none of my team had ever been asked where they wanted to be in three to five years,” says Weerasiri.
If managers don’t understand where their employees hope to go, it’s difficult to assign work that sparks genuine engagement. And when companies set aside budget for monitoring software but invest little in learning about workers’ career goals, the signal could be that visibility is prioritized over development.
“In 2026, managers need to better align their employees’ personal motivations with company goals,” says Weerasiri. “This means finding projects beyond their roles and responsibilities that contribute to the employee’s growth and the company’s success. Companies that fail to do so can expect a high turnover rate.”
The surveillance reckoning
Weishaupt’s second prediction directly contradicts the direction many companies are heading: “If 2025 was the year of increased workplace monitoring, 2026 will be the year employees push for transparency of surveillance.”
Eighty-one percent of workers report that their employers monitor them, according to the Owl Labs study. Even more say that employers should face legal requirements to disclose any monitoring tools they use.
When nearly half of employees cite monitoring as a top source of workplace stress—equal to concerns about job security and limited flexibility—it drives anxiety. “With greater employee pushback, companies will begin disclosing how and when they are monitoring their employees,” Weishaupt predicts.
“This shift toward transparency could mark a turning point in the employer-employee relationship, where surveillance becomes less about secrecy and more about mutual accountability,” he says.
However, transparency alone won’t rebuild trust if the fundamental question remains: Why are employees being monitored? Companies are increasing monitoring even as employees request flexible schedules and nontraditional work hours. Productivity doesn’t fit neatly into 9-to-5 blocks, and many employees balance work with caregiving, energy cycles and deep-focus periods.
The data from Owl Labs suggests monitoring isn’t the solution. Sixty-nine percent of managers report that hybrid and remote work have increased team productivity, but these leaders measure success by output, goal completion and quality, not hours logged or time in the office.
The 2026 mandate
Weishaupt’s predictions point to a shift from control to trust, from standardization to personalization, from secrecy to transparency. The companies that adapt will have “a decisive advantage in attracting and retaining talent,” he says.
Spring Health’s Buford also makes a point that goes deeper. She says companies that redesign work for endurance won’t just win on retention; they’ll build organizations that can actually sustain performance over time.
The alternative is what we’re seeing now, with spiking stress and eyes toward the door. Behaviors like polyworking and quiet quitting are spreading as employees build survival strategies within unsustainable systems.
As Buford notes, digging into these pain points reveals uncomfortable truths. But the cost of avoiding those truths is clear in the data: climbing stress, eroding trust and talent walking out the door. The companies that win in 2026 won’t be the ones with the best hybrid policy or the sleekest office redesign. They’ll be the ones willing to redesign work itself.
Source – https://hrexecutive.com/microshifts-and-schedule-control-the-new-keys-to-employee-retention/