Will RTO Take a Holiday?

The period between US Thanksgiving and New Year’s is often a logistical minefield at the office, as managers balance vacation schedules—including their own—to ensure critical work gets done. But this holiday season, there’s a new wrinkle that adds another degree of difficulty to the juggling act: return to office.

CEOs across much of the globe have spent the last 12 months not only increasing return-to-office requirements, but also explicitly telling employees who don’t like them to consider working elsewhere. The result: Along with holiday time off, many workers may want to work from home during the holidays, as they did before RTO got tough. The question now is: How far will managers go to enforce in-office policies? “Is a manager willing to stick their neck out if the policy is very clear and it potentially has an impact on their own role?” says Dennis Deans, Korn Ferry’s global human resources business partner.

Experts believe that employees’ demands to work remotely will increase around the holidays, strictly because of the sheer complexity this period can bring. For one thing, the holidays can cause higher stress levels in some employees. Workers also have to handle additional care responsibilities while schools and daycare centers are closed. Finally, the holidays involve visiting family, managing travel logistics, and hosting.

Many leaders feel the return-to-office situation is settled. In 2025, about three-quarters of US workers—up from 63% in 2023—are required to be in the office on a fixed number of days each week. Bosses believe that having everyone work in the same place boosts collaboration and teamwork, improves productivity, and strengthens company culture. Research confirms that, for some tasks, having everyone around is clearly better.

But there’s still plenty of uncertainty and angst around the issue. Most employees want some sort of flexibility around where they work. Meanwhile, a majority of Gen Zers and millennials who are actively looking for a new job say one big reason is that they’re unhappy with office-attendance requirements.

Many of the people responsible for enforcement aren’t thrilled to be attendance monitors, either. Indeed, 63% of US HR leaders and 56% globally are under pressure to enforce RTO policies, according to a survey done by HR software firm Leapsome. At the same time, 81% of those HR leaders believe that RTO mandates are ineffective, especially during high-stress periods like the holidays.

Experts suggest that leaders show flexibility around return-to-office mandates in the upcoming period. As long as work gets done, perhaps where it’s getting done is less critical, at least for a few weeks. “It’s the human element,” Deans says. That said, this kind of leeway may not be possible for some industries, such as retail. The period leading up to December 26^th is usually the busiest time for retailers: Employees, including executives, are absolutely expected to be at corporate offices, stores, warehouses, or other site locations, says Craig Rowley, a Korn Ferry senior client partner specializing in retail. After the 26^th, however, things slow considerably, so it seems fair to allow people to work remotely or use up vacation time. “That would be a relief valve, from my viewpoint,” Rowley says.

RTO around the holidays will be a particularly acute issue this year in at least one nation: In the United Arab Emirates, there traditionally hasn’t been much time off around Christmas or New Year’s. A change in the national school calendar now effectively gives students the entire month of December off, says Iktimal Daneshvar, Korn Ferry’s vice president of recruitment process outsourcing in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. That means that for the first time, working parents will have their kids at home for an extended period during the holidays. “Companies that really have a strong employee on-site presence are now having to rethink,” Daneshvar says. She suspects that many of those parents will still be working—just working from home. 

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