Employers can’t always force staff back to the office: study

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — United Kingdom employment law firm Stewarts Law finds that employers face significant practical and legal barriers to full return-to-office mandates — conclusions that EY is now testing with a structured 12-day monthly hybrid minimum for United States tax staff.

The legal case for hybrid minimums

Stewarts Law examined when and how employers can legally require staff to return to the office, finding that the right to mandate attendance exists but is substantially constrained in practice.

“Remote work policies are often non-contractual and can be changed unilaterally by employers,” the firm found — but it also found that day-one rights to request flexible working, available to all UK employees since April 2024, mean employers can only reject such requests on eight specified business grounds.

The analysis also flagged discrimination risks — particularly for employees with disabilities or care responsibilities — as a further brake on blanket RTO enforcement.

The law may permit RTO mandates, but employment rights obligations, discrimination exposure, and talent retention risk combine to make full five-day requirements a minority practice — even among the largest employers.

EY sets the professional-services benchmark

EY announced in April 2026 that its US tax staff would be required to work at an office or client site 12 days per month from July 1, equating to approximately three days a week — a structured hybrid floor rather than a full five-day mandate.

EY’s Global Delivery Services employs more than 50,000 professionals across Bangalore, Kochi, Trivandrum, Chennai, and Gurgaon. U.S. tax teams at EY now work on a structured three-day-per-week on-site cadence, while their GDS counterparts in India operate on the other side of a roughly 10-hour time offset.

Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Instagram have each imposed full five-day in-office requirements, making EY’s 12-day minimum one of the more measured hybrid mandates in professional services.

When a Big Four firm formalizes the hybrid minimum at 12 days a month, it sets the implicit benchmark that every professional services buyer and their offshore delivery partners will measure against.

For BPO and offshore outsourcing firms in professional services, EY’s model defines what structured hybrid compliance looks like at scale.

The GCC read-across is direct: U.S. tax teams are now in the office three days a week, and India-based delivery teams must build their collaboration windows around that on-site cadence. Offshore operations that adapt their delivery architecture to a 12-day hybrid are positioned as more professional services clients follow EY’s lead.