Not Everyone Is Going Back to the Office And Why Early-Career Gen Z May Need It the Most

Three things can be true at once: remote work is here to stay, many employers are dialing up in-person time, and entry-level employees, especially Gen Z often benefit disproportionately from office exposure. The nuance lives in the data, which shows a workforce settling into hybrid norms while revealing real development gaps for newer workers who’ve never experienced a healthy, well-run office. Here’s what the research actually says and how leaders can use it to design office time that accelerates early-career growth instead of just recreating 2019 commutes.

The RTO reality check: hybrid is sticky, but in-person is rising

• Gallup’s long-running “remote-capable” indicator finds the center of gravity is hybrid: roughly six in 10 remote-capable employees want a hybrid arrangement, about one-third prefer fully remote, and fewer than 1 in 10 want fully on-site all the time.

• Yet companies have been turning the dial back toward the office. McKinsey’s talent survey shows workers who were “mostly in person” jumped from 35% in 2023 to 68% in 2024 (four or more days per week). That’s a decisive employer shift even as hybrid remains widespread.

• Preferences aren’t the same as behaviors: Pew reports that a substantial share of people who can work remotely still want to keep doing so, and many say they’d be likely to leave if they lost that option. In one 2025 snapshot, strong majorities of rarely-remote workers say they’d choose at least some WFH if given control.

Bottom line: The “average” American knowledge worker is not back five days a week, but employers are using more in-office time than last year. The tug-of-war is real, and it varies by company, role, and market.

Gen Z is least likely to want fully remote and they have good reasons

• Contrary to the stereotype, Gen Z is the least likely cohort to want a fully remote setup. Only 23% of remote-capable Gen Z say they’d prefer fully remote, versus about 35% among older generations. Fully on-site remains least popular overall, but Gen Z’s preferences skew toward hybrid.

• Separate employer surveys echo that mix: in 2024–2025 reporting, many Gen Z respondents say flexibility matters a lot, but a majority still favor either in-person or hybrid over fully remote.

• 2025 Gen Z & Millennial Survey underscores why: this cohort prizes learning, mentorship, and career progression alongside well-being and balance. Those development levers are often easier to pull in person, especially early on.

Signal, not stereotype: Gen Z doesn’t reject offices; they reject bad offices. They want flexibility and meaningful development, and hybrid is often where those ingredients coexist.

Why early-career employees benefit most from (some) office time

Think about what’s hardest to learn through a screen: tacit norms, shadowing, rapid back-and-forth problem-solving, and those five-minute “walk me through your logic” huddles after a meeting. Multiple datasets suggest juniors get less of that when they’re fully remote.

• Mentoring time is higher on-site. WFH Research found employees in the office spend more time mentoring and being mentored, and devote more minutes to formal training and professional development. Coverage in Bloomberg and HR Dive quantified the gap at ~25% more mentoring and learning time on-site.

• Productivity mode matters. In a widely cited synthesis, Stanford/SIEPR economists estimate on average about a 10% productivity penalty for fully remote vs. fully in-person, driven by communication frictions, culture-building, and self-management challenges. That penalty is not universal, but it’s more likely to hit complex, collaborative, and training-heavy work—i.e., entry-level roles.

• Intern pipelines convert better in person. NACE reporting shows in-person internship programs tend to yield higher full-time offer rates than hybrid or virtual (e.g., 72% vs. ~56% in recent employer samples), and in-person activities remain the most effective recruiting methods. For many Gen Z starters, fewer in-person touchpoints mean fewer offers and weaker networks.

The pandemic cohort missed formative reps

A sizable slice of today’s early-career workforce came through college or first jobs during shutdowns and patchy reopenings, with internships canceled or moved online. That changed the on-ramp.

• In 2021 data, only about 22% of college students reported taking an internship, far below pre-pandemic estimates of 50–60%—a collapse researchers attribute largely to COVID-era disruption. Fewer internships = fewer workplace reps.

• Even as programs recovered, many employers leaned hybrid or virtual for a time; NACE documented the pivot and a continued preference for hybrid formats among many internship providers in 2021–2022.

Implication: Some Gen Zers truly haven’t had meaningful, consistent in-office experience. That’s not a failing, it’s a missing dataset. The remedy is intentional office time that teaches what Zoom can’t.

Designing office time that compounds learning (and doesn’t waste commutes)

If juniors benefit most from in-person time, the onus is on leaders to make those days high-yield. The research points to several levers:

1. Create a mentorship spine. Treat mentoring as a scheduled activity, not a vibe. Block office hours, shadowing rotations, and post-meeting debriefs on in-office days. WFH Research’s mentorship time gap is a clue: if you want more mentoring, you must program it. 

2. Anchor hybrid around moments that matter. McKinsey advises focusing less on blanket policy and more on practices: team rituals, manager modeling, and clarity about why being together that day adds value (e.g., live whiteboarding, customer reviews, onboarding sprints).

3. Make learning visible—and multi-modal. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning reports show early-career employees crave coaching and clear skill pathways. Pair in-person coaching with async resources so reps continue between office days.

4. Protect flexibility—but set expectations. Gallup’s data says most remote-capable employees want hybrid. Where possible, align team days to reduce “ghost office” syndrome and maximize collisions and feedback loops for juniors.

5. Measure on-ramp outcomes, not seat time. Track ramp-to-productivity, error rates, offer conversion from internships, and retention of first- and second-year hires by modality. NACE’s conversion evidence suggests this will pay for itself if you get the experience right.

What about well-being and choice?

Flexibility remains a core desire, especially for younger workers navigating cost-of-living and mental health pressures. The trick is not to replace flexibility with mandates, but to trade some remote autonomy for high-value, high-intent office time.

• Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index highlights the broader transformation underway (AI, new workflows), and the need to connect technology to real performance and learning outcomes—not just presence. An office that’s still a Teams call in disguise won’t cut it.

• Handshake’s early-talent data shows sectors diverge: tech offered the most remote/hybrid roles for new grads, but early talent values flexibility writ large (when, where, and how), not just “remote” as an on/off switch. Designing hybrid with multiple forms of flexibility matters.

A practical stance for 2025

Here’s the pragmatic synthesis for leaders and HR teams:

• Keep hybrid. The market has spoken, and hybrid is both preferred and persistent. Make it intentional rather than ad hoc.

• Be explicit about the “why” of office days. Tie commutes to mentoring, speed of learning, customer proximity, and team creativity, outcomes that juniors feel immediately. 

• Front-load in-person for the first 12–18 months. For most roles, cohorts, and managers, a slight bias toward in-person during the ramp period will accelerate skill acquisition, network formation, and confidence. Evidence from WFH Research and NACE suggests those touchpoints amplify mentoring and conversion. 

• Engineer collisions and feedback. Pair each junior with a mentor, rotate desk adjacency with senior operators on team days, and schedule “live” project walkthroughs that are hard to replicate remotely.

• Respect flexibility outside the ramp. Once core competencies and relationships are solid, nudge the pendulum back toward team-fit hybrid. You’ll retain talent without stunting growth. 

The takeaway

Not everyone is “returning” to anything because the modern office is (and should be) different from how it was. The evidence shows hybrid is durable, employee preferences are nuanced, and early-career employees, many of whom missed foundational in-person reps, often gain the most from time in well-designed office spaces. If you make those days count (mentorship, live practice, faster feedback), you’ll see steeper learning curves, stronger pipelines, and better retention without abandoning the flexibility that keeps today’s teams engaged.

If your interested in learning more about return to office, contact our team of expert commercial real estate brokers.